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

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

#671

Post by bondarchuk »

stavros wrote: post #570
rkachowski wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't true, this year I have been on a train from Marseille to Berlin and German police checked everyone on the train for passports at the border specifically to check residence validity - and removed one passenger with a residence permit as he attempted to reenter Germany (he was informed he was not initially permitted to leave)

Those are random spot checks, there's no border between France and Germany where everyone's passport will be checked.

"nobody will check passports"

"Those are random spot checks"

So there are random spot checks where people will check passports. So "nobody will check passports" is false.

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

#672

Post by Aerroon »

fransje26 wrote: post #538
concordDance wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often see comments like this, but what's a good solution to the ever expanding cost of public services (to the point most of western europe now has gov spending at 40%+ of gdp)? You do need to cut back if you're starting to run a significant deficit or more and more of your budget will go on interest payments. Any large org tends to get more inefficient with time as it accumulates inefficient components it can't ge…

> (to the point most of western europe now has gov spending at 40%+ of gdp) Perhaps that's fundamentally barking up the wrong tree. West-European governments in the post WW2 era have had higher relative spendings then that, without every financial expert and their dog declaiming that doomsday is near and services need to be cut. We've been able to finance better healthcare before, we've able to finance better educati…

But maybe those experts should've been raising alarm over this? Western Europe is doing pretty poorly when it comes to economic growth. And prior to that Germany got a lot of help from the US, Spain did not do well, Italy was questionable, Portugal did not do well. Netherlands did well, but a lot of it is down to their location as a place for trade. That only leaves France and Belgium. Did they do well?

>We've been able to finance better healthcare before

Modern healthcare is better than anything before. Even in its dysfunctional state it is better. Sure, you might have to wait longer to see a specialist, but the number of cases where the reply you get is "nothing we can do" is lower.

The things you mention are more expensive to provide today. One of the reasons is that our requirements for those services are much higher leading to much higher inherent costs.

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

#673

Post by nicbou »

data_maan wrote: post #458
Tainnor wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other people have already written this, but Berlin is not a good representation for Germany as a whole. It has been known for decades within Germany for having a dysfunctional government structure and administration (due in part to unclear division of responsibilities between districts and the city). Elsewhere in Germany, bureaucracy tends to be tedious but functional. The neglicence of the state of Berlin is actuall…

Could you tell us the lawyer please? I'd need someone who is well-versed in "talking". (Feel free to dm via my email.)

I'm not the person above, but Fiona Macdonald is my go-to immigration lawyer, and she has a lot of experience with suing the Ausländerbehörde.

Read this as a primer: https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/berlin-auslanderbehorde-ap...

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

#674

Post by stavros »

bondarchuk wrote: post #671
stavros wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are random spot checks, there's no border between France and Germany where everyone's passport will be checked.

"nobody will check passports" "Those are random spot checks" So there are random spot checks where people will check passports. So "nobody will check passports" is false.

Fine, word lawyer, "nobody will check passports above the base rate of passport checking you may get anywhere, including any random trip".

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

#675

Post by jmopp »

miningape wrote: post #563
beAbU wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For all it's many many faults, I have to say I'm sometimes surprised by how efficient some South African bureaucratic state organs function. To get a renewed passport is a 5 minute online form, electronic payment, and then a 30 minute appointment at a local bank branch to get biometrics taken. Then about 1-2 weeks later you can go and pick up your new passport. Driving license not much different. For most people, pay…

This is interesting because I have the exact opposite experience. I'm a South African but I live in the EU, for me, I need to book my new passport 1 year+ in advance of it expiring because it takes on average about that long (if I pay the bribes).

The trick is not to do it at the embassy, but to take a two-week holiday and do it in South Africa.

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

#676

Post by fl7305 »

chinathrow wrote: post #552
fl7305 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Sweden you can sell your company to a specialized company that will dissolve it for you (for example this one: https://www.standardbolag.com/services/liquidation ). This can be done in a matter of 1-2 weeks. In Sweden, you can of course also choose to dissolve it yourself, but nobody does that since it takes years, and it's pretty cheap to let someone else take care of it for you. It sounds like the same service i…

I don't get that service. How are they able to do it much faster than yourself?

