Work remotely on tourist visa?

Your HR dept is correct. You can only volunteer, not work on a tourist visa.
As soon as you receive a CRNM and then a work card then you are fine.
The one thing around this is being a contractor. You can work for whomever and be paid in the US and pay the US taxes.
My company had an office in Rio. Each time I went to work, my HR had to get me a work visa.

You certainly could not work remotely for a company  that has a Brazilian presence while on a tourist visa. 

If your employer does not have a Brazilian presence, lists you as having a US residence, and pays you by transferring your salary to a US bank account, I would contend that you fall into a grey area:  a lot of people do remote work while on vacation.   It's between you and your employer as to whether you both can live with that formulation for a few months.

WRT family reunion, yes, you can switch, and should arrive in Brazil with all of the necessary documents in hand.  As soon as the cartório issues your Marriage Certificate - about a week after the marriage is finalized - you and your wife should start the Federal Police process for Authorization for Residency on the Basis of Family Reunion without delay.  If at all possible, you want to have your application accepted before you tourist visa expires, before any extension expires at the latest.

Thank you Texanbrazil and abthree!

McLen
I have been thinking about your question.
Is your company saying you cannot work in Brazil and get paid?
Many here are working from home. Now you must be paid and taxes withheld in the USA.
If your company will not retain you as an employee, you can discuss being a contractor. May lose benefits. Can always rollover any 401K into a self-direct IRA and may contributions when you can,
Take care on the contractor side. BR may some remote reason check for BR clients and BR payments.

Thanks for posting this. I’m moving to Brazil in a couple of months (married to a Brazilian citizen already) and before this pandemic opening up the option to be working from home, I’d never considered keeping my job when I move.  Now I’d like to keep it, but I’m not sure how to bring it up to my employer (no presence in Brazil - I work for a school district paid by the city).  The consulate in Boston recommended I enter as a tourist and then change to family reunion upon arrival.  My question —- will having residency change my options for working for a U.S. company remotely?

In addition (unrelated) is there anything I should prepare before leaving the U.S. to make things easier once I arrive?

Thanks!

My employer's HR manager explained that the company isn't set up to employ allow working in Brazil, and has no plans to do so. It sounded like she meant the company doesn't have a business relationship or presence in Brazil. I don't think they're trying to screw with me; I think they're trying to be totally above board.

Texanbrazil wrote:

McLen
If your company will not retain you as an employee, you can discuss being a contractor. May lose benefits. Can always rollover any 401K into a self-direct IRA and may contributions when you can,
Take care on the contractor side. BR may some remote reason check for BR clients and BR payments.

If I consider converting to contracting back to my employer, then I would have to decide if my sole proprietorship is a Brazilian business, or US-based, but allows its owner to work from Brazil. And then I'm in the same situation explaining it to my employer.

tarington wrote:

In addition (unrelated) is there anything I should prepare before leaving the U.S. to make things easier once I arrive?

Thanks!

Interesting advice from the Consulate; since that's what they're suggesting, you should follow it.  You won't want to waste any time, though, in applying for permanent residency after your arrival.  Here are some things to have ready:

Were you married in Brazil or in the United States, or a third country?  If you were married in Brazil, you're set:  the record of your marriage will be on file at the cartório where it was recorded.  If you were married abroad, and you registered the marriage at a Brazilian Consulate at the time, make sure that you have your Certidão de Casamento from the Consulate, because it will make recording your marriage in Brazil much easier.  If you never registered your marriage, you can still do it before you leave; check the Consulate website for the required documents,

Check, double-check, and triple-check the list of required documents on the Polícia Federal website for applying for Authorization of Residence on the Basis of Family Reunion.  You don't want to come up short, and need to have documents generated and sent from the US.  The long tent in the pole is often the FBI Background Check.  The FBI has gotten much better at turning requests around quickly, but I still recommend using an Approved Channeler for speed and flexibility.  The Polícia Federal will want a document no more than 90 days old, and flexibility on this varies, so I recommend getting it no more than a month before your departure.  A Channeler can provide both a hard and an electronic copy, and it' s well worth getting both.

Documents issued under Federal authority, including your Background Check, require an apostille from the US Department of State; there are services that can take care of this for you, using the electronic version of your Background Check.  Documents issued under State authority, including county and municipal documents, require an apostille from the issuing state, usually (but not always) the Secretary of State -- a web search of "your state + apostille" should put you on the right track.  Services exist for this, too, but if you're in Boston and the documents are from Massachusetts, you can probably get them easily on your own.

English language documents will need to be translated into Portuguese by an official Sworn Translator.  There are reputable online services that can handle this in advance if you want to get a jump on it, and charge less than individual professionals.  You can also wait until you get to Brazil, and have the work done locally.

As more questions come up, please ask!