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

paolino.me

201–210 of 789 posts

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

#201
post #8

Before Europe gets lumped in as one country, founding a company in Netherlands and Sweden, speaking from personal experience, is a breeze. Although Sweden is a bit strange in the fact that banks have as much equal say as the government authority does in you starting a company, and if they don't want you as a customer, they can simply deny the right for your company to start!

Germany, France and Spain are some of the biggest offenders here.

Some years ago a case became quite famous in Spain. Someone wanted to turn a winery into a eco-tourism boutique hotel with a winery tour and experience. Should be simple in theory, in practice they were waiting for authorization to open for more than 4 years.

I’ve been involved with startups and small businesses for more than a decade, and I haven’t still heard of any of them doing things 100% by the book, because it’s just impossible.

People just start and hope the taxman doesn’t come.

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

#202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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]

The premise of taxes?

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

#203

When these threads show up it is always funny that Germans are shocked anyone expects anything else and everyone is shocked at Germany. Luckily with how the current German economy is doing this is a problem that will solve itself. It's like the last half a dozen German governments look at the Morgenthau Plan plan and thought it was an amazing idea they must implement.

I really didn’t have the feeling that Germans are shocked about some of these inefficiencies at all. Typically they’re just a result of long processes thus difficult to change. I do agree that Germany and the EU as a whole should not make this process so cumbersome. It shouldn’t be easier to found a US foreign LLC from abroad than a company in one’s country or residence. The proposed EU LLC might solve some of those issues if it comes to fruition.

Regarding the economy though, Germany is still the third richest country on earth. I think this talking point about their huge regression is mostly FUD.

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

#204

Not to defend German bureaucracy but if you are serious and want results this is not how you do it. If you want a GmbH quickly there are specialized lawyers that maintain a pool of freshly founded GmbH's for you to buy. Everything is set up for you to start. If you don't like certain things like the company name, you can always change it later. That being said, I know plenty of people who founded their GmbH themselve…

> If you want a GmbH quickly there are specialized lawyers that maintain a pool of freshly founded GmbH's for you to buy.

That. It's possible to go even simpler if no limited liability is needed.

Just Gewerbeanmeldung costs maybe 30€ and takes less than a month normally. Large cities even have online forms for this.

Also the reporting duties are much simplified. ChatGPT and some accounting software are very helpful. Although a tax consultant and probably a liability insurance are recommended to avoid bad surprises.

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

#205
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, a Delaware Corporation, like a Long Island Iced Tea.

No. No. You’re thinking of Arizona Iced Tea, which is a New York corporation.

Arizona Iced Tea at least nominally includes ‘tea’

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

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Setting up a plain UG or GmbH gives the same advantage of not being liable with your private money, and is also a comparatively trivial process. Especially if you are the sole owner. Still slow compared to the US or UK, but not half a year slow Starting out a company as a UG & Co KG is a tax optimization move, not a liability issue

> Starting out a company as a UG & Co KG is a tax optimization move, not a liability issue Thanks for the clarification. However I’m still surprised that tax optimization is also considered a footnote in these conversations. In the countries I’m familiar with (mostly the US, minor second-hand experience with friends in some other countries as they started their businesses) starting a limited liability business ventur…

The GmbH has the tax structure of a business, as it is a business.

He wanted something more special than that.

Which is possible, but complicated.

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

#207

Why so little? You are priviledged! Imagine 3 young Italians that would like to work together in a startup. Let's consider only the first year, imagine a B2B SaaS, they are incorporating but they'll work on the product and approach possible customers. Zero revenue. Well, if you followed the law, you probably would spend something between 23'000€ and 25'000€ in total. WITH NO REVENUE. This is because even if you work…

Having to pay into the social welfare system you benefit from :O :O :O :O

That's very funny, considering my generation won't have the pension we're paying for.

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

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have multiple friends who have done an Estonian OÜ despite being primarily German. No issues on this tax side.

If they are still a German tax resident , they are committing tax evasion . § 1 Abs. 1 KStG

What if there were multiple (2+) founders of a company, and some lived in Estonia? I think in one case they had a Croatian co-founder as well.

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

#210
post #111

My friend bought an apartment. In February. Still in processing at the Amt (bureau). It's nightmare fuel. They are sending physical letters, and are hand-matching payments from banks. Apparently, they couldn't match a 53 EUR transfer last week, so a ~400k EUR payment is stalling. The issue is, the people holding the stamps (and believe me, they ARE stamps, with ink and all) are in charge, and are VERY reluctant to gi…

3 to 4 months is standard procedure in Belgium.
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