Live data from Hacker News

EU–INC – A new pan-European legal entity

eu-inc.org

681–690 of 761 posts

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

#681
post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having a startup in the US is a huge mess due to all the states and taxes, if Europe can make everything digital AND easier, it's a no brainer for us to move our company there.

>>Having a startup in the US is a huge mess due to all the states and taxes, In EU you will need to deal with VAT basically from day one (10k EUR of revenue). In US you will not deal with it until you can afford it as thresholds are very generous.

You can just use a service for that if you find that too much work to do yourself. There are MoR services that do that for you for EU, AU, US states where it is required etc. It is more that most people outside the EU find it bullshit and just don't do it and complain about it anyway.

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

#682
post #650

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These trade unions are notorious for that. I worked as a labor legal advisor and especially the unions for temporary employment agency start 'barking' and demand loads of money (even from years back). Sometimes it's not even clear which union is applicable. You probably have all the info right now, but make sure everything is 'in line'. I mean, have your company codes at the tax authority match the applicable union m…

Yeah our case was strange because we develop chips and design software related to it. Belastingdienst categorized us wrongly as metalelektro, and we got this guys (Cometec) within two weeks of that. In the meantime we have applied this sector assignment to be corrected, which eventually happened while we were getting threatened into bankruptcy by these guys. What I don't understand is, we got a lot of help from RVO,…

Yeah, that stuff can be scary, I understand. It might almost feel extortionate. You had labor lawyers look at the applicable CAO and pension rules?

I quickly checked their website and it's a little unclear (so don't consider this legal advise), but their legal basis is probably the CAO. If that particular CAO has been made mandatory by law (which happens for certain industries that need tighter control from government, like temporary employment agencies), than it automatically applies to companies doing the exact work that's described in the CAO ('werkingssfeer').

It's a shame that RVO and Belastingdienst did not warn you correctly. The Netherlands does not want entrepreneurs, they want everybody cozy at their jobs at some big company.

Do you happen to be in or around Nijmegen with your chip development?

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

#683
post #194

Can't work legally speaking. There has to be a single sponsoring member state. Just sadly how the EU is designed. The only way would be to copy it individually so it is the same in each member state which breaks the purpose of it.

Weird. Seems to work for Airbus, Allianz, BASF, E.ON, Fresenius, LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (and its subsidiary Dior), SAP, Schneider Electric, TotalEnergies, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield and Vonovia. Of course, that's the existing pan-European SE which is a public company. Needs like a few sentences changed in the existing regulation to extend that to private companies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societas_Euro…

This is very different. In a SE these are incorporated and sponsored by the member state. It is like each country making an equivalent copy of the same thing.

The EU-INC is EU designated without a sponsor, which is not permissible under EU law other than for the EU institutions themselves. This is one of the red lines for the design of the EU legally speaking

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

#684

Can't work legally speaking. There has to be a single sponsoring member state. Just sadly how the EU is designed. The only way would be to copy it individually so it is the same in each member state which breaks the purpose of it.

If the EU is saying "we'll make it work", replying "can't work because that's how the EU is designed" doesn't seem like an intelligent response.

Looking at it on vibes is not intelligent either.

The design of the EU is based on a foundation where other than the EU institutions themselves the founding legal entity must sit within a member state. EU law that is one each country must replicate, there is no such way to have EU wide law without each and every member state replicating it entirely. An entity that is supranational cannot exist outside this construct & is a red line of the design of the EU itself.

This is one of the reasons the EU cannot easily raise debt for itself without going through a sponsoring member state.

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

#685
post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good thing then that there's a range of options between being let go immediately for no reason and companies being forced to employ bad employees for life.

Yes and that's basically what we have in most of Europe. Only France really has a bit of the latter. You can get rid of employees. You just have to show to the court that is necessary. Circumstances depend on whether it's individual performance or business need etc. But the at will is very harsh and we don't want this here.

In NL I guess that is similar to France; in our case we always started a binder on a new employee so after their trial period/temp contract, we continue collecting info. If that person just waited for the trial to be over to just do nothing, we go to the court with the binder and get them out. We stopped after a certain period depending on what we collected so far: most binders are empty anyway. Also, you can fire someone without that if you have economic cause (which should be the reason for firing someone good) or you can fire them without that by paying them some months in the future.

The most annoying people, which we didnt have many but still a few, are the ones who, right after the trial period, or when they smell a rat, will go 'oh no, i feel something behind my eye and in my wrist, your work made me ill' and then go home. you would have to pay them and be nice about it (not threaten them with a beating).

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

#686

It's inordinately difficult and expensive to start an LLC or SA in some EU countries. It's even difficult and expensive to _stop_ an LLC and dissolve it. Huge amount of risk and cost on founders and a huge distraction from running a business. I think that EU-Inc _could_ be an improvement, but it needs to avoid the committee laundry list of ideas/requirements/form fields that plagues the EU startup ecosystem. My worry…

You don't need business plans and all that stuff. The problem in Germany for instance is that a GmbH needs 25k of capital + expensive notarization. These are the only two things that need improvement.

In NL at least some of that changed; no more payment. It used to be 19k guilders and after about half in euros. Now nothing. The rest still the same.

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

#687

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need business plans and all that stuff. The problem in Germany for instance is that a GmbH needs 25k of capital + expensive notarization. These are the only two things that need improvement.

Came here to say the same. Founding a company in Germany is way to complicated and expensive... same for dismantling a company. I don't understand why you need a notary for everything.

Clear right? Because of notaries? They are powerful as everything official goes through them. They also do nothing usually; their underpaid underling presses a few buttons, enters a few names (often wrong the first time), prints and so on and then notary reads and signs. Money made. Luckily this has been changing a lot that some notaries smelled a rat coming and started to go for mass market, heavily undercutting all others for standard contracts; in some cities I have seen these type of places eating all the other ones. They are fast and cheap until you need custom stuff.

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

#688
post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain why?

Where should I start... :-) - They are optimized for Big funds, Holding structures and Multinationals If you are a bootstrapper, or small company or any early stage startup, the ecosystem works against you. - Setup costs are absurdly high if you include Notary around plus possibly Lawyer, Bank onboarding plus accounting you are looking at burning €10k to €20k easily before making a cent. - The scourge of the state Fo…

> Banks will treat you like a criminal by default and assume, you are laundering money, or hiding taxes and you are compliance risk. They have extreme KYC requirements, and do account freezes for trivial reasons.

I see that everywhere though; my banks in my birth country NL, one of which I have used since I was born (my parents made an acc obviously) half a century ago treat me like that every year. Achtung! We are not sure who you are, provide a lot of paperwork or else! Worse even in other countries. And they are all very afraid of US residents.

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

#689

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... and a business plan? Why would the government need a business plan? It's none of their business what you want to do with your company besides a general description as "software development" or "consulting services" or whatever.

> It's none of their business what you want to do with your company There are plenty of European member states that want the ability to control very precisely what you do with "your company". You want to call yourself "a software engineer"? Ooops... In the EU it seems particularly the German-speaking countries are borderline obsessed with a) titles, and b) whom may use those titles. See, for instance, https://news.yc…

I like that you know what an Engineer is in German, and not the 1000 BS Meanings it has in the US

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

#690

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been told by a lawyer that a common sensible step in closing companies in Germany is to first...reseat the company in the UK ... (at least pre-brexit - not sure if things have changed). Think of how bad and expensive the process