Relocate without relocating for a new job?

[legalzoomer]

Jurisdiction

North Carolina

I live in NC. A potential new employer is based out of California, incorporated in a range of states, but not NC.
They said that I would need to relocate to a state which they are incorporated in to work for the company.

So one of the states they are incorporated in is Virginia.

Is there any reason why I couldn't buy a tract of land in Virginia, set up a mailbox, establish mail and get a driver's license, but then still live in North Carolina?

 

[Zigner]

You wouldn't be residing in or performing work in Virginia, I'd say that your plan to deceive your potential employer isn't a good one.

 

[legalzoomer]

You wouldn't be residing in or performing work in Virginia, I'd say that your plan to deceive your potential employer isn't a good one.

Point isn't deception, point is to achieve the minimum required to be within the law so that the employer's legal/tax concerns are satisfied, without having to leave my established home in NC.

 

[Zigner]

Point isn't deception, point is to achieve the minimum required to be within the law so that the employer's legal/tax concerns are satisfied, without having to leave my established home in NC.

In that case, speak to the company to find out if this would be acceptable to them.

 

[Tax Counsel]

What you'd be doing is deceiving them about where you actually reside, which is not compatible with your stated desire to "to achieve the minimum required to be within the law so that the employer's legal/tax concerns are satisfied". Instead, you'd potentially be committing fraud as to your employer and, depending on exactly what you do, may also end up committing tax fraud as well.

Instead, be upfront with the potential employer and ask if there is any option available for you to be able to work while living in another state.

Be aware that if you go the route you plan, you'd be setting yourself up for tax problems as the employer would be withholding and reporting employment taxes for you as though you are a resident of VA. Even once you straighten out that with the states involved, you'll be filing two state tax returns every year if the work you do is actually in VA. VA has the right to tax you due to working in the state and NC has the right to tax you as a resident of that state. NC would give you a credit for the tax you pay to VA, but if the VA tax rate is higher than NC you still end up paying the higher VA tax.

 

[zddoodah]

A potential new employer is based out of California, incorporated in a range of states

While a corporation may be qualified to do business in any number of states, a corporation can only be incorporated in one state. I therefore assume what you meant is that the corporation is qualified in a number of states.

They said that I would need to relocate to a state which they are incorporated in to work for the company.

Why?

Is there any reason why I couldn't buy a tract of land in Virginia, set up a mailbox, establish mail and get a driver's license

You can buy all the property you want (subject to your financial ability, of course) and set up a mailbox anywhere you like. Having your mail delivered to an address in a state where you don't live seems pretty dumb, but whatever floats your boat. You can't legally get a driver's license in a state where you don't live. All that said, I'm not sure what this question has to do with the rest of your post.

If you're wondering whether doing these things will satisfy the potential employer's request that you "relocate to a state [in] which [it is qualified to do business]," I would suggest asking your contact with the company.

point is to achieve the minimum required to be within the law so that the employer's legal/tax concerns are satisfied

What law? What "legal/tax concerns"?

 

[legalzoomer]

While a corporation may be qualified to do business in any number of states, a corporation can only be incorporated in one state. I therefore assume what you meant is that the corporation is qualified in a number of states.




Why?




You can buy all the property you want (subject to your financial ability, of course) and set up a mailbox anywhere you like. Having your mail delivered to an address in a state where you don't live seems pretty dumb, but whatever floats your boat. You can't legally get a driver's license in a state where you don't live. All that said, I'm not sure what this question has to do with the rest of your post.

If you're wondering whether doing these things will satisfy the potential employer's request that you "relocate to a state [in] which [it is qualified to do business]," I would suggest asking your contact with the company.




What law? What "legal/tax concerns"?

Perhaps qualified is the correct term, I'm just using the phrasing that the recruiter used.
My presumption was that they were incorporating or creating an organization within each state as protection to the parent company.

Why relocate? Per the recruiter, they only hire within the states in which they are "incorporated".

I don't know what law(s) or tax concerns they're trying to satisfy.

What you'd be doing is deceiving them about where you actually reside, which is not compatible with your stated desire to "to achieve the minimum required to be within the law so that the employer's legal/tax concerns are satisfied". Instead, you'd potentially be committing fraud as to your employer and, depending on exactly what you do, may also end up committing tax fraud as well.

