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Ask HN: How many of you are self employed?

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

#131

Post by mkaszkowiak »

Thorrez wrote: post #111
mkaszkowiak wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Good questions, no clue. The answer probably lies somewhere between a "badly designed tax system" and "stimulating growth of the IT sector".

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

#132

Post by jokethrowaway »

Thorrez wrote: post #111
mkaszkowiak wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Because they need to keep some gaps in the tax law to allow their friends to pay less taxes than normal people.

The US famously had a huge amount of tax law exemption just because of corruption. Nowadays you need an international setup to achieve the same, because the same old tricks have been used by many and there was enough political pressure to change it.

Some countries simply just didn't go through enough scandals of finding out how all well networked people pay almost zero taxes and therefore still have some relatively simple setups to pay little taxes.

A separate matter is countries trying to desperately attracting businesses and creating tax benefits only for wealthy expats, but not for their own people.

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

#133

Post by svenhof »

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.

Thank you for making this great tool.

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

#135

Post by netule »

bemmu wrote: post #101

I just build projects that interest me (websites, apps, games). So far released 62 things, of which 10 made >$10k. It's interesting because you get to do a variety of things, and I don't really mind the unpredictability. Might even like it in a slot machine variable reward sort of way. Just now I spent 3 months making a game that turned out to be worth $0, but that's part of the process. As long as the project itself…

That’s really cool. Does it all generate enough revenue for you to support yourself financially?

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

#136

Post by bouh »

philip1209 wrote: post #2

I've been self-employed for the last ~18 months. In the past I started two VC-backed startups, then was a PM at some later-stage companies before returning to entrepreneurship. This time around, I'm building a solo "digital product studio" [1] instead of a startup. So, I'm staying one person, haven't raised money, and have multiple revenue-generating products. Product revenue doesn't cover my costs yet, so I do occas…

Can you tell us a bit more about this creative residence and how did you get accepted there ?

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

#137

Post by nhance »

Self-employed since 2005. It's been a slow road and I haven't wanted to lead a big team so it's been a mix of consulting and small projects. One of them is gaining a tiny bit of traction so I'm hopeful I can scale it up. I'd much rather build a software business than lead a consulting business.

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

#138

Post by mkaszkowiak »

poisonborz wrote: post #92
V-2 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How would it be beneficial to anyone? Most programmers provide outsourcing services for companies from abroad (including outside of the EU). Low taxes help them - and the umbrella companies AKA software houses - to remain competitive on the global market. So even if they only pay a smaller fraction of their income to the budget, it's still better than if they didn't get the gig to begin with, because the contracts…

My point is that this is a very wrong direction for any country but especially eastern europe. It's like: welfare/health care system is bad, taxes are not used well. Top earning knowledge workers want an exit hatch, let's cater for them and they can hop off the welfare tax system. This way they can also provide cheap prices to foreign companies. So many problems. These are just top off my head: - Countries should wan…

I agree that it's problematic, however:

> welfare/health care system is bad, taxes are not used well

There's a widespread lack of trust in the Polish government, which decreased even further during the 2015-2023 period. If the money is being funelled to the ruling politicians' families and friends, why willingly pay high taxes? I believe this is an underlying core issue, which would probably take a new generation to repair.

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

#139

Post by bemmu »

netule wrote: post #135
bemmu wrote: post #101

I just build projects that interest me (websites, apps, games). So far released 62 things, of which 10 made >$10k. It's interesting because you get to do a variety of things, and I don't really mind the unpredictability. Might even like it in a slot machine variable reward sort of way. Just now I spent 3 months making a game that turned out to be worth $0, but that's part of the process. As long as the project itself…

That’s really cool. Does it all generate enough revenue for you to support yourself financially?

Yes, as long as I remember not to overspend when things are going well, to cover for future failures.

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

#140

Post by philip1209 »

bouh wrote: post #136
philip1209 wrote: post #2

I've been self-employed for the last ~18 months. In the past I started two VC-backed startups, then was a PM at some later-stage companies before returning to entrepreneurship. This time around, I'm building a solo "digital product studio" [1] instead of a startup. So, I'm staying one person, haven't raised money, and have multiple revenue-generating products. Product revenue doesn't cover my costs yet, so I do occas…

Can you tell us a bit more about this creative residence and how did you get accepted there ?

Yes, it's called Almost Perfect. I previously followed the illustrator Luis who co-runs it, and applied back in 2022.

https://almostperfect.jp

However, the current "version" of Almost Perfect is ending in about a year, and I think they are fully booked until then:

https://www.instagram.com/almostperfecttokyo/p/C2PCMtpS_wq/

It's been a fun experience, though - I shared a house with an illustrator from LA. I spent time exploring Tokyo and working on Booklet. At the end, every resident gives a gallery - normally it's visual, such as drawings, but mine became a presentation.

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