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EU–INC – A new pan-European legal entity

eu-inc.org

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Re: EU–INC – A new pan-European legal entity

#551

Post by t0mas88 »

Fraaaank wrote: post #484
apexalpha wrote: post #252

As a Dutch person I never understood this push until someone told me (and this is true in 2026!!!) that if you open a LLC (Gmbh?) in Germany you have to physically go to the notary and have a person READ OUT all the statutes to you. The whole process including banks accounts etc... can apparently take months in total. Personally I would not create "EU-INC" but just make all local entities legal in every country. Then…

It's the same in the Netherlands. There is European legislation since 2024 that allows 'digital' notaries (Directive 2019/1151). Not many notaries support it though.

In the Netherlands it's much simpler. The notary only has to identify you for their record keeping, no mandatory reading of things etc.

And once identified for something you can easily authorise the notary to sign other things on your behalf as well.

We did that all the time when for example adding new entities to a group structure. Just e-sign the authorisation and that's all.

Re: EU–INC – A new pan-European legal entity

#552

Post by embedding-shape »

tga wrote: post #530
alibarber wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they mean that the Estonian company they run now has to file tax returns and pay taxes not only to Estonia but also Spain. The company lives in Estonia. Yeah if they are taking income personally locally then that should go to the country of residence, as is normal. But then if what Estonia considers acceptable standards for tax reporting differs from what Spain considers acceptable, or what they consider 'pro…

Indeed, the current state of affairs is rather sad. To employ a regular (non-management) employee in Spain (and it applies anywhere else in Europe), an Estonian company would to at least have a local address, then register and maintain regular contact with several authorities there (chamber of commerce, social administration, tax office). The bureaucratic overhead makes it practically impossible to have employees acr…

> the only practical option

The actual practical option people end up using in practice (speaking as someone who've moved around in Europe, working for various other European companies) is that you ask them to self-employ in the country they live, then you treat them as contractors, offset any extra costs that'd come with compared to full-time, and do the best you can with that.

It's not ideal, and not a real solution by wide margin, and there is plenty of stuff that can get better, but I think it's the most "practical" and pragmatic option you can make use of today.

Re: EU–INC – A new pan-European legal entity

#553

Post by t0mas88 »

peterspath wrote: post #305
apexalpha wrote: post #252

As a Dutch person I never understood this push until someone told me (and this is true in 2026!!!) that if you open a LLC (Gmbh?) in Germany you have to physically go to the notary and have a person READ OUT all the statutes to you. The whole process including banks accounts etc... can apparently take months in total. Personally I would not create "EU-INC" but just make all local entities legal in every country. Then…

Same in the Netherlands for BV's. At least a few years ago, maybe it changed...

All of the heavy BV requirements changed in 2012. You can now start a BV very quickly, if you want you can do it online, and without any minimum capital requirement.

Re: EU–INC – A new pan-European legal entity

#554

Post by nutjob2 »

LunaSea wrote: post #483
defo10 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can bill, but the company owners are completely liable until the process is completed. Then the liability goes over to the company. Quite the risk if you ask me.

Not fucking-up in the first 8 weeks does not seem too difficult to achieve

If you're starting a business from scratch, that's 50% of what you do, and it lasts longer than 8 weeks.

Re: EU–INC – A new pan-European legal entity

#555

Post by harperlee »

miroljub wrote: post #503
harperlee wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funding other member states to be able to grow may be labeled waste, or investment on creating new markets for Germany.

That's the same fallacy as claiming that rich people save money by donating to charity. Simple example: - Germany gives 100 € to other EU states - Those states 100 € to buy made in Germany goods - German companies have 10 € profits from those sales - German state collects 5 € from those profits In summary, German taxpayers paid 100 € so the state can collect 5 € taxes, and companies another 5 €. Not a very good deal.…

It seems that in your worldview value and wealth does not increase, just changes hands.

Re: EU–INC – A new pan-European legal entity

#556

Post by jkaplowitz »

johannes1234321 wrote: post #512
direwolf20 wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which law says it must be registered in Germany?

It must be seated where the business happens for compliance with tax laws. But you may have a French S.a.r.l. in Germany and thus fall under their company law (with impact on publication responsibilities, company governance etc.) While for some cases there is room for abuse (like Amazon Kindle eBooks are sold to Germany by a company situated in Luxembourg, while only selling via amazon.de to audience with German resi…

Specifically, it must be seated where the principal management of the business occurs.

