Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How many of you are self employed?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 446 posts

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are self employed?

#111

Post by Thorrez »

mkaszkowiak wrote: post #99
Thorrez wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What benefit does that provide? Some commenters are saying it reduces taxes. Why would it reduce taxes? Why would the government reduce taxes for people who jump through these hoops?

Taxes. Standard tax rate (on UoP) is 12% up to ~30k USD, the rest is taxed 32%. On top of that, the employer pays a social security fee, its rate rises proportionally to income. As an one-person business, you have two most popular options: - 12% flat tax rate on income, with a flat rate social security fee; (1) - 19% flat tax rate on revenue. The social security fee is dependant on income, but it's less than on UoP.…

Why would the government design it like this? Do they want to encourage this type of thing? What benefit does encouraging this provide to society?

The US doesn't do this. They try to make self employed vs employed by a company have the same tax rates.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are self employed?

#112

Post by jacquesm »

V-2 wrote: post #89
jacquesm wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's for tax reasons only though, technically it is just another form of long term employment. As soon as you have multiple customers that you send invoices to with some regularity and you have autonomy would you pass the 'self employed' test in other countries. If you refer to them as your client and you only have one then you're technically an employee, if you refer to your contact at your client as 'your boss' t…

I can't see why a company couldn't have one long-term customer. It's not unusual eg. in the building sector (where large construction projects, not unlike software projects, can take years to complete). Another common example is MDs - quite a lot of private doctor's offices are contracted by the National Health Fund, basically providing their services for the public healthcare that way. Clearly having multiple custom…

> I can't see why a company couldn't have one long-term customer.

Let's hope you won't find out why that's a very bad idea.

> Clearly having multiple customers isn't a reasonable requirement for a small company.

On the contrary, it's a must.

> Software engineering isn't like private residential plumbing - "sink drain unclogged, next please!" :)

That's a strawman.

Sorry, but if you have just one customer and you're developing software other than taxes and your rights you are less than an employee. Don't kid yourself, that tends to lead to rude awakenings. If at the end of the year you've only sent invoices to a single customer then you are simply at risk. You need multiple customers to be stable and secure. Two is better than one and three is really the minimum.

Loss of income insurance is to take care of mishaps, not to insure against market downturns or other normal risks that a business is exposed to.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are self employed?

#113

Post by tcbawo »

ringofchaos wrote: post #86
jacomoRodriguez wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so asking the big and obvious question: in what did yo invest?

I am based out of India 70% of my portfolio is in equity mutual funds, and the rest in safe instruments. The Indian stock markets have given good returns and my equity portfolio has been doing 17% CAGR (10% inflation-adjusted) But I have planned for conservative returns of 12 percent overall

That seems like a very ambitious rate of return, given that India seems to have ~4% inflation rate.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are self employed?

#114

Post by WXLCKNO »

ringofchaos wrote: post #86
jacomoRodriguez wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so asking the big and obvious question: in what did yo invest?

I am based out of India 70% of my portfolio is in equity mutual funds, and the rest in safe instruments. The Indian stock markets have given good returns and my equity portfolio has been doing 17% CAGR (10% inflation-adjusted) But I have planned for conservative returns of 12 percent overall

12% is not conservative

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are self employed?

#115

Post by jokethrowaway »

lifestyleguru wrote: post #78
lqet wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would be quite risky where I am from, for both the freelancer and the employer. Being self employed, but only for a single customer, is false self-employment. If you get caught, your employer has to pay taxes and social security contributions retroactively for up to 4 years, and afaik both the employer and the freelancer are liable for the money owed to the tax office and social securities. If you are caught doi…

> Being self employed, but only for a single customer, is false self-employment This is exactly what happens in Poland and everyone involved feels very smart for cheating the system. That's also why software from Poland is such a tacky crap despite so many "talents". The software professionals have no leverage to push back, they only can walk away. The irresistibile benefit is that one can write off buying a car into…

Anecdotal, but developers from Poland (and Russia too) have been among the best contractors I've seen. Even the digital tracking / documents system from the government, which is usually a pile of crap in most countries, is pretty well done.

I've had terrible experiences with Hungary, Latvia, etc. and (judging from conversations to the owners of the outsourcing agencies) Hungary has very high taxes and not many smart ways of avoiding them.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are self employed?

#116

Post by unmole »

WXLCKNO wrote: post #114
ringofchaos wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am based out of India 70% of my portfolio is in equity mutual funds, and the rest in safe instruments. The Indian stock markets have given good returns and my equity portfolio has been doing 17% CAGR (10% inflation-adjusted) But I have planned for conservative returns of 12 percent overall

12% is not conservative

It is in India.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are self employed?

#117

Post by fredwu »

I'm "half-half" so to speak.

I work as a CTO in my day job (as an employee).

Also I'm self-employed (via a company structure) to build https://persumi.com - a blogging platform, and https://rizz.farm - a lead gen platform, as well as to work on client work.

https://persumi.com/u/fredwu/hire-fred :)

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are self employed?

#118

Post by V-2 »

KptMarchewa wrote: post #96
V-2 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The IT sector in Poland (again) is a booming one, and most of the services are effectively exported, as we're talking outsourcing. I guess it translates into the lack of political will to curb the practice, too, as the government would risk that self-employed programmers (and whatnot) may not fall in line, but mostly log out of the system instead, registering their companies abroad, for example. I guess the governmen…

>registering their companies abroad, for example. "Registering" the business only is a trap and a way to pay much much more _when_ the tax office decides you are avoiding taxes. To truly do that, you need to move your center of life abroad, which generally means being outside Poland for 183 days a year. >I guess the government isn't eager to start this cat-and-mouse game, preferring a smaller slice of a bigger pie. I…

> To truly do that, you need to move your center of life abroad, which generally means being outside Poland for 183 days a year.

Yeah, theoretically. But at least within the Schengen area, that's pretty difficult to prove/disprove, especially if you've got no family. I'm working remotely, I'm renting a cheap room in Budějovice, here's the tenancy agreement. Come see if my toothbrush is wet :)

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are self employed?

#119

Post by greenie_beans »

fredsted wrote: post #104

I've been working on https://webhook.site since 2016 when I posted it here on HN. In fall 2023, I quit my job to work on it full time, and it's one of the best decisions I've ever made. I have around 1400 subscribers, which is enough to pay myself a good salary. I've not done any funding or marketing so far.

nice! good job

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are self employed?

#120

Post by belinder »

fredsted wrote: post #104

I've been working on https://webhook.site since 2016 when I posted it here on HN. In fall 2023, I quit my job to work on it full time, and it's one of the best decisions I've ever made. I have around 1400 subscribers, which is enough to pay myself a good salary. I've not done any funding or marketing so far.

This looks really useful, I've used similar websites in the past but it's nice that it's all together here in one place.

If only you could not have it redirect on load, it makes the back button break. Clicking back to return to hackernews is almost impossible

Post reply on HN