Working in your home (house, neighborhood, income)

[mwasserburger]

I am moving to Ocean View HI in 2016. I am a travel agent and the company I work for is going to allow me to work from my home in Ocean View and work as if I would if I was in the office this is normal in the travel industry anymore. However I have heard rumors with nothing to back them up that I Hawaii will not let you do that. Can someone tell me if this is true or not?

[Dreaming of Hawaii]

Have you heard that Hawaii will not let you work on any job from home, or specifically that you cannot be a travel agent working at home?

Do you have to be licensed by the state to be a travel agent? If so, then there should be a way to check this out through the state or county website. If not, then how would the state even know (or care) where you are working?

Are you sure that where you will be living will have good, reliable internet? Not all of Ocean View does.

[hotzcatz]

Other than your internet connection, there shouldn't be any problem that I know of. Sounds like one of those weird rumors flying around that make no sense. There are some restrictions on working from your home, but most of those are because of parking requirements or the number of clients who show up in the neighborhood. Since you'd not have anyone showing up at your house as a client, there shouldn't be any problems that I know of. But, I'm not a professional so my opinion is just an opinion.

[WaikikiBoy]

Dreaming of Hawaii and Hotzcatz are bringing up good questions. I'll throw out a couple more because it seems the question or issue may be deeper than appears:


So I'm wondering if the issue is that your employer wants it to appear that you are working in their office, not in Hawaii, for reasons such as reporting and paying income taxes or for benefit reasons like medical and disability.


Perhaps the "rumor" you've heard is that Hawaii will not let you work from Hawaii but still be considered an employee of another state for purposes of income tax, medical & TDB benefits ?


Just seems the issue may be something other than simply working from home in Hawaii.

[Buckeye77]

I'd guess the OP is a 1099 free-lancer instead of a W2 employee. Aside from state income tax reporting I'd be surprised that the State would care.

[tpirsig]

The only restrictions I know of with running a business from one's home is that you can't be impacting neighbors with noise, and can't post a sign.