61–70 of 124 posts
Be aware that if you incorporate, you still will have problems with Scheinselbständigkeit - being a small UG/GmbH does not prevent you from that! Reg. your tax consultancy; we also do international business with freelancers and other contractors. Write me a mail, we might be able to sort that out.
Done, thanks for your help :)
I did this for a few years. Here are your options: Employment by the US company: They're allowed to employ you and have you "stationed" in Germany. You pay no US tax, and DE tax on 100% of this income. For Sozialversicherung, Rentenversicherung etc it's just as if you were selbständig. Since you're allowed to give up all sorts of rights in DE conteact Law, the US based contract is probably fine. Contractor for the US…
Just a small clarification: You are still "selbständig" (self-employed) if you do a "Gewerbe". The thing you don't get easily is a so called "Freiberuf", particularly if you don't have an engineering degree (though I managed to get it). Tax wise it is actually almost easier to do non-EU business than doing business in Europe, because there are no VAT issues involved (and there are no tariffs on those things). You jus…
I did this for a few years. Here are your options: Employment by the US company: They're allowed to employ you and have you "stationed" in Germany. You pay no US tax, and DE tax on 100% of this income. For Sozialversicherung, Rentenversicherung etc it's just as if you were selbständig. Since you're allowed to give up all sorts of rights in DE conteact Law, the US based contract is probably fine. Contractor for the US…
Employment by US company: Did that for five years working remotely from Germany for a US Incorporated. I'm German, had a German contract with all the standard provisions for Germany (mandatory vacation, termination protections etc, employer contributions to health-care etc). Worked without a hitch, like being employed by a DE entity. The only gotcha is that my monthly pay would have social contributions and health-ca…
In my current specific situation there are no coworkers from Germany.
I didn't even know that a US-based company can give me a German contract. Do you know the specifics how the stuff got deducted automatically (except the taxes)?
Either make your own UG or use individual W8 form for US company (reverse charge in DE, no VAT). Still, you need to have at last 20% of your income from another source if you stay a freelancer. Ideally if the US company had two legal entities and you could issue invoices to both. Most people start their own GmbH with all the increased taxes it brings.
Wouldn't that still be a grey zone to just invoice two different legal entities even though they are technically the same?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's to de-emphasize post bodies. It's like that for all post bodies on HN. I believe the rationale was to focus on the title/link and any comments.
For me, the title is also gray: "Ask HN: Germans, how to work legally remote?"
One way to set this up is using some form of consulting/temporary worker company as an intermediate. I was employed in that form for a while. So legally that company hires you and then invoices the U.S. corporation taking a cut. In my case that was Kelly Services and was hassle free (I got my salary as negotiated in time, only interaction I had with them was signing a contract and terminating it) no idea how hard thi…
Someone else will make huge money only because bogus laws in Germany which probably won't be fixed even in the year 2100. Anyway, I really like the idea and it sounds totally hassle-free. I will contact them and ask. Should I give you as a referral? Maybe you get a check if it works out for me.
I don't know if that company is best. Just gave it as reference, also for finding competitors. I think for most part you'd need a company with a representation in U.S. and here, so that your "practical" employer can do a contract under U.S. terms and you do one under German terms ... and not sure they'd remember me - it's 10 years ago :)
So, if I understand you correctly you'll be working on a contractual basis for a single client, full-time for a prolonged period of time. This kind of arrangement indeed is quite likely to be classified as "bogus self-employment" by the German state pension system, no matter your legal setup. I wouldn't bother setting up a GmbH (private limited company) because it most likely won't help you anyway. Unfortunately, the…
I don't think that my employer would do so only for me (given that I don't even have an employer right now, I'm just speaking generally here). But I agree this would indeed be the best option. Is there a way that I can pay the social security fees from day one on my own to completely avoid all hassle and possible back-payments after a Prüfung (audit)?
However, that will get complicated rather quickly:
You’ll not only be that company’s sole employee you’ll also be its managing director. A managing director who owns a majority in the company usually is considered to be self-employed. A managing director also is responsible for filing annual accounts and tax statements. This is both expensive and time-consuming.
Another point to consider is that you’d effectively cover for employer’s share of the social security costs (unless they will be paying that on top of your salary, at which point they might just as well set up the UG themselves).
Not only is this a dodgy practice but you’ll also have pretty rough deal.
In any case, because this will get complicated you’d have to ask a lawyer who’s well-versed in both corporate law and social security law about the specifics.
It’d be much easier if they either were your client rather than your employer or if you were a co-founder.
I'm in a similar situation (German citizen living in Germany, working as a freelancer for a company in Asia). As far as I can tell from some research, the only "risk" is that I might have to do some back-payments into the Rentenversicherung. But if I were to be employed regularly to a company (in the EU?) the same would apply. In either case, I have to pay for the health insurance, so there's no real "avoiding the co…
Wrt to social security stuff, one should proactively run a "Statusfeststellungsverfahren" - you fill out some forms and the authorities will tell you how they declare you. That puts you on a safer side. Also there _is_ an "avoiding the cost of social security". If they consider you properly self employed and independent, you do not pay gov social security stuff, but you need to insure yourself (using private insuranc…
The possibility to use private insurance depends on having some minimum amount of income.
Also, I currently use the option to use public insurance (voluntarily) so that I can easily switch back to it once I become employed again in the future. Apparently, there is some risk of not being accepted by the public insurers after one had quit.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just a small clarification: You are still "selbständig" (self-employed) if you do a "Gewerbe". The thing you don't get easily is a so called "Freiberuf", particularly if you don't have an engineering degree (though I managed to get it). Tax wise it is actually almost easier to do non-EU business than doing business in Europe, because there are no VAT issues involved (and there are no tariffs on those things). You jus…
Can you go more into detail regarding the tax stuff? Who pays the VAT then?