Instead, be upfront with the potential employer and ask if there is any option available for you to be able to work while living in another state.

My goal in this forum is to determine if there's a feasible way to satisfy the residency issue in a legal and tax compatible way, while keeping my NC residence.
I'm only in the 2nd round of 6 rounds of interviews, so if I can't figure out a way to make this happen, then I need to exit the interview process early, as I'm wasting my time and the employer. I'm running this possibility down as I'd floated it by my recruiter, and he said "unofficially" if I could make it work, fine with him.

Actually moving isn't an option as my wife works on-site where we live, and I don't want to interrupt her career.

If this solution is feasible, then I'd make sure the company was aware I'd be using relocation funds to basically establish legal residency in VA while retaining my NC home.

Be aware that if you go the route you plan, you'd be setting yourself up for tax problems as the employer would be withholding and reporting employment taxes for you as though you are a resident of VA. Even once you straighten out that with the states involved, you'll be filing two state tax returns every year if the work you do is actually in VA. VA has the right to tax you due to working in the state and NC has the right to tax you as a resident of that state. NC would give you a credit for the tax you pay to VA, but if the VA tax rate is higher than NC you still end up paying the higher VA tax.

I'm not too concerned about the higher tax rate.
Per the recruiter, he's pushing for the company to add North Carolina as another "incorporated" state. It's a slow process apparently, so my goal would be to use this process to get through a year or so until they properly have a presence in NC.

 

[adjusterjack]

Per the recruiter

Is this an employee of the company or a recruiting agent who will tell you anything to get you hired so he or she can get the commission?

The truth is that a corporation incorporated in one state does not have to "incorporate" in every state in which it does business. It just needs to register with the other states as a foreign corporation (foreign meaning another state not another country) and obey all the employment and tax laws of that state.

 

[cbg]

If you are looking for a way that you can continue to live in North Carolina but force the employer to treat you as if you are living in Virginia (with or without their knowledge) and for which you cannot possibly get into any trouble with any government agency, there isn't one.

That's it in a nutshell. If the employer allows you to pretend you're living in Virginia while continuing to live in North Carolina, fine. But if you do it without their knowledge and get caught (like maybe when the VA unemployment office or DMV says, legalzoomer who?), that is a firing offense, I would very much doubt that you would get unemployment, and despite what you may have heard it would be absolutely legal for the employer to tell new prospective employers exactly what you did.

 

[zddoodah]

Perhaps qualified is the correct term, I'm just using the phrasing that the recruiter used.
My presumption was that they were incorporating or creating an organization within each state as protection to the parent company.

Why relocate? Per the recruiter, they only hire within the states in which they are "incorporated".

I don't know what law(s) or tax concerns they're trying to satisfy.

There are some inconsistencies here, but the take away is that you're not privy to the potential employer's rationale. That's fine, but it makes it hard to analyze this as anything other than a matter policy for the potential employer (although I suspect it has something to do with a desire not to add cost to its payroll tax processing). Therefore, I fall back on what I wrote previously: In order to determine if the things you previously mentioned will satisfy the potential employer's request that you "relocate to a state [in] which [it is qualified to do business]," I would suggest asking your contact with the company.

 

[Tax Counsel]

Per the recruiter, he's pushing for the company to add North Carolina as another "incorporated" state. It's a slow process apparently, so my goal would be to use this process to get through a year or so until they properly have a presence in NC.

Either your recruiter is guessing here, or he heard some bad information. It is not hard, doesn't take much time at all, nor does it cost a whole lot of money (other than what the company may pay its lawyer to draft the documents) to either register as an out of state corporation in NC or for the parent corporation to set up a subsidiary entity in that state. In my state that can be done in a matter of a few minutes once you have the documents ready to go. States vary a bit on how long they may take to process the applications, but anything more than a week or two would be unusual. It definitely wouldn't take a whole year to do it. States make it very easy to do to encourage business in their state. No state wants to make it a long or difficult process to set up shop in their state.

Naturally the company wants you in a state where the company is registered or has a subsidiary to ensure the limited liability protection of the corporation is preserved. Depending on the work you'll be doing for the company, having you do the work in your home state may leave it exposed to liability issues until it gets registered in your state. But again, getting registered is not a really long process. If they really wanted to do it, they probably could have it done by the end of this month.

