To WFH while on holiday abroad so I don’t use up holiday entitlement?

[RaspberryFarfait]

We have already have a big holiday booked this year and DH also wants to spend a month in his home country with his parents during the summer holidays.

He doesn’t WFH, so will use all holiday entitlement, but I do. Colleague is also on leave for some of that time so I wouldn’t normally be able to be off as need to cover.

WIBU to not book holiday, travel over there and work as normal, without telling work. I only work part time and it’s certainly doable.

Only problem is will I be able to log in remotely from abroad? Has anyone done this?

Don’t want to ask work yet as they’ll cotton on!

I have done this many times. I use a VPN to access the work network. It meant that I could spend part of the covid lockdowns staying with my elderly mother who would have been alone otherwise. No problem at all from my work. I think it depends very much on who you work for and what you do. Just ask and see what they say.

This would breach our IT rules, which state that you have to have the employers permission to take any work IT equipment out of the U.K. I once too my work mobile phone to Europe by accident in my handbag, and felt very lucky that I spotted it before I left the county and was able to turn it off. It was on my mind the whole holiday because if I'd lost/had it stolen while abroad then I'd have had to disclose it.

I wouldn't do it without asking your employer.

Were you out of the country, though?

It’s not a holiday, don’t forget 😉

An employee is either on holiday or at work. The responses are not "bullshit"

Yeah like everyone has said, it's not just a 'moral' problem, there's IT security access issues and there may be broadband connectivity problems as well.

I let a temp worker I was line managing go home to Eastern Europe last December and WFH, with the previso they kept GMT hours still and if they couldn't access the systems, it would go as unpaid leave and would probably lead to the end of their contract.

@KimikosNightmare
If you are going to quote me, please get it right.
I says the repeated reference to tax implications. Were rubbish. I didn't say anything else was bullshit. just a tax implications, people constantly referencing that.

And yet no one, not one person had linked to said HMRC guidelines yet. Quelle surprise!

Show me. @KimikosNightmare. Please link. To said tax legislation?

How can you possibly say this when the OP has said next to nothing about their employer’s policy on it or what the contract says or is likely to say? For example it would be impossible in my (old) job. People’s jobs are so different! Some people seem to live in a bubble and think everyone is like them.

It was a bit of a silly question really. The only sensible answer, which many PPs have given, is ‘you gotta speak to your employer’.

I do this. I live overseas and come back to the UK for two m9nths in the summer. As the company is multi national there are no sign on issues etc

As others have mentioned, there are tax implications. I work for the NHS and we are NOT allowed to do this. Top management has been quite definite on this.
My DHs company are also not allowing this for tax reasons. Different rules for different countries, it’s way too complicated to manage.

Only if you have no address in the UK. Not fit a holiday.

Do you hold UK passports? If you do you are not entitled to work from Spain I cannot believe the Civil service and NHS are allowing staff to work from a foreign country without checking the are entitled to do so, in my company large investment bank we need to fill in a form and prove we have the right to work from the country we are going to, I worked from Spain last week as I have an Irish passport however my colleague who holds a UK passport was refused permission

Yes, speak to your manger about it. I had to travel recently for a family emergency and worked remotely for a couple of days, simply because it was a busy time and my input was needed. I imagine there’s a company policy, be honest with your manager and follow the policy.

If you can completely do you job remotely, there's no chance of getting called in on an emergency and you're sure you'll have reliable internet I'd do it. Get yourself a VPN to bypass any potential security/login in from overseas issues.

I am staggered that a pp states they work for NHS and Civil Service and they are able to do it. No wonder Rees Mogg is after people coming back into the office with all of this slacking going on.

My last company definitely wouldn’t allow it (big FTSE) and my current company

is a no too.

@WoodstockJ
There are NO tax reasons. You are confusing issues. It is NOT the same as working abroad. If your company refuses, fine, but please don't misquote factually incorrect information.

I would be allowed, would just need to notify work. During lockdown they realised there would be a permanent move to home/mainly home working, so updated their home working policy and made everyone aware of what they can and cannot do.

@WoodstockJ
What tax implications?

That isn’t the point, all reputable companies are aware any of their staff holding UK passports have no entitlement to work for example in the EU anymore so they don’t allow them, you won’t get caught but both you and your employer are breaking the law if you do, hence they only allow staff who can prove they have the right to work in the EU to do so

So re the tax issues, hmrc don't care about you going. It's not them it's the country that you are going to that is the issue.

If someone came into the uk and worked, strictly there is a 'day1' tax liability. BUT if you are going to or coming from a country with a tax treaty (most of them with the uk) there is something in there which will exempt you for short visits. That's how business trips aren't taxed when people come to the uk.

Lots (but not all) countries are fairly sensible for short trips so in reality a trip of a month is highly unlikely to cause a huge issue from an income tax perspective (and therefore having to operate payroll tax which is your employers responsibility hence their risk).

Alot of businesses I work with have a risk assessed policy whereby they are happy for people to work overseas for a month or even 2. It's not that there is no risk it's that it's low enough not to worry about. Corporate tax is a different thing as that depends a bit more on what people are doing - senior guy signing a contract on holiday may be a problem for example.

In my job we have a zero tolerance policy because of our structure but I do see my clients try their best to agree btw. They don't say no to be dicks. It's that it costs them heaps when it goes wrong.

Unless you are an EU citizen, you basically can’t work in the EU without a visa unless you’re going to a business meeting or conference. That’s it - with a couple of exceptions for sporting or cultural events, or journalists. I work for a multinational, and no way would this be allowed.

Sorry, I now realise the OP said it wasn’t an EU country.

As others have said, this is more about right to work than it is about tax, given that you are talking about a couple of weeks.

Since we left the EU it is only possible to work abroad for less than 90 days without a visa if the activities fall under the Schengen visa waiver terms. Simplifying, this is only for business meetings or to attend trade fairs. Not to perform work on a laptop. Pre pandemic I used to travel a lot to Switzerland and if it wasn't just for meetings I needed a visa. It's the same now for Spain and rest of EU if you aren't an EU citizen.

You could of course do it anyway. But if a border control asks you if you have been in the country solely for a holiday, you would have to either lie or admit that you had been working without a visa.

www.gov.uk/guidance/travel-to-spain-for-work

And if isn't an EU country the visa waiver scheme doesn't apply and your straight to the visa requirements of the particular country