I work 100% from home. Ideally I’d like to relocate away from my city to somewhere I’ve never been with a lower cost of living. I would have made this move already, but my company wants me to stay within a 90 miles radius of one of their office locations. My concern is that if I make this move, my company will notice I’m not where they want me to be, and either ask me to relocate back to my previous location or terminate me.
Does anyone have experience or suggestions on how to best navigate this scenario? Would it be possible for me to work from my IP address in Texas while physically residing in a different country?
Well your move causes a lot of issues. It may seem harmless but an employer for an employee that meets the threshold to be fiscally employed in another jurisdiction, where no withholding of taxes has occurred and the same as to Colombian social security and other mandated benefits may be liable.
The above not considering even if you’re eligible to reside and work in Colombia.
Of course it’s a game of “well nothing happens if no one finds out”, but an employer cannot willfully agree on that without running this liability.
You may get away with it with a VPN, yet many things on the web are blocked on known VPN IP numbers. It also does a number on your Internet speed and latency.
A VPN set up properly can hide your location. I do it all the time. You would need to set up a travel router to connect to a VPN server, and make sure the router kills the connection if the VPN goes down.
With that said, you can cause a lot of problems. Your company may not allow laptops or files go leave the US. The company would not be withholding taxes and sending it to the Colombian’s equivalent of the IRS. You could be in trouble knowing you have to live within 90 miles of ab office location and you move out of that area.
If you are okay with risking termination and/or legal issues, then you could potentially get away with doing it.
Gl-inet routers. Buy two. One will be a server the second client. Leave server in your home country and take client with you to which you connect your equipment. Works like a charm. Just ping latency will be higher
You can digitally appear within 90 miles of the office if you carefully select a VPN vendor (they have to serve a city within 90 miles of your city). But what are you gonna do when the boss announces a staff meeting “in my office 9:00 AM tomorrow”
if you have a friend in texas, you can run a raspberry pi vpn server from their house with their public IP address. If you don’t want to install software on your work computer, you can use a vpn router that will run all your traffic through the pi VPN in texas. You could even segment your network so only the laptop runs through the vpn.
I’m wondering how I can learn how to set up such a system: “travel router that kills the connection of the VPN goes down.”
As far as taxes are concerned, I feel like the foreign government wouldn’t notice or care. I say this because there are already many people working remotely abroad. Moreover, remote workers stimulate their economies in more ways than they detract from them. I could be wrong though, and that is important to consider.
I sort of posed eeandersen the same question, but my concern about a VPN is the idea of having to install software on my work computer. That would be a dealbreaker. If I could connect to signal that was masked from the get go, they’d be way less likely to notice I feel like.
My coworker mentioned starlink as option? Please let me know your thoughts!
Luckily I don’t have to ever go to the office, my role is entirely remote.
My concern about using a VPN is that I’d maybe have to install software on my work computer? They can track my mouse movement, so that may be a no go. Can I somehow just connect to a masked signal directly? If I ever needed to, I feel like it would be easier to defend myself if I could just argue that my internet itself operates through a VPN. It’s less suspicious.
They usually have the client software installed, so you just configure it with the VPN server you will connect to. The one I have as a checkbox to kill connections if the VPN goes down, but I have seen others that don’t have it.
Unless the foreign government has a treaty with the US, they could technically want their share of tax payments. For me, as a dual citizen, fortunately if I pay taxes in one country, the other country won’t seek out tax payments due to a treaty. If the treaty goes away, I could be double-taxed.
Just remember that even if they don’t notice, governments expect people to be honest and report that they are working. People get away with it by lying and not complying. You could piss off a local and they may report you as an act of revenge.
You would want a router that operates as a client to a VPN. That way all your internet traffic (through that router) funnels to that endpoint city.
Beta test your scenario from your 90 mile compliant city first before you actually make moves. IP addresses used by popular VPNs are known so it is possible you could be traced to a VPN that way.
I’m not sure that they actively look for VPNs, but it would be better to find out whilst still being compliant to the rule in question: being within 90 miles.
How would you suggest I begin looking into routers that operate as a client to a VPN?
I have personal VPN servers for home in several locations so I can appear on those networks when away.
I have found that VPN use degrades bandwidth so I am not interested in a “full time” VPN connection as a VPN router would give. I use VPN “on demand” using software I have installed on the machine that needs a VPN connection.
Can’t help beyond a VPN router as I have no experience except to say I know they exist…