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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

#131

Post by embedding-shape »

traceroute66 wrote: post #78

There is a search box at the bottom of every HN page ;) Already being discussed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46703877

The way I check for duplicates is to just try to submit it. If it's a duplicate, it'll count as an upvote to the existing one, otherwise I end up submitting it, it's a win-win :)

I too tried to submit eu-inc.org yesterday I think, but was then redirected to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46696097

Seems someone else might have the same workflow, and the de-dup detector let it through for whatever reason.

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

#132

Post by luplex »

petcat wrote: post #83

I always heard that the issue with startup investment in Europe was the general lack of capital investors willing to take Hail Mary risks on founders with a wild idea and maybe little experience. The market is far too risk-averse for a grassroots early-stage startup scene. How would this organization address that fundamental psychological block?

this is not the only blocker for European startup success. We need to address each blocker separately.

The EU Inc. makes pan-EU operations simpler for businesses. This decreases internal barriers for trade, so it will lead to growth!

I feel like the mentality problem will follow the market realities. If startup founders become rich, they turn into investors and the startup snowball keeps growing.

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

#133

Post by 1317 »

dspillett wrote: post #107
veltas wrote: post #88

It says "Pan-European" everywhere, but would this include the UK?

As the headline statements say “… EU-level …” rather than European, unless the smaller print explicitly mentions non-EU countries such as the UK I would assume that we aren't included.

"one europe" except for all the other bits of europe

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

#134

Post by carlosjobim »

There is nothing hindering European startups to raise money from all over Europe. Except that Europeans hate to invest in real businesses and love investing in real estate.

American startups and businesses get investor money from all over the world, including from Europe. Willingness to invest in startups depends on the downstream of willingness to invest in business in general. If venture capital investors know that there's a lot of money willing to invest after the startup phase, then they are willing to take more risks. And so on for every phase of investors, until you reach big institutional investors like retirement funds.

It looks like the proponents here have fallen into the classic European thinking: "Let's talk and make papers to make our wishes become true". Instead of trying to understand reality and why things are the way they are.

They should ask themselves why any European investor would want to invest in a European startup instead of in an American startup. They should ask themselves why European entrepreneurs should create their startup in Europe instead of in America. When they have the answers to those questions they know what solutions to propose.

My experience doing business in and with America has been nothing but fantastic. They have all the infrastructure and all the culture to help entrepreneurs and anybody who wants to do business. They want to do business as well. Need a credit card processor? Need an LLC? Need a bank account? Need a business loan? It's easy, the USA is fucking open for business.

In Europe it is hostility mostly all the way, from banks to regulators to governments, and so on. The easy part is registering a company, which is just as swift in Europe as it is in the USA. But apart from that you won't find any friends in the process. Even if you're European. Even in the country and the city you were born in.

Americans love new things and new ideas and see them as opportunities. Europeans see them as threats. And that is mirrored everywhere you turn. You might agree with the European perspective in a society-wide perspective, but for startup businesses the American mindset fits much better.

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

#135

Post by embedding-shape »

dbuxton wrote: post #118

Of all the challenges you face as a startup, the legal entity you choose is possibly the least consequential. Just choose a jurisdiction where investors understand how the legals work (Delaware C-corp, UK Ltd is OK too) and there's a finite administrative burden and/or commoditized tooling in place to help you handle it. Now, that may not work in all jurisdictions for reasons of local taxation etc (and you'll have to…

> investors understand how the legals work (Delaware C-corp, UK Ltd is OK too)

Man, at least read the title of the submission, even if you're not gonna be bothered reading the contents. This is clearly about EU, incorporating in either of those two places would defeat the entire purpose :)

> the legal entity you choose is possibly the least consequential

I think this is a bit of the goal with EU-INC, so people don't have to think about it as much. Right now, if you're multinational, you really have to be careful what country you use as your base. Hopefully, with something like this, in the future, you can also include a "EU-INC" in there, and advice people to just go with the simplest way. I think that's the dream at least.

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

#136

Post by mrtksn »

PaywallBuster wrote: post #116
traceroute66 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the issue with EU is the taxes and cost of labour. 450 million and counting people would still prefer to live and work in the EU than anywhere else. Even more so with present geopolitics, to put it politely !

> 450 million and counting people would still prefer to live and work in the EU than anywhere else majority of population of any given country doesn't emigrate ever, even inside EU where it would be extremely easy

But evidence shows that they do emigrate in mass when there's a reason, it's one of the core issues of the last decade and the reason why fascists gained power all over the world. If fact its the reason why masked people in USA are hunting down immigrants.

Its also factual that there's a large scale migration intra-EU, with people from poorer countries moving to rich ones to seek jobs. Bulgaria, Romania and Poland are prime examples for that.

Its also well documented that those same people stop migrating and even coming back once their counties level up with the rest of the EU, again Poland and Bulgaria are good examples for this in the last years.

EU is trying to make sure that the poorer countries receive the help they need to catch up and it looks like its working.

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

#137

Post by ExoticPearTree »

mrtksn wrote: post #85
kvgr wrote: post #73

Local Taxes… the issue with EU is the taxes and cost of labour.

That's not the issue. If your business is dependent on slave labor and offloading your externalities on the society to make a profit it simply means your business should not exist. Its evident that labor cost and taxes are not excessive in EU by the reality of existence of plenty of businesses in a healthy society. What doesn't exist in EU is the "tech" business, and the tech doesn't have margins too slim to employ p…

> If your business is dependent on slave labor

There is no such thing as slave labor in the tech sector. Some countries offer a lower barrier to entry than others. The EU has a very high barrier to entry when it comes to taxation.

You can believe what you want, but I think every country's goal is to reduce taxation as much as possible for companies and for people. Unfortunately, the current in the EU is to keep raising them and give state more and more monopoly on services.

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

#139

Post by mejutoco »

dbuxton wrote: post #118

Of all the challenges you face as a startup, the legal entity you choose is possibly the least consequential. Just choose a jurisdiction where investors understand how the legals work (Delaware C-corp, UK Ltd is OK too) and there's a finite administrative burden and/or commoditized tooling in place to help you handle it. Now, that may not work in all jurisdictions for reasons of local taxation etc (and you'll have to…

I started a limited company in Spain about 15 years ago. Just the 48h online is huge. It took maybe 15-20 days and visits to the notary, etc. (notaries are usually not available next day, for example). I think Estonia and UK have similar quick ways, but if this is as quick it is definitely an advantage over the status quo. It will affect companies without investors as well, which adds up.

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

#140

Post by jcmartinezdev »

mfld wrote: post #121
lnsru wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is always the same: do you really need UG/GmbH at the beginning? It’s typical rookie mistake. I did it too, sold the company for 1€ to some shady people at the end. Gewerbe with 40000€ in the company’s account does not have the problems anymore. And the expensive tax consultants are just another cost of doing business in Germany. Ok, the quality of Finanzamt clerks varies heavily depending on location. C…

Agreed. In case you do not have big investors, just register as an individual entrepreneur, get a bank account and get going! It can be turned into a LLC/GmbH later if business goes well. Also taxes will be much easier. Just get one of the countless apps where you add invoices, and they generate tax reports for you. With an LLC or when employing other people, getting a tax consultant is advised. IMO, they are not exp…

Can you recommend a tax consultant that charges 200 EUR/month including preparing the yearly statements?

I’m nearly at 3.5k/year and I have barely 10 invoices a month that I need to process between incoming and outgoing lol

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