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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

#401

Post by Achterlangs »

yoavm wrote: post #74
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!

I've also done it both in Sweden and the Netherlands. Sweden is a breeze if you have BankID, sure (and as you said, if the bank likes you). The Netherlands wasn't exactly a breeze — I had to book a face-to-face appointment with KVK and all the slots in Amsterdam were taken, so I took the train about an hour away.

The face to face meeting is not a thing any more. There are some exceptions but they can often be done online if at all.

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

#402

Post by [deleted] »

bloppe wrote: post #253
tene80i wrote: post #170

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.

Unrealized capital gains taxes generally are a bit absurd, but I can see how the state would feel forced to do it if you're leaving. Seems like there should be some way to get a registered agent or something to keep the old company legally "in Germany" while you leave, but idk

[deleted]

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

#404

Post by WarmWash »

dns_snek wrote: post #351
WarmWash wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your question is more well formed if you challenge the premise that the tax you owe should scale linearly with the value of your assets. Obviously a business benefits from things the state provides, and the business should pay it's share to cover those costs. Maybe, honestly, even a little extra. The challenge is if someone makes a software company, and a team of 20 workers on computers create a €10B business, does t…

> does the state have a fair claim to €5B of it when the company at most with the most generous possible estimate (and then double it for good measure) used €50M of state services? Yes, it does. Quite simply because that's the law, and it's morally right (in principle) because if your business fails then you don't get a bill for 50 million. If "winners" only paid their exact share then these services wouldn't exist.

I explicitly stated (twice) they would (and should) pay more then their exact share. The real cost would likely be in the neighborhood of $500k too (20 SWEs traveling to work doesn't incur much cost, plus the 21/population cost of mainstay services (police, fire, government misc/infra)), never mind the workers are paying taxes on their income too.

So $50m would cover their true societal cost (I'll multiply it by 10 for you, call it $5m) 10x over.

Its extremely difficult to build a clearly logical structure where a company that made a wildly successful product needs to hand half the value to the government. It's very easy to do if we hand wave with ambiguous terms like "right thing to do" and "morally obligated".

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

#405

Post by tomp »

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…

> The 25,000 is there to make sure you can cover some liability.

Is this actually true?

Can't the company just loan out the 25k immediately?

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

#406

Post by jeroenhd »

weinzierl wrote: post #172
flopbob wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially the combination of UG & Co KG. Never heard that one!

Yes, my suspicion is that OP went to a lawyer and said: "I want to minimize my risk as much as possible, what do I do?" And of course, lawyers being lawyers, answered you need to wear both a belt and suspenders. This is the answer you'd expect from a lawyer. It is your responsibility as a founder to do the risk assessment. The fact that almost no one wears both a belt and suspenders might have been a hint.

> went to a lawyer

They studied AI and are building an AI company. I doubt the idea for the business structure come from a lawyer, to be honest. Especially such an overcomplicated setup with so many real-world issues that they're running into right now.

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

#407

Post by a34729t »

arjie wrote: post #228
Aurornis wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

When I first started my company I half assed it. The LLC was quick and the EIN took two weeks. I accidentally signed a contract with my name instead of the company and elected to be a sole proprietorship. These are all the worst ways tax-wise to do this. By Nov that year I decided to look into the tax implications and they were unpleasant so I wrote the IRS asking to be considered an S corp from the beginning of the…

Every interaction Ive had with the IRS or California Franchise Tax Board has been very reasonable and efficient.

Maybe the Strike Commander future was a utopia and not dystopia?

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

#408

Post by organsnyder »

logifail wrote: post #307
_fat_santa wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US system is built to support entrepreneurship while the EU system broadly is to support the consumer and employee. The US will never be able to match the EU's consumer and employee protections and the EU will never be able to match the US's ease of doing business, because to have one you have to fundamentally give in on the other. Depending on who you ask, one system is wildly better than the other, but at the e…

> The US system is built to support entrepreneurship while the EU system broadly is to support the consumer and employee I disagree: the EU system broadly is there to support _the incumbants_ "Regulatory capture" is the less kind way to put it.

The US system is biased this way, as well.

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

#409

Post by WarmWash »

9dev wrote: post #367
keiferski wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a false dichotomy. Consumer return policies, customer service, etc. tend to be much better in the US than in the EU. I would characterize it rather that the US is pro-business and pro-consumer, but somewhat anti-average worker.

Is that so? In Germany for example, you have a legal right to return anything you purchased via a remote means of communication - so e.g., the internet, or a phone call - free of charge, within two weeks, and it must be simple to do so; if a vendor tries to obfuscate how to cancel a purchase contract, you can simply write them an email.

One of the major reasons US consumers shop with megacorp over small business is because of the no hassle returns.

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

#410

Post by davedx »

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…

Yeah I don't really understand the part about not being able to invoice either. IANAL but it's the other way around - you need a VAT number to invoice clients in Germany (and the EU), not outside of it. VAT is exempt for clients outside of the EEA.

Also: I've always used a ZZP structure (one man company - Dutch version) for mine, not a BV (LLC), because there's a thing called Professional Liability Insurance. But maybe it's different in Germany? I can't imagine that doesn't exist there though.

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