Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

paolino.me

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 789 posts

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

#341

Post by onli »

NooneAtAll3 wrote: post #248
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…

> nothing is fast here if you go the legal path and stay within the law > and as you see everything costs a lot this sounds like a system primed for corruption if you can pay half the needed amount to do everything 5 times as fast, would you not do it?

But you can't. It's not like you can bribe the bureaucrat working on your form, and there is no regular fast pass.

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

#342

Post by artemonster »

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…

and just read these awful comments defending this nonsense and shifting the blame. so much arrogance its nauseating

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

#343

Post by throw1234567891 »

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…

And you can start a company with €1. The format is UG. You have to keep 25%(?) of the profit until you reach 25k and convert into GmbH.

And reading the article, he does found a UG! This isn’t even about GmbH!

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

#344

Post by ur-whale »

"Standard" German people have an deeply ingrained, culturally inflicted belief that administration is inherently a good thing, and that the more of it there is of it, the better the system functions.

Worse, when you try to gently and constructively engage them on the topic, their mind is so deeply dyed with the idea, that they either simply don't understand what you're talking about or when they do, refuse to engage because they find you so weird, it's a waste of time to discuss with you.

"Was nicht dokumentiert ist, ist nicht passiert". Yeah, right, except that "Alles erstickt im Papierkram" and nothing ever fucking happens.

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

#345

Post by CamouflagedKiwi »

dwroberts wrote: post #35
VadimPR wrote: 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!

Yeah it’s also very easy to do in the UK. Getting a little bit more annoying year-on-year for maintenance with stuff like identity checks and software requirements for eg tax information, but still trivial to initially create

Yeah the "making tax digital" thing sucks, but there are lots of little companies that will do a simple filing for you. I hate the theory, but at least in practice it does work okay.

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

#346

Post by ejoebstl »

I ran multiple businesses in Germany and it's possible to set up an UG way cheaper and way faster via Musterprotokoll. You can do the majority of filings yourself. There's tutorials (fuer-gruender.de is great). If you get a lawyer and tax advisor for every step, it's also expensive on other countries. And doing company accounts is also work elsewhere. Not saying that it couldn't be way better in Germany, but this blog post is more a rant than anything else.

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

#347

Post by NooneAtAll3 »

onli wrote: post #341
NooneAtAll3 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nothing is fast here if you go the legal path and stay within the law > and as you see everything costs a lot this sounds like a system primed for corruption if you can pay half the needed amount to do everything 5 times as fast, would you not do it?

But you can't. It's not like you can bribe the bureaucrat working on your form, and there is no regular fast pass.

> It's not like you can bribe the bureaucrat working on your form

are you trying to say "bureaucrat can't speed up" or are you doubting someone physically can't give someone else some cash?

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

#348

Post by notpushkin »

doikor wrote: post #318
WarmWash wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are jealous of the US system where you can create an LLC in one hour for $200, and by the next day be doing business with all your personal assets isolated.

A lot of places in Europe are around the same. In Finland forming a non listed stock company is 240€ in fees without any requirement for capital/assets. I think Estonia is even cheaper.

State fee is 265 € now in Estonia. But the tax system is cool [1] and admin is a breeze (if your passport colour is right and you can get e-residency – not a problem for any EU/EEA citizen, obviously).

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48660856

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

#350

Post by mizaru »

Ajoha wrote: post #275

Mh, seems to me about ranting as some things went wrong. With all due respect, founding a company shouldn’t be that easy; otherwise investors wouldn’t give you money for it. “UG” reads as “not serious” – no, that was in the past. Times have changed. I’m not here to defend a big country that clearly has to do better, of course.

To me the most annoying thing about the UG is that your company name needs to include "UG (haftungsbeschränkt)", no abbreviations allowed. So unaesthetic...
Post reply on HN