Paramount Grappling With Tax Consequences of Remote Work

Managing the tax risks of a remote and mobile workforce is a challenge that Paramount Global is trying to address, a top executive said Wednesday.

Mary Anne Buechel, vice president and counsel for international tax at the company, said Paramount is trying to address the tax consequences of more employees working remotely in other countries for prolonged periods and managers becoming less concerned with hiring employees in different locations.

The business “is much more open” to hiring people from different locations, as long as they’re the right fit for the job, Buechel said at the American Bar Association’s US and Europe Tax Practice Trends conference in Amsterdam.

• Since the Covid-19 pandemic, companies have increasingly relied on a remote workforce. However, if employees haven’t disclosed their location to their employer, the business can face serious tax consequences for failing to withhold social security taxes and other levies.
• If high-level executives live in another country for a long time, they run the risk of creating a “permanent establishment,” a place of business where value is created that could impact a company’s transfer pricing. Transfer pricing determines the way a corporation values its transactions between related companies.
• “One of the things that we’ve spent a lot of time discussing with advisers and internally is how to manage our transfer pricing and put in place structures that are flexible enough to to basically allow the business to do business as it sees fit,” Buechel said.