Plano, Texas is simply my "base loaction," therefore I will report back to the people in Plano and they will handle all employment details that pertain to me. As a technical consultant, I will be working in different offices belonging to the client on a multi-month project. So the place I'm going to depends stictly on the business projects available in different locations and my willingness to take the opportunity. The opportunities are not limited to the Texas area. So theorectially, if a project opens up in the Bay Area, I will not be required to move anywhere. This is why the IBU representative told me that he had no idea where we will be in six months because the business projects available in December are not clear as of this moment. So, all this talk about location is stictly about base location and not necessarily the actual work location. I will refrain from posting about my location until more information works its way out, meaning the only thing I can do is stay patient and wait. I am still attempting to change my base location from Texas to Seattle and I will definitely post an update if something happens.
The U.S./U.K. Batch is Very Demanding
The U.S. batch had an interesting discussion today with the Infosys team that handles our taxes. As I mentioned in previous posts, we are getting paid exclusively in rupees. The 3 basic questions we had for Infosys was:
1.) Why are we deviating from the original contract?
2.) Are we gonna have to pay taxes in both India and the U.S.?
3.) Is Infosys compensating us for the possible loss in salary due to the exchange rate?
Here are the answers as I understood them to mean:
1. and 2.) We are getting paid exclusively in rupees to avoid being taxed in the United States and India. Getting paid only in rupees means we are taxed only in India. When we file taxes in the U.S. we will be credited with the amount of taxes we paid in India off our U.S. taxes, and the credit is available for deduction for up to 10 years. We cannot be paid exclusively in U.S. dollars because since we're working in India, at least some of our money needs to be paid in rupees, which is why the original contract called for a split in our pay. The problem with splitting up the pay in rupees and U.S. dollars is that we'll be taxed in both countries, so the full salary will be taxed in India and the U.S. dollar portion would be taxed in the U.S., meaning the U.S. portion is double taxed.
3.) No, this is essentially going to be a gamble. We have to hope the Indian government tries to strengthen the rupee in the next 6 months because if the dollar keeps climbing, we're gonna lose. The exchange rate used in the first month will be 41.6 and the subsequent months will be 43.5. The first month's salary is pro-rated, meaning my salary is retroactive to August 11.
So hopefully, I'm not gonna write about my salary again because during the session today, I noticed that the salary situation had gotten out of hand. Someone asked a question about dual taxation and the Infosys representative gave his answer. But because as a group, we were all so cynical due to past experiences, we didn't believe him and basically most of the people were requesting that a U.S. third party tax expert answer our questions in order to make sure the facts were correct. I feel the salary situation is important too, but I was satisfied with the answers and was ready to move on, but some people continued demanding more answers and I felt like the salary situation was getting out of hand. I almost felt sorry for the Infosys HR people because if the number of demands we were making. I'm sure they are not used to that since they are used to different cultural norms. At least we got some answers and for now, it looks like the salary thing is winding up. I hope this is the last time I post about this.
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