Earning foreign income whilst awaiting EAD

[mateinone 2]

Hi

I should hopefully be moving to the US within the next 10-12 weeks.

As an Australian I obviously have the 'right' to work within Australia from an Australian Government perspective.

My question is whether or not I lose that ability once I am on US soil.

My employer is interested in still hiring me whilst I am based in the US, whilst I am still waiting for authority to work in the US.

I am sure that once I am able to work in both countries (as a US Resident & Australian Citizen) that there should not be any regulations preventing me working, though of course it provides me with some tax hassles.

I was wondering whether or not there is any regulations stopping people from working for an overseas company for example

- Writing articles

- Telecommuting to a permanent employer

- Freelance coding for overseas companies

From what I understand as long as you are not taking a job from a US company based in the US or performing work for clients based in the US, there really should not be any problem. I do wonder though if anyone has any experience at all in this field, surely I am not the first to wonder about this.

I would much appreciate any advise on this.

Rgds

[TiklingGuy 211]

I beleive that you will not be able to work once you enter the USA until you either receive your GC or your EAD. Austrailian company or not, you still have to pay american taxes and you would not be able to work until you adjust status. Are you entering POE married or engaged to US citizen?

[eebee 0]

Hi I looked into this a few months ago as I was considering doing the same thing with my Canadian employer. I was advised by a US immigration lawyer that there wouldn't be any legal issues with doing this. There would be tax issues, in that I would have to pay both US and Cdn taxes. I didn't go any further with it, so I'm not sure what happens with the taxes: whether the taxes paid would be refunded by one or the other country at some point.

[mateinone 2]

Hi I looked into this a few months ago as I was considering doing the same thing with my Canadian employer. I was advised by a US immigration lawyer that there wouldn't be any legal issues with doing this. There would be tax issues, in that I would have to pay both US and Cdn taxes. I didn't go any further with it, so I'm not sure what happens with the taxes: whether the taxes paid would be refunded by one or the other country at some point.

Thanks eebee, that is exactly as I suspected. The ATO (Australian Tax Office) has suggested that you would be eligible for any refunds for the period of time that you are not resident in Australia, so you would be able to claim this tax back, though of course you would need to pay that tax to the IRS.

The following year if you had a full time employer, you can advise them to pay no payroll tax at all, and you could pay your taxes directly to the IRS.

From the tax perspective it matters not to the Australian Government.

Australia and the US do have a tax treaty and you should be able to claim any 'double taxes'.