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How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

eidel.io

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Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#2
Not to brag, but there are so few things to actually feel some civic pride for in America, and business registration is one of them, so I guess we have that.

I can get an IRS EIN (tax ID), register an LLC, obtain a sales tax license (only required for selling stuff), and open a business checking account in about 2 hours in Colorado. Someone who knows what they’re doing and doesn’t spend time researching banking options could probably get it all done in 30 minutes.

Alternatively, a legal services company will do it all for you for about $500. If you have partners and want multiple shareholders, the price jumps to about $1000, but you can also do that on your own.

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#3
post #2

Not to brag, but there are so few things to actually feel some civic pride for in America, and business registration is one of them, so I guess we have that. I can get an IRS EIN (tax ID), register an LLC, obtain a sales tax license (only required for selling stuff), and open a business checking account in about 2 hours in Colorado. Someone who knows what they’re doing and doesn’t spend time researching banking optio…

[dead]

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#4
post #2

Not to brag, but there are so few things to actually feel some civic pride for in America, and business registration is one of them, so I guess we have that. I can get an IRS EIN (tax ID), register an LLC, obtain a sales tax license (only required for selling stuff), and open a business checking account in about 2 hours in Colorado. Someone who knows what they’re doing and doesn’t spend time researching banking optio…

Unless you're opening companies on a daily basis to evade taxes or whatever, I fail to see why you would need the process to be that fast. Because with such short delays, nobody will have actually checked anything, so the only winners are fraudsters, in the end.

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#5
post #2

Not to brag, but there are so few things to actually feel some civic pride for in America, and business registration is one of them, so I guess we have that. I can get an IRS EIN (tax ID), register an LLC, obtain a sales tax license (only required for selling stuff), and open a business checking account in about 2 hours in Colorado. Someone who knows what they’re doing and doesn’t spend time researching banking optio…

Unless you're opening companies on a daily basis to evade taxes or whatever, I fail to see why you would need the process to be that fast. Because with such short delays, nobody will have actually checked anything, so the only winners are fraudsters, in the end.

Every little speed bump you put in the way will deter some people on the margin.

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#7
post #6

What does the opposite look like in Germany? Meaning, shutting down a Gmbh? In Sweden, you can get this done in a matter of days, where you sell the shares of your corporation for the net value minus a fee of about $1000.

its one to 2 years of pain. my gmbh shut down also cost 15 000 and ultimately led to me leaving the country.

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#8
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you're opening companies on a daily basis to evade taxes or whatever, I fail to see why you would need the process to be that fast. Because with such short delays, nobody will have actually checked anything, so the only winners are fraudsters, in the end.

Every little speed bump you put in the way will deter some people on the margin.

If you have 25k€ of capital but get flustered because the state wants to make sure that you are not opening a shell company for someone else and that your articles of incorporation are legally valid, then maybe you need to rethink something.

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#9
i could not find the most important question while skim reading: does it have to be germany. i would rather sit in boiling water than found a company there again. you don't always have to move away completely to have a non germany company though i can also recommend that final step.

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#10
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you're opening companies on a daily basis to evade taxes or whatever, I fail to see why you would need the process to be that fast. Because with such short delays, nobody will have actually checked anything, so the only winners are fraudsters, in the end.

Every little speed bump you put in the way will deter some people on the margin.

And yet the self-employment rate in Germany seems to be higher than in the US: https://genderdata.worldbank.org/indicators/sl-emp-self-zs/?...
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