As for your state of residence, you can't just simply declare that VA is your state of residence. Instead, the states use several factors to determine the state of residence. From what you've posted, you are a resident of NC and simply buying a tract of land and having mail delivered to you in VA wouldn't change that. If you were to actually live in VA then you'd accomplish the change of residency.

 

[cbg]

Having been through it on multiple occasions, I am here to tell you that while not expensive and does not take anything remotely close to a year, registering in a new state to accommodate a single employee is a royal pain in the backside for the employer and if I were the employer (and at one time years ago I was) it would not endear the employee to me overall.

 

[legalzoomer]

Either your recruiter is guessing here, or he heard some bad information. It is not hard, doesn't take much time at all, nor does it cost a whole lot of money (other than what the company may pay its lawyer to draft the documents) to either register as an out of state corporation in NC or for the parent corporation to set up a subsidiary entity in that state. In my state that can be done in a matter of a few minutes once you have the documents ready to go. States vary a bit on how long they may take to process the applications, but anything more than a week or two would be unusual. It definitely wouldn't take a whole year to do it. States make it very easy to do to encourage business in their state. No state wants to make it a long or difficult process to set up shop in their state.

Naturally the company wants you in a state where the company is registered or has a subsidiary to ensure the limited liability protection of the corporation is preserved. Depending on the work you'll be doing for the company, having you do the work in your home state may leave it exposed to liability issues until it gets registered in your state. But again, getting registered is not a really long process. If they really wanted to do it, they probably could have it done by the end of this month.

As for your state of residence, you can't just simply declare that VA is your state of residence. Instead, the states use several factors to determine the state of residence. From what you've posted, you are a resident of NC and simply buying a tract of land and having mail delivered to you in VA wouldn't change that. If you were to actually live in VA then you'd accomplish the change of residency.

This is very useful information, good to know that it's relatively simple/quick for an organization to be registered in the state. The recruiter is already pushing for my state to be added, perhaps my candidacy could be one more reason they should get it done.

Thanks very much for the information here!

 

[Tax Counsel]

Years ago one of the problems with registering in a new state was making the company liable for sales and use tax collection in that state where it may not have had that responsibility before. The U.S. Supreme Court changed its stance on cross border sales tax collection about 25 years ago, so registration is less likely today to be the factor that pushes the company to have comply with sales and use tax on cross border activities. But there are some situations where that still is a problem.

The other aspect of registering in the state that a lot of companies don't want to have to deal with if they don't have much of a presence in the state is the periodic reporting (usualy annually) to the state that is required, along with the fees that they must pay with each report. For just one employee in a state, that extra burden and cost is something a lot of employers wouldn't want to bother with. This is something that some, mostly smaller, companies who have not registered in another state before overlook until they get a bill from the other state for the fees.

So while it is not difficult to file the forms to register in the new state and isn't very costly, there are in some instances other burdens and costs that a company would find too much for the little bit of benefit they'd get by having that presence in the state.

 

[cbg]

Such as enrolling with a workers comp carrier in the new state. Sending in quarterly unemployment reports to the new state. Learning a new set of state employment laws (and NC has some that are different from either CA or VA) and if necessary amending your policies to be in compliance. All for just one person. It's not just filing a set of papers, paying a small fee and then you're done.

 

[army judge]

Is there any reason why I couldn't buy a tract of land in Virginia, set up a mailbox, establish mail and get a driver's license, but then still live in North Carolina?

You are free to do whatever is allowed under existing state and federal laws.

That said, it might be simpler, less stressful, smarter to seek an employer established and hiring in NC, rather than get cute with your proposed VA/NC ruse.

'Oh what a tangled web we weave/When first we practice to deceive,' is a very 'Shakespearean' phrase, however, it is not from Shakespeare. It comes from an early nineteenth century Scottish author, Sir Walter Scott, best selling writer of novels, plays, and poems.

Like so very many of Shakespeare's lasting observations it's a beautifully expressed aphorism that uses just a few words to describe one life experience so perfectly, and is so true, that it enters into the English language and becomes one of its most powerful idioms – one that will last forever.

'Oh what a tangled web we weave/When first we practice to deceive' means that when you lie or act dishonestly you are initiating problems and a domino structure of complications which eventually run out of your control.