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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

#661

Post by roenxi »

bootsmann wrote: post #621
stevenally wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the USA California, Texas, Delaware etc all have different company registration and compliance processes. This has not damaged the business environment. It should be left to each EU country to decide how to manage their company compliance processes. Those companies can then easily trade all over the EU. You can easily set up a company in Ireland. The EU does not to over reach with one-size-fits-all regulations. Th…

Its almost impossible for a fund from Germany to invest in a company from France and vice-versa. It is a significant problem!

That sounds like a significant problem ... for either the Germans or the French to resolve. The only thing stopping foreign investors is law enforcement officers telling them to stop. The Germans can, literally, just not do anything except enforce basic property laws and foreign investment would pour money in.

I'm put in mind of US citizens who seem to be the lepers of international finance, often when I see prospectuses they have a lot of text on the the front saying "don't show this to anyone from the US" because they don't want to deal with the compliance costs of US law. In that case it is the US's problem and the US has an easy solution.

When people talk about larger regulatory frameworks they see the problem as the more permissive side is giving people options and want that shut down immediately. If the US started talking about global regulation to ease investment, for example, that means they don't intend to make it any easier but they do want everyone to adhere to US compliance ideas whether or not they do business in the US. It is a way for people with bad ideas to make the world worse. I'd assume the situation in Europe turns out similarly.

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

#662

Post by adamcharnock »

academia_hack wrote: post #168

It's inordinately difficult and expensive to start an LLC or SA in some EU countries. It's even difficult and expensive to _stop_ an LLC and dissolve it. Huge amount of risk and cost on founders and a huge distraction from running a business. I think that EU-Inc _could_ be an improvement, but it needs to avoid the committee laundry list of ideas/requirements/form fields that plagues the EU startup ecosystem. My worry…

Agreed. The one bastion of sanity in all this is (/was) the UK. I formed my first company there, 18 years ago, online, in 30 minutes, for around £20.

I then moved to Portugal and started not one but two companies there. The whole process is so clearly setup to discourage people from actually forming companies. Everything from the attitude of all involved ("are you sure?!"), to the practical bureaucracy and costs involved.

I thought perhaps Portugal was just an outlier. But then I moved to Germany. And just wow. Definitely worse. Rounds of paperwork, notary offices, and fees. A process taking weeks. And for a GmbH a minimum investment of €25k. Sure you can form a UG. company for €1, but that effectively just announces "don't trust us, we're tiny" (IMHO).

It is something that really saddens and frustrates me with the EU.

Edit: And sure, you can form an Estonian company. But then you have to try and fly under the radar with regards to the 'permanent establishment' rules.

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

#664

Post by notahacker »

alephnerd wrote: post #638
embedding-shape wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't read "we'll never accept here" as "it's be impossible", more like "we won't base our entire economy on that, it's not what the average person wants", because obviously Europe has various staffing companies already, and if you add a tiny bit of nuance into what they said, I'd agree with it too. > Europe seems to be 20-40 years behind the US in various economic and social developments That's one perspective, an…

> That's one perspective, another is that US is 20-40 years behind Europe [...] The US's HDI (0.938) is comparable to New Zealand and Liechtenstein [0], and significantly above Austria's (0.930), France's (0.920), and Italy's (0.915) [0], and the EU's HDI is itself 0.915 [1] - this puts the EU roughly in the same position as the US almost 16-17 years ago [2] despite both having a similar population. That said, once y…

Differences once you break the 0.9 range are more noticeable at the bottom end, particularly in the context of the OP's claim about people in the US "struggling to stay alive". There's also an "inequality weighted" HDI (accessible from your HDR link above by drilling down to the individual country data) which puts the US a fair way behind many of the EU countries the sheer weight of its per capita GDP puts it ahead of (on that index the US is even marginally worse than some of the wealthier Eastern Bloc countries, but interestingly on dead level pegging with France for the last decade)

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

#665

Post by merelythere »

Kim_Bruning wrote: post #169

Yes please! I tripped over this recently. It's a bigger deal than it might seem. You'd be surprised at some of the weird things that can happen in the current systems in the EU if you try to do business across borders. Like: your company suddenly automatically becoming deregistered, or you might get a sudden huge tax bill, or you might even inadvertently get charged with fraud. Hasn't happened so far knock on wood ,…

Finally something that feel like removing some borders. On the long term it could bring a lot of positives changes, even breaking or displacing nationalism.