So if the executives and board meetings and books and records are strategically located in one country and most of the business operations are in a second, it's valid and probably even required for the business to have its tax residence in the first country rather than the second.

It may very well have a permanent establishment and therefore some tax obligations in the second country, but that's different from the second country being the primary tax residence.

Re: EU–INC – A new pan-European legal entity

#557

Post by galangalalgol »

wolvoleo wrote: post #470
galangalalgol wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free healthcare and social welfare I'm in agreement on. But why does at will employment need to conflict with that? The problems of wage values, food and shelter, and healthcare can be handled completely independently of employment. If someone feels it is too easy to do nothing without requiring employment to gain some of those benefits, you can have the government as an employer of last resort. But making it easy fo…

At will employment is something we'll never accept here. We don't need the threat of having nothing from one day to the next. It's good for billionaires but not for actual people that matter. Running a business is not something everyone should have to do anyway. It's good if it's hard. That keeps the cowboys at bay. I would never ever want to own a business. I don't need that uncertainty. I just want a stable wage. T…

I agree with everything you said except for the cowboys bit. I don't think business owners should be a separate class of people. It shouldn't be unusual to meet people that own their business. I don't want to do it, it would stress me. But we can let random people try random ideas without having to start out wealthy, and we shouldn't have the failure of that business and the loss of those employees' jobs, risk the health and well-being of those let go. If getting fired just meant you had to do with fewer luxuries until you found another, we wouldn't need to protect those jobs to the detriment of a business. By tying employment to safety and well-being, we complicate the whole matter.

Re: EU–INC – A new pan-European legal entity

#558

Post by pimterry »

embedding-shape wrote: post #8
jcmartinezdev wrote: post #2

I really looking forward to this! I love being in the EU and I really like living in Germany. But creating and operating a small company in Germany is a nightmare, I hope this can give smaller EU companies agility and frictionless setup and operation so they can focus on building products and providing services to their customers.

Sounds like a German problem. When I last set up a company in Sweden I literally went to web UI and clicked "Create Company" basically, filled in some details and it was done. Similar experience in Spain, fill out 2-3 forms and it's done. How much more process could the German government really add here? Reviews and interviews, or what exactly is the bureaucracy you're complaining about here?

> Similar experience in Spain, fill out 2-3 forms and it's done.

This isn't true in Spain - all company creation requires a notary, among other awkward steps (although as of relatively recently in some cases you can now do this over videoconference, without physically visiting at least). It's not as bad as what I hear of in Germany, but it's non-trivial and slow, and the banking setup process is similarly annoying and slower than it should be.

You can register as autonomo (an individual freelancer) easily with just a couple of forms, but that is not the same thing as creating a separate legal business entity (SL).

Re: EU–INC – A new pan-European legal entity

#559

Post by burnt-resistor »

Not the EU, but the UK:

About 2012, it was incredibly difficult to start a limited liability partnership/corporation in the UK, roughly physically-located around Chelsea to Canary Wharf. One of the big hurdles was acquiring specific record-keeping instruments that weren't sold in specialty legal stationery shops, but only by some dude literally selling them out of his boot (trunk in America). Maybe the other partners had outdated information, which was a possibility. Contemporaneously, it was possible to start a Delaware corporation online in the US in under 3 days and for less than $300 USD.

Re: EU–INC – A new pan-European legal entity

#560

Post by bluecalm »

friendzis wrote: post #438
alibarber wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there is no threshold for cross-border selling in the EU. Fine if you're selling widgets at a market in Germany - but if you sell software abroad, make sure you're following [each] one of the 27 VAT codes correctly. (From what I understand - would love this to be wrong)

> Fine if you're selling widgets at a market in Germany - but if you sell software abroad, make sure you're following [each] one of the 27 VAT codes correctly. Yes. > But there is no threshold for cross-border selling in the EU. Kinda, but misinterprets the VAT itself. Basically, VAT is paid at the point of sale and local thresholds apply.

>>Kinda, but misinterprets the VAT itself.

>>Basically, VAT is paid at the point of sale and local thresholds apply.

The threshold is 10k EUR (total sales to EU). The point of sale in case of software/electronic services is the country of residence of your customer. You need to collect two pieces evidence of that location, usually billing address and IP. If those don't match (your customer has used a VPN for example) you need a 3rd piece.

One Stop Shop helps with it (when I was starting my company it didn't exist and predecessor VAT MOSS was just being introduced and no one knew how to comply with it) but you still need to charge local VAT rates and report quarterly.

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