Unpatriotic? Why would it be unpatriotic? You may not believe so, but many people wonder about this. Find out all the insights with Luis!
People love their country, and with remote work’s raise in 2020, employers and employees started to worry more and more about their fidelity to their countries. But take into consideration these points:
- Where do you pay your taxes?
- Is local hiring the best way to serve my country?
Plus, working remotely doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll have to hire people from abroad. You can build a remote work community with local employees too!
Watch the video to find out more!
Luis:
Is remote work unpatriotic? Let’s find out in virtual coffee chat with Luis. I am your host Luis, and this is my coffee. That’s have another sip. Nice coffee.
All right. So this is something that actually a lot more people than I expected asked me about. If working remotely is unpatriotic. People who love their country, and they’re afraid … Two sides to this coin of course, the employer, both the employer and the employee for different reasons are afraid that remote work might be unpatriotic. So the first thing, when I think about patriotism, and this is just me because I’m a very financially minded person, what comes to mind is where do you pay your taxes? If you don’t pay your taxes, then no matter how you work, you’re being very unpatriotic in my book.
Now, you can usually choose where you pay your taxes. It depends. Obviously, don’t just take my word from it. I’m not a tax consultant, not a tax advisor. So please check with the qualified people. But in most countries, in most states, you can certainly decide where to pay your taxes. If you pay your taxes where you are living, where you are currently residing or where the company that you are providing your services to is situated. I guess that’s the word. Sorry about my … [foreign language 00:01:41] Sorry about my bad English. Anyway, headquartered. Yeah, that’s the thing. That’s the thing.
So, you can pay your taxes more or less where you want. So that’s the way to make sure that you’re being patriotic, if this is something that you care about. I do care about it. I do want my taxes to go to the place where I live. To the place I consider my home, my country. That might not be the same for you. You might live in a place you love, but you want to send something back to the place where you were born, and that’s okay too. I’m not judging. I’m just telling you that you have options. Also, consider if your countrymen are being served by your business being better, in case you’re an employer, you might say, “Well, I’m giving all this work to people that are … All these jobs that are to people that aren’t my countrymen. Is this okay? Am I depriving my countrymen of work?” And I would say even though it’s important that your business provides the jobs for the people in your country, I would say it’s more important the quality of the service that your company provides to your countrymen.
Now, some companies like mine are created globally from scratch. So there’s not a lot there, but for example, in a sense, I do benefit my country because my country happens to be a bit of a remote work destination, and so the more that my company promotes remote work, the better it is for my country. If you’re a business owner, you’ll need to evaluate that on a case by case basis. But make no mistake, just hiring locally might not always be the best way to serve of your country. And by the way, remote work, although I highly recommend that you consider hiring internationally because that’s where true diversity comes from, you don’t really need to. You can hire remote within your own country if you really feel strongly about it. I personally do not. I enjoy the benefits of having people in my team from all around the world.
But again, I’m not here to pass judgment on anyone. If you want all Americans or all British people, or at least all people from Great Britain or everyone in your country, from France or from Germany, or from South Africa or whatever, feel free to. But allow them the better quality of life that comes with being able to work from their homes or from the place of their choosing. That’s even being more patriotic if you’re allowing your countrymen that work for you that option, no matter how close or how far away from your company.
So that said, that’s what I have to say. I really don’t think that remote work is unpatriotic at all. I really think that remote work allows you as a person to do your best work. And as a business person, it allows your business to be the best it can possibly be. And if you let it, and if you organize yourself in a way that allows it to happen, it will only be good for your country.
So that’s it. I hope you enjoyed this little chat here in virtual coffee chats with Luis. I do these shows for Think Remote. If you head to thinkremote.com, you can find the latest and greatest news and articles about how remote work is going in the world and how to do it better. See you tomorrow.
