261–270 of 1001 posts
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Hah! Americans have to file US tax whether they live in the US or not.
Only for higher income individuals. We get a Foreign Tax Credit for taxes already paid where we live/work. Looks like the limit last year was $120k. Only 17% of Americans make more than $100k/year. Only ~5million Americans living abroad, or 1.5% of the population. I'm sure those numbers are correlated, but I'll bet its under a few hundred thousand of people who are burdened with the tax. Even then, the benefits also…
Try owning a stake in a foreign company (CFC) though, that's a nightmare with often unavoidable significant taxes.
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I now have a German GmbH and had a UK Ltd in the past for 10 years. Definitely there is more seriousness/trustworthiness to a GmbH. I am not sure there are "countless" scams in the UK, but yes, in 10 years of commercial operation did come across a few oddities. Example - a customer (UK Ltd) who declared bankruptcy owing us a money and then then next day founded a new Ltd company and tried to act like he didn't owe us…
> I have not come across this kind of thing in Germany. Oh, it does exist :)
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I fail to imagine a scenario where "getting married fast" is a requirement. I mean you've supposedly been living together for a few years already at that point, so why is 2 weeks too much?
If it's less work, it's less work. And it can take months if one of you is not German.
The biggest issue was that we needed one of my documents (the birth certificate) to have a seal of authenticity from my home country, which then all needed to be translated officially. That took longer than it needed to because we didn't realise it needed to be authenticated and so we got it returned at one point and needed to resubmit it. But apart from that, it was mostly a case of waiting for the formalities to go through - that took a couple of months in total, but it required relatively little work overall. I suspect in total, getting married in another country would have taken more work to organise and arrange, although it would probably have been quicker with the right combination of country and pre-existing documents.
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> There are ways to ensure the correct transfer of ownership without involving a third party. You can see these principles at work on some trading platforms already, be it for Magic cards or something else where parties cannot trust each other because they do not know each other. So what else is that "trading platform" then, if not a "third party"? The way in which this problem is solved is by introducing a third par…
Indeed, my mistake and agree. Here, I wanted to refer to the fact that the transfer of ownership could likely be done even without involving a notary or a human in a properly digitalized system.
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Hah! Americans have to file US tax whether they live in the US or not.
Only for higher income individuals. We get a Foreign Tax Credit for taxes already paid where we live/work. Looks like the limit last year was $120k. Only 17% of Americans make more than $100k/year. Only ~5million Americans living abroad, or 1.5% of the population. I'm sure those numbers are correlated, but I'll bet its under a few hundred thousand of people who are burdened with the tax. Even then, the benefits also…
Also more and more non-US banks won't take US citizens as customers because they don't want to deal with the US's FATCA requirements.
No other developed country has these sorts of requirements for non-resident citizens.
I document German bureaucracy for a living,[0] and everything is like that. Every life event - immigrating, getting a job, getting married, having a child, buying a car - is mired in slow, paper-based bureaucracy. It is a constant, significant impediment to life in the country. Just last week, I was telling people that the best way to get married in Germany is to get married in Denmark. I cannot overstate how terribl…
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> The concept that any idiot can start an LLC with no collateral (which the 25k are) is completely, absolutely, mind bogglingly bonkers to us Germans. Uhh, what? Have you never heard of UGs? That is, 1 Euro GmbHs.
No it's not. With UG's limited liability is only extended to the collateral put in, meaning that as soon as someone sues you for 2€, suddenly you're liable with your private wealth. A GmbH is a true shield against that, you can be sued for millions and are shielded behind the 25k collateral.
Here is the law that regulates GmbHs, with the paragraph specific to UGs:
https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/gmbhg/__5a.html
Where in the GmbH-law do you find anything to support your claim?
Fun fact, GmbH is not about protection of getting sued. (Because there's "Durchgriffshaftung") It's useful for companies that trade physical goods and e.g. when a vendor that was already paid got bankrupt it won't affect the finances of the founders. Although it shows to the outside world that 25 k€ have been paid and it's not a 1€ company. But in case of impeding bankruptcy it must either be resolved or declared oth…
> ("Insolvenzverschleppung" - the punishments are a little draconic) The concept of declaring bankruptcy is well known in most western jurisdiction, as is the criminal practice of delaying bankruptcy. Believe it or not, in most of the developed world you can't just have a company go tits up and expect to go out of there scot-free. > Durchgriffshaftung I've never heard of this concept before, but from what I can gathe…
The English / common law term for this is "piercing the corporate veil".
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Note that I am a German. I would say there are few. Bad education, especially in schools, a broken railway and public transport system, as well as incredibly high taxes. You may say "free healthcare" and a point can be made here, but when you take a look at the high taxes you have to pay, it's not worth it, if your income is above average. All in all it's a mess and I haven't even begun speaking about German people a…
(rants) yep, you are German alright!
In practice, German schools are pretty decent, but they obsess about PISA scores and so neglect to ever notice what the schools are doing well. The train networks are fairly extensive, can be quite cheap depending on how you travel, and consistent across the country, but a lot of Germans would much rather complain about how late they are than recognise anything positive about the system. The general public transport networks (i.e. transport inside towns and cities) are amazing, and one of the things that I would most miss if I went anywhere else.
I think part of it is just that if you're German, you rarely see these systems from an outside perspective, so you only see the points that chafe regularly. But another part of it really is just that German tendency to criticise first rather than to view things holistically.