They can't.

If you pay them to dissolve the company for you, they buy the shares from you and replace the board and the CEO. At that point, you're completely free from the company.

They then must take the 7-9 months needed to go through the whole dissolution process. There is a mandatory 6 month wait after announcing the dissolution to give lenders/sellers time to make claims against the company. This wait is 12 months in Germany.

There is also paperwork for the accounting, tax filings, etc.

The service takes care of all this as the new owners. Since they have done this literally thousands of times, they don't need to spend many man-hours on it. Therefore, the fee is fairly low, about 1000 dollars, of which 300 dollars are mandatory government fees.

Example (Swedish): https://www.bolagspartner.se/avveckla-aktiebolag/

So if you own a company with 11 000 dollars in the bank and no debt, they will pay you 10 000 dollars for it.

You can do everything online, including signing the contract. No need to visit a public notary or similar.

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

#677

Post by RamblingCTO »

croes wrote: post #490
RamblingCTO wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're misinformed. Second highest tax burden [1], in Europe and the OECD [2]. [1] https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/global/tax-burden-on-labo... [2] https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/eu/tax-burden-labor-europ...

Never trust a conservative think tank on taxes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Foundation >Payroll taxes are typically flat-rate taxes levied on wages and are in addition to the taxes on income. In most OECD countries, both the employer and the employee pay payroll taxes. These taxes usually fund specific social programs, such as unemployment insurance, health insurance, and old age insurance. Social security and…

Sooo is statisa [1] also a conservative think tank? I don't see anything wrong with the quote you provided.

> Social security and pesnions aren't financed by taxes, in Germany taxes are not earmarked for a specific purpose.

Not sure I can follow. Of course the pensions and social security are quite substantially tax funded [2].

[1] https://de.statista.com/infografik/13660/oecd-vergleich-steu... [2] https://www.ihre-vorsorge.de/rente/nachrichten/haushalt-fuer...

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

#678

Post by cess11 »

fl7305 wrote: post #103
alphager wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Notar does much more than just read the contract; he is liable for the correct administration of the transfer of ownership (done by a three phase process which guarantees that the seller cannot get the money without transferring the property and the buyer cannot get the property without selling the money). The concept of title insurance doesn't exist in Germany as the Notar eliminates the risk.

> The concept of title insurance doesn't exist in Germany (Title insurance is where you must buy insurance when buying a house to guard against the risk that the house may have unknown liabilities or owners) It doesn't exist in Sweden either, because the ownership of houses is in a central register. You can't make a claim against a house if it is not registered. Funnily enough, there's no such register for condos in…

Insurance companies have a similar product though, 'dolda-fel-försäkring'.

I'm not sure what a condo is, but if it's a 'bostadsrätt' then you check with the 'bostadsrättsförening', they're responsible for keeping a register of 'pantsättningar'.

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

#679

Post by cess11 »

Tainnor wrote: post #392
run414 wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't Germany have 3 dictatorships in the 20th century? East Germany (ended in 1990), Third Reich (ended in 1945), German Monarchy (ended in 1918)

I'm not used to people calling monarchies dictatorships, even though they are in some ways similar. Until 1918, many states in Europe were monarchies.

Calling Saudi Arabia a dictatorship is unfamiliar to you?

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

#680

Post by patall »

usr1106 wrote: post #420
nicbou wrote: post #114

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…

I am familiar with both German and Finnish bureaucracy. German bureaucracy is (in)famous for paperwork and using faxes. Citizens/residents have no unique identifier (more and more weakened recently) and need to present documentation for everything. If you have no paper birth certificate you are not born... Finland has had much higher digitalization for decades. You have a person number and authorities store everythin…

Same experience in Sweden. It took me 1.5 years to get to full European healthcare (i.e European Health Insurance Card). Only to learn that moving within the country, they basically lose all your health records. Seems digitalization is not quite implemented for any non-totally-daily processes and as soon as a single human is needed in the line, there are not enough people.
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