When organizations send employees to work abroad, it's important to pay close attention to local laws that might impact their work status. These laws can vary widely from country to country, but there are typically consequences of not doing due diligence.

"The first thing you're going to have to consider is scale," said Harry Jones, an attorney with and the chair for international labor employment at Polsinelli in Dallas. "If you're sending more than 10 or 15 people, then you're immediately going to have to go through a more rigorous methodology."

Potential Scenarios

There are four common scenarios that could cause problems for companies that aren't careful with local laws before they send employees abroad.

The first scenario involves someone getting hurt, whether the injured person is the employee or someone injured by the employee. This could trigger workers' compensation rights in the foreign country that differ from the rules in the U.S.

The second scenario involves how the employee abroad is paid. "If I'm paying you in a country, then that's … a taxable event [for the host country]," Jones said.

One workaround is to make sure that the employee is paid in the U.S., but that must be handled carefully. "If somebody is considering keeping someone as a local U.S. employee, but assigning them to a foreign country, that agreement might be structured in a way that the company says, 'You're a U.S. employee, you're paid on U.S. payroll, you remain part of the U.S. entity,' "...

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