AIRINC (Associates for International Research, Inc.)

Massachusetts, like many other states across the United States, has declared a state of emergency in regards to the COVID-19 pandemic. Typical components include mandatory social distancing, travel restrictions, and many other precautions. Concurrently, many Massachusetts businesses have adopted remote working arrangements as a measure to adhere to these precautions, and provide employee flexibility and safety.

As indicated in our recent survey on the impact of COVID-19 on global mobility, many companies have repatriated their assignees given work stoppage and/or safety concerns in the host locations. As a result, some of these assignees are now back to their pre-assignment home country arrangement, including their home benefit plans.

Jeremy Piccoli and I joined a panel discussion during the Leaders in Global Mobility 2020 conference on June 23rd. We were joined by tax specialists Graeme McLean, Group Head of Employment Tax and Global Mobility at Sage and Preetam Kerai, International Employment Tax Lead of Centrica. Our tax panel discussion was moderated by Brian Friedman of Benivo.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia recently announced that effective July 1, 2020 the current 5% VAT (Value-Added Tax) rate on almost all goods and services bought and sold by businesses within the Kingdom will increase to 15%. There are no changes to the list of goods and services to which VAT applies.

COVID-19's impact continues to spread and we are following it closely. We know that this is impacting you, your assignees, and your business, and that you're likely finding more questions than answers. 

COVID-19 Tax Responses: OECD Guidance  The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Center for Tax Policy and Administration (CTPA) has drafted guidance regarding tax implications of travel restrictions and remote working as a result of COVID-19. The OECD provided three scenarios under consideration, and their recommendation and analysis

AIRINC is closely tracking COVID-19's impact on Global Mobility. The world is rapidly changing in response to this far-reaching event. To help, we have launched two landing pages to help guide your Mobility decisions and keep abreast of the latest news and research:

Around the world, many individuals have been working from home for weeks or months. Virtually overnight, entire workforces became “remote.” In our 2020 Mobility Outlook survey (conducted prior to the COVID-19 pandemic announcement), we saw that 64% of companies were seeing an increase in remote work requests (global and domestic). Most of those companies handle requests on a case-by-case basis and only 7 percent have a policy to address remote work. We anticipate remote work requests may increase after shelter-in-place orders subside and we interviewed AIRINC’s tax directors, Pat Jurgens and Jeremy Piccoli, to shed light on tax and other regulatory issues to consider when evaluating the company’s stance on remote work.

This update is intended to focus solely on the responses that governments have made with regards to individual income taxation as of April 23, 2020. This post is an update of my original article published on March 31, 2020 and the ensuing update posted on April 14, 2020. Numerous notes and locations have been added to this expanded version.

The economy, healthcare systems, and our broader communities are all being impacted by the global COVID-19 pandemic. In response, countries across the globe are acting swiftly to address the socioeconomic impact of the pandemic, including, but not limited to: