AIRINC (Associates for International Research, Inc.)

AIRINC Global Tax Director Pat Jurgens joined Benivo’s 'The View from the Top' on September 23 to provide the latest edition of global tax updates on the global mobility webcast.

Air travel during the COVID-19 pandemic is unique and full of odd experiences. A few weeks ago, I was lucky (or unlucky?) to experience international air travel for the first time in months.

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.

Relocating is already a challenge, but relocating during a pandemic adds a new level of difficulty. After years of surveying based in AIRINC’s Cambridge office, I was honored to accept a position at our Hong Kong branch late last year. From the beginning, I was excited to move to a vibrant global city, but the logistics proved more challenging than expected as a novel coronavirus (at the time still unnamed) spread in January. Even before being declared a pandemic, COVID-19 was having a broad and unpredictable impact across the globe.

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.

While no one can predict when the COVID-19 outbreak will be contained, the pandemic has firmly stalled and reversed rising property trends across Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Singapore. AIRINC spoke to industry experts across Asia’s most dynamic business hubs to understand the unique characteristics of each market and what changes and opportunities lie ahead.

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: