Editor’s note: This piece was produced on behalf of Aprio by the Global Atlanta Studio as part of the firm’s annual partnership. Next Tuesday, Shiv Malhotra will be a guest speaker at Expat Expectations: Building Your Global Workforce in Atlanta. Learn more and sign up
In a global tax landscape transformed by remote work, international companies and mobile workers face challenges in staying compliant with ever-evolving payroll and tax regulations.
Aprio LLP’s Global Mobility Practice, led by Shivam “Shiv” Malhotra, provides comprehensive tax solutions to help clients navigate the complex world of international workforce management.
Mr. Malhotra’s team offers tax return, tax equalization, compliance and planning services for employers who send employees on short- or long-term overseas assignments and for high-net-worth individuals who work or have investments in multiple jurisdictions around the world.
“Since the pandemic, a lot of remote work started, with employees looking for flexibility and choosing a location where they work from, so that’s given us a lot of new opportunities in this field,” Mr. Malhotra says of his practice.
During the pandemic, the landscape of global mobility shifted, with employers pivoting from sending employees on international assignments to allowing them to work remotely – all over the globe. Now, the popularity of international assignments is picking back up, and remote work is not going away, he says.
In fact, Mr. Malhotra increasingly advises digital nomads – employees working in multiple jurisdictions throughout the year – who trigger multiple tax obligations.
“It’s the employer’s job to know where their employees are working, and it’s our job to make sure that the employer and the employee are both compliant, wherever they are.”
Mr. Malhotra’s practice monitors tax laws all over the world and works with local accounting firms in various countries (Aprio is a member of the Morison Global network of 141 firms in 74 countries) to make sure clients are compliant with local laws, payroll is running properly, taxes are being filed timely and accurately and withholding is being done in each jurisdiction that work is taking place.
“It’s a lot of moving pieces, but we’ve got a great grasp on it,” Mr. Malhotra asserts.
He shares a success story of a foreign-based pharmaceutical company that was sending hundreds of people to work in the United States for five months but had not been running payroll nor filing taxes in the U.S. for those individuals. Mr. Malhotra’s team began running local payroll, withholding taxes from employees’ paychecks and bringing the company into compliance so they would not have issues if audited. Aprio saved the client millions of dollars in potential penalties for non-compliance with federal and state tax regulations.
Unmatched client experiences like these are what distinguishes Aprio from other accounting and consulting firms, Mr. Malhotra says. “We look at each client holistically and go way beyond to offer not just for what they ask for, but what they need in reality.”
“We help our clients make key decisions for their business, optimize their savings and make the best use of all the resources that they have.”
Learn more about Aprio’s Global Mobility Practice.