And here I am picturing what could look like the new European far right and far left...

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

#666

Post by galangalalgol »

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #634
wolvoleo wrote: post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU is not a state. And no, wealth inequality is much higher in the US: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/wealth-in... . And those are averages, we don't have people making 100.000x more than others. We also have wayyy less violent crime: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/violent-c... , and much less people in prison per capita LGBTQ+ rights are way better covered here (with the e…

> And no, wealth inequality is much higher in the US Absolute numbers don't matter as I was saying the issues caused by wealth inequality such as housing crisis are much worse in the EU. > We also have wayyy less violent crime Fair but I will say ours is very concentrated to specific areas / demographics so the average person rarely has to deal with that. > LGBTQ+ rights are way better covered here (with the exceptio…

It really matters which state you look at. Wealth inequality, gdp per capita, and median wage are all better in several eu members than in the US, and that still holds if you factor in housing and cpi in general. There are other states where that is really not the case. Its mostly the Scandinavian countries outperforming the us on these metrics and they are relatively low population in comparison so its kind of an odd one to make. If the goal is total gdp, who cares about the median wage, then the us/china plan does make more sense, but neither of those plans work without the other existing and cooperating.

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

#667

Post by ExpertAdvisor01 »

miyuru wrote: post #101

I am also looking for a stripe atlas alternative. Having a EU based one will be great. previous: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25006716

It's never an good idea especially in an EU country to incorporate outside your personal jurisdiction especially as single founder.

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

#669

Post by ExpertAdvisor01 »

peterspath wrote: post #313
kvgr wrote: post #250

This + abolish VAT. The amount of money stolen in VAT scams is jn bilions of euros.

This + only pay taxes where the company is founded, not where you live at that moment in time. That's what the personal income tax is for.. and all the other taxes payed by the individual. That way countries can compete in being the best environment for companies.

That's the dumbest stuff I've heard.

This way you avoid incredibly huge amounts of taxes.

There is a reason why cfc rules found their way into atad.

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

#670

Post by johannes1234321 »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #644
johannes1234321 wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> However my employer is a Dutch B.V. with headquarters in Germany, thus they avoid having to form a board with works council representatives as a German GmbH (or AG) of comparable size would require. Damn, that's a pretty sleazy business practice. How do you feel about it? That would be a nice loophole to close.

It's not that easy if you want European integration and support the idea of "freedom of settlement" also for companies, which to me makes sense and it is known that some countries try to pull companies to register in their legislation with sometimes improper means. I would prefer to focus on Irish taxation, which extracts value produced elsewhere to Irish benefit.

Workers rights are being unified, but that's a long complex process, as work cultures vary a lot and most companies fear German-style code termination, while it's an uphill battle to weaken it in Germany, thus it remains in national law's responsibility.

And to be clear:

a) works council exists with all normal rights, only they don't have board seats, which can be quite powerful, especially in public companies where one might form alliances with independent share holders. In the case here it's a 100% subsidiary of an American corporation, so they get their will one way or the other, board members may only delay

b) I am somewhat priviligedge as I am no simply replicable conveyor belt worker, but somewhat specialized engineer

c) I'm currently on garden leave period after 18 years in the company (incl acquisitions) due to a reduction, where works council produced a quite nice exit for me, so the only time I needed it, it worked well. But then I am somewhat privileged over others, making it hard to generalize.

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