Issue 1 2009 > Death, Taxes & Immigration Challenges: Inevitable or Avoidable?
Death, Taxes & Immigration Challenges: Inevitable or Avoidable?
There is no doubt about the first - whatever your philosophy or belief, death will come to all living creatures.
Taxes are certainly a probable and likely event, but with creativity and planning, can be minimized or even avoided.
Immigration challenges, for both individuals and corporations braving the world of globalizing their resource strategies, are often challenging, but require less creativity and more understanding and engaging appropriate resources.
Immigration challenges are inevitable, and far from avoidable!
Unfortunately, many employers take immigration success for granted. They make assumptions that there are similarities among various countries, and that they can draw upon previous successes to move forward without concern. Often relying on their internal resources; facts such as the citizenship of the individual worker, compliancy requirements, various bilateral arrangements, quota systems, a bevy of definitions as to what constitutes a work assignment, and probably the most challenging fact of all–the reality that those “facts” are an ever moving target, cause failure or, at least, extra work.
What makes it a moving target are issues such as politics, economics, trade agreements and other specific circumstances, which may not serve the particular immigrant’s situation. Strategies to efficiently and properly manage this difficult task include:
- becoming and staying educated on the different types of visa requirements
- planning as far in advance as possible to secure the desired timeline
- staying informed of new legislations (at home and host locations)
- communicating with employees regarding changes in their status
- using the resources of the right attorney or other specialist to assist
No one can possibly be an expert on every aspect of every country’s specific immigration. Most corporations do not have the luxury of in-house resources whose job it is to maintain an up-to-date information database and hence reliance on specialists is critically important.
As an example, North American-based corporations often rely on general information about relocations within the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) countries, and assume that the assignment will always be simple and similar to the last one. Nothing could be further from the truth. Issues of inadmissibility can cause an applicant to be denied entry into a country, regardless of the NAFTA principles.
Even an employer who is experienced in the relocation of staff will find that a change in immigration rules or personal situations will be a challenge. However, that challenge doesn't need to be inevitable.
Crown Relocations has been in the relocation business for over 40 years and with locations in 55 countries, one would assume that internal resources would be knowledgeable enough to handle every possible situation in-house, without batting an eye. This is quite true in some locations, and the immigration process is handled as routinely as imaginable. However, often times Crown utilizes outside resources including those in local governments to ensure that the advice given to the corporation and the transferee is current, relevant and as economical as possible. Crown Relocations understands that without a strong and proactive handle on immigration, the rest of the assignment will be unachievable.
The author would like to thank Ben Kranc, a Canadian Immigration lawyer with Emigra, and Marcel Kruning, Crown business development manager for Western Canada for their invaluable contributions to this article.
Written by:
Donna G. Bergles, GMS, CRP
National Director, Global Mobility Services
Crown Canada
Based in: Toronto, Canada
Email: dbergles@crownrelo.com