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Founding a company in Germany: €9600, 152 days and I still can't send an invoice

paolino.me

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Re: Founding a company in Germany: €9600, 152 days and I still can't send an invoice

#181

Post by leokennis »

earcar wrote: post #109
robtro wrote: post #65

Germany is one of the worst countries when it comes to bureaucracy nothing is fast here if you go the legal path and stay within the law (which is mostly for small people big players have different ways) and as you see everything costs a lot so if you are founding a pure online business do yourself a favor and incorporate somewhere else and if you still live in Germany look into licensing or subcontracting yourself t…

I have yet to find the mythical efficiency everyone was talking about. Trains, Berlin Brandenburg Airport, this. It's rules and adherence to rules, more than efficiency, that I've found in my experience.

My experience with German colleagues is not efficiency; but they do have a remarkable ability (in my field) to read a 400 page regulator rulebook and overlay it on a 200 page design document and pinpoint the rulebook edge cases not covered by the design...

Re: Founding a company in Germany: €9600, 152 days and I still can't send an invoice

#182

Post by earcar »

nish1500 wrote: post #104

I've run a tech business on three continents, and nothing comes close to the Kafkaesque labyrinth of the German world. Everything is unbelievably complicated and over-engineered, and every layer is immune to change. Every rule was rational when it was added, and now everyone has a financial stake in continued complexity. The German notary is the highest-paid notary in the world, and the highest-earning professional i…

Can't agree with you more.

Re: Founding a company in Germany: €9600, 152 days and I still can't send an invoice

#183

Post by epolanski »

There's so many things that are plain wrong in the European ancient and bureaucratic commercial and corporate law.

It's insane that giving stock options (core to attract talent) or raising capital for equity is so difficult across Europe.

And don't get me started on how difficult it is to fire people that just don't work and only pretend to, spreading doing jackshit across the company.

Europe has the talent and even the capital, but the incentives are just not here, neither to attract talent nor serious investments.

The continent is old and politicians keep trying to band aid the system, consistently claim regional-national policies over common European rules, they will claim Europe makes it difficult to do business, just to reinvent their own commercial, import/export rules, tax rules non stop.

I don't want to say it's a disaster, but we really need some party that looks at commercial, trade and corporate law across Europe.

Re: Founding a company in Germany: €9600, 152 days and I still can't send an invoice

#184

Post by mqus »

fredsters_s wrote: post #79

it is very funny that most of the (presumably germans) in the comments are saying "it's not that bad and it's fine because you chose a complicated LLC structure"

It's probably only funny because the commenting germans are aware that there is a much simpler "UG" (without the &co KG), which is pretty much a LLC, which you can open on your own, a bit faster, much cheaper. But apparently OP didn't do that for tax reasons (in a normal UG, if you want to pay yourself, you gotta pay income tax and all the other stuff)

If an american comes and says they founded a public company (with stocks and all), and complained about the fuzz involved, you would also tell them that it's their own fault, right?

That said, maybe the US/Delaware LLC has this component as well, I'm not a lawyer :D

Re: Founding a company in Germany: €9600, 152 days and I still can't send an invoice

#185

Post by Ekaros »

fredsters_s wrote: post #79

it is very funny that most of the (presumably germans) in the comments are saying "it's not that bad and it's fine because you chose a complicated LLC structure"

My understanding what is described is Limited Liability corporation hold inside Limited partnership. Not either of those alone. This setup allows some tax games. But also clearly is also much more complicated to setup as first you would need the limited partnership...

Re: Founding a company in Germany: €9600, 152 days and I still can't send an invoice

#187

Post by zipy124 »

florakel wrote: post #135

I don’t know the specifics but the OP chose a complicated setup. Why not just use a GmbH which is the equivalent to an Inc in the US? The capital requirement is 12500 in the bank not 25000 as stated. There are online services that run the whole process for you similar to Stripe Atlas. Even setting up a UG (with 1 euro stating capital) is very easy but you have to upgrade to a GmbH once you receive investment (investo…

They state that in the post, it is a tax-optimisation since it is a single-person company.

Re: Founding a company in Germany: €9600, 152 days and I still can't send an invoice

#188

Post by DANmode »

tene80i wrote: post #170
earcar wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is refreshing to hear. Unfortunately I can't get out because of exit tax, an unrealized capital gains tax for the privilege of leaving the country. That is way worse than what I mention in this post and will get its own post soon.

You phrase this as if it’s absurd. Why should it be possible to offshore your future capital gains without paying an exit tax? You live in a country with a tax system that assumes people pay into it.

[flagged]

Re: Founding a company in Germany: €9600, 152 days and I still can't send an invoice

#189

Post by markvdb »

ExoticPearTree wrote: post #45
Kim_Bruning wrote: post #22

I looked into GmbH (german) , BV (dutch) , and OU (estonian) . GmbH seems very unpleasant. BV and OU are easier to obtain. But BV requires your primary place of business to be the Netherlands, which isn't always practical when you're trying to extend your activities internationally. OU is supposed to be better for international operations, but -because it's a single country initiative- creates new and interesting tax…

> But BV requires your primary place of business to be the Netherlands, which isn't always practical when you're trying to extend your activities internationally You bill from the Netherlands and I think this is the only thing required. Uber in Europe charges your cards from Uber BV for example. And I think Uber is pretty international.

Especially as a solo entrepreneur, your llc would have to have substance in the Netherlands. Otherwise, it risks getting requalified as a country-where-you-reside llc.

Why would you otherwise voluntarily subject yourself to the extreme complexity of countries like Belgium or Germany if you could just set up a simple Bulgarian or Estonian llc?

Re: Founding a company in Germany: €9600, 152 days and I still can't send an invoice

#190

Post by puszczyk »

rob74 wrote: post #165

> Which leaves the only real question. Why 25,000 at all? It is my company and my risk. If I want to start with nothing, that is my call, not a toll the state collects before it will let me try. And the cheap door has a price of its own: to some clients, “UG” reads as “not serious,” and they would rather deal with a GmbH. The structure built to let me in quietly marks me for using it. The 25,000 is there to make sure…

You are right, of course, but in most jurisdictions the limit is lower than 25k EUR (e.g. in PL it's 5k PLN ~ 1.2k EUR; I believe in the UK it's even less), and you can trivially look up the capital of any business in the business registry online --> you can decide if you are dealing with a multi-million behemoth or a mom-and-pop shop.
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