Software Sanctuary and Innovation Nation

Somewhere out there, in the patchwork of nations nested on our beautiful planet earth, is an emerging technology superpower — a place with rational immigration and tax laws where we can build the innovation economy of the future. You can help me find it. Most software projects now engage global teams. I want to find a software sanctuary, where these teams can easily come together and work on a project for periods ranging from one week to several years.

I suspect that no such place exists on earth, yet. However, we can probably find a place that will make some adjustments to host us. I think that it could provide substantial economic benefits to the host country:

• At the simplest level, it is a way to bring in affluent visitors and get a multiplier effect from tourism revenue.
• We will pay taxes, so there will be an immediate gain in tax revenue. This initiative requires no government investment or subsidies. If it works, the host government will make an immediate profit.
• We will bring in the type of talent that does much more than spend at pay taxes. They can build businesses, build an economy, and create high paying jobs.

WHAT WE WANT FROM A HOST

Relaxed visa requirements

Many countries have complicated visa requirements that force people to plan several weeks in advance before traveling. In many cases, they must travel for interviews with visa-granting authorities. We want to bring people from any country in the world to work on a project or go to a conference. As long as they are fully employed and law-abiding, we should be able to get them a visa on arrival.

The experience of our last company meeting shows why visa policy is important. We went to Turkey, because Turkey welcomed almost all of our team members with visas at the airport, including people from North America, South America, Western Europe, and Eastern Europe. We needed to get only three advance visas, for people from Pakistan, India, and Vietnam. It was stressful. We assigned an administrator to follow up every day for five weeks. The guy from Pakistan lived near the Turkish consulate and easily obtained a visa. The guy from India was called back three times with requests for more paperwork. He spent five working days over the course of a month, in order to attend a meeting that only lasted four days. The guy from Vietnam also was sent back several times for more paperwork. Faced with making the long trip to Hanoi a third time, he gave up. He never properly joined the team. I have a dream that a talented person from any country can come to our meetings and collaborate on making great software.

Work permits for 2 weeks to 1 year

In many countries, visitors can get a tourist visa for a few weeks, or a few months. However, they are not supposed to work if they have this visa. Alternatively, they can get a visa to work for a year or more, but it is much harder to get. It is difficult to find a place where people can legally work together for periods ranging from two weeks up to a year. This is a HUGE gap in the world economy. It’s a big opportunity for the right host.

Host countries restrict work permits because they do not want to take jobs away from local workers. However, they also have an incentive to accept new jobs that generate tax payments and GDP increases. Below, we present a plan that would protect local workers by only granting permits to people making more than $800/week from foreign employers.

Business-friendly labor laws

We want to avoid restrictions firing employees. And, we want to avoid extensive requirements for benefits, severance pay, and vacation time. We want to be able to hire people, and pay them well, sometimes very well, in cash and stock during good times. To make this possible, we need to be able to fire them without legal requirements.

Convenience and Quality of Life

Convenience and quality of life will greatly increase our chances of success. We hope that we can find: easy access by airplane; reasonable cost of living; a peaceful community with low levels of crime; nice environment and weather; reliable power and fast Internet.

Simple importation of professional goods

A surprising number of countries apply taxes and restrictions on computer equipment, and even on technical books. Even if these taxes are reasonable, it is often difficult to get these goods through customs or through the mail. This destroys jobs by making it difficult for locals to work in the global economy. We should be able to order equipment from an international supplier and get it delivered reliably and for a reasonable price.

Free speech and free information access

We should be free to say what we want to say as individuals, and do unlimited online research. We will be bringing people with a diversity of political and commercial opinions. We should not face the threat of censorship or shutdown of Internet access. This requirement, unfortunately, excludes big chunks of the globe where free speech is typically not considered important.

Simple taxes

I present a proposal below under “good citizenship from guests.”

GOOD CITIZENSHIP FROM GUESTS

We should be good citizens with a positive impact on both the public and private economy.

We should support the local government with appropriate tax payments. We should pay enough to cover all services provided by the government, plus a profit, and motivate the government to support our enterprise. However, taxes should also be low, broad-based, and simple.

The tax structure should be very simple. We do not want to force guest workers to fill out two sets of complicated tax forms after they go home. A simple flat rate will increase compliance and revenue from international guest workers. I think that guest workers should pay a 20% flat rate that includes both income and social taxes.

Ideally, the host will have a tax treaty with the US, so that US based workers will not have to pay the same taxes again in the US. I propose that incoming workers be tax-free for one month. A trip of less than one month is really a visit, and we can pay other fees to support it.

This tax structure can be profitable for the host. It delivers entirely new tax revenues, they are collected from people who do not consume education and retirement services, and they are higher than the taxes paid by other types of visitors.

We should not undercut local job-seekers. We should not import cheap labor that replaces local job-seekers. We should be creating higher paying jobs that increase average income. We can achieve this goal by setting a minimum wage for new arrivals that is higher than the pay for most non-IT jobs, measured on a global scale, but is inexpensive for skilled programmers. I propose a floor of $800/week.

UNITED STATES ISSUES

The United States is a good work location, by many of the measures listed above. It has good infrastructure, good transportation, free speech, and reasonable costs (outside of Silicon Valley and New York). It has a reasonable visa program for business visits in the B1 Business visa. The visa is not difficult to get if you send an invitation, and IF your visitor lives near a US consulate. They must visit the consulate to get the visa. The visa lasts for 10 years. It allows people to visit for training, conferences, design meetings, etc.

The problem with this visa is that it has arbitrary rules. Officially, the visitor should not be paid by a US company. In practice, they are often an overseas employee of the US company. There are informal time limits on the visits of a few weeks. The visa can be denied or revoked for any reason or no reason. And, if the visa is revoked because of a perceived violation of these loosely defined rules, the visitor can be denied entry to the US for a long time. This is especially damaging because the US now requires “transit visas” for anyone traveling through a US airport, which includes most people visiting North or South America.

The process of getting a visa to work for longer in the US is a national disaster. It’s worth doing for someone who intends to move to the US for a long period of time. It’s impractical and probably forbidden for a project-based gig.

Since there is no official visa for short and medium term work, there is no way to contribute taxes or fees for these gigs. The filing process is complicated and it will conflict with tax filings in the home country. The patchwork of state taxes, health plans, and regulations make it even more impractical for visitors be good citizens from the point of view of taxes.