Hi everyone, I am holding Canadian PR and USA H1B visa. I just got job offer in Canada and i moved in Canada. My company is in USA as well, so the job requirement is to visit USA once in a month to the client sites for the project deployment and implementation purpose. So my company attorney said I cant entered into the USA on business visa because I am doing actual deployment work so they need to transfer my H1B visa on their USA location and after that I can enter into the USA on my h1B visa for my business trip to the client locations. So, I have question that as I am not earning single USD but my company is maintaining my H1B status just to enter into the USA, do I need to pay any taxes into USA? Looking forward to your read experience and suggestions.
Working and getting paid in Canada
- Thread starter arpanpatel367
- Start date
Immigration law and tax law are separate.
From immigration point of view, whenever you enter the US in H1B status, your employment needs to be consistent with the petition. If the petition says, they will pay you x amount, you must be paid that x amount.
Taxes are complicated. Income earned in the US must be taxed in the US including social security and medicare taxes. As for you, when you file your return, if you spent majority of you time during the year in Canada, you will file as a tax-resident of Canada. You can separately file as a non-resident of US and claim Canadian income and taxes paid to Canada.
From immigration point of view, whenever you enter the US in H1B status, your employment needs to be consistent with the petition. If the petition says, they will pay you x amount, you must be paid that x amount.
Taxes are complicated. Income earned in the US must be taxed in the US including social security and medicare taxes. As for you, when you file your return, if you spent majority of you time during the year in Canada, you will file as a tax-resident of Canada. You can separately file as a non-resident of US and claim Canadian income and taxes paid to Canada.
Your arrangement is unlikely to work mainly because you need to get paid in USD when you are in US as per LCA. If not, it would be violation of your status. I am not sure if HR systems in companies would allow going back and forth between USD and CAD payrolls at such a high frequency like once a month etc.
Instead of doing this, you can transfer the H1, get paid in USD and live/work from Canada. Since you are a PR there, you won't be bound by any kind of regulations. This will also give you full flexibility to enter whenever you wish.
Instead of doing this, you can transfer the H1, get paid in USD and live/work from Canada. Since you are a PR there, you won't be bound by any kind of regulations. This will also give you full flexibility to enter whenever you wish.
Say H1 is approved , but one continues to stay in Canada and does not shift to US .Does this mean one can also continue to stay in Canada for e.g 4 or 5 months without entering US and continued to paid in USD ? In other word , wont H1 get nullified if one stays outside of US for such a long time in a given year ? ... Appreciate your answer
I would suggest enter US more frequently than say 5-6 months. In past people have gotten away with it.....now its for you test it out. Every time you present yourself at the border basically you are asking to establish your status on h1b........whether you travel daily or once in while. So with every entry CBP determines the terms of engagement of h1b are still being met.
There are still grey areas vis-a-vis LCA and staying in Canada, having payroll in US. My suggestion, use this while it lasts before CBP comes up with much harder interpretations and starts barring people at the border.
Daily commuting usually is fine, things get tricky when you start to once in while entry scenarios.
There are still grey areas vis-a-vis LCA and staying in Canada, having payroll in US. My suggestion, use this while it lasts before CBP comes up with much harder interpretations and starts barring people at the border.
Daily commuting usually is fine, things get tricky when you start to once in while entry scenarios.
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Staying out definitely won't nullify it. Lot of people in Indian consulting companies have H1 and wait from India. This scenario is no different than that. At this time, the only thing CBP cares is you need to have a valid job as per your petition when you enter US. Like justin said, every single entry is assessed on its own merits. So if you have job as per petition when you enter every time, you are all good.
Just dig this forum. There is a dedicated thread for this created by frazman on this topic. He works for Netflix and got cleared by both by HR and attorney to work from Canada getting paid in USD and visit once a month at some agreed frequency.
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Do you think such infrequent travels will be questioned in future by CBP? Why I am asking is that there is no other option other than H1/L1 to work in US. Even if someone comes to gather business requirements from client for few days or for few months , they need to have either H1 or L1 because it is not possible to do any kind of work on B1 other than merely attending meetings or conferences.
There are legitimate scenarios where people travel to US and work for short periods without knowing when they would travel. Like I know someone who works as a SAP consultant in a big Indian company.. He is based out of India and holds a H1 for 3 years, but travels only once in a while for some specific assignment and then goes back to India. Other than H1 (or L1), there are no other possible visas for working short periods like this.
Commuter or part time H1 is an option only if specific times of visit are known which is not possible who travel on such assignments. In the eyes of CBP, technically all these people, whether the ones who travel from Canada, or the ones who travel from other parts of the world, are all the same isn't it..
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Nobody can speculate what CBP or USCIS will be upto next 2 or 4 or 10 years. One thing can only be sure over the years things have only gotten worse for H1b holders. As far as short term assignments are concerned, USCIS has already taken clear position and for which I believe few companies are suing them, USCIS needs to see non speculative work for duration of the approval.......hence people are getting approvals for month or two months or what ever time period is there on statement of work. If you want work for few months, file a new petition as and when required. Thats what consulting firms are doing with each new amendment.
I wonder whats going on with that lawsuit.....not heard about it in a while.
I don't doubt, there are tons of people who have h1b and travel once a while. Hope it stays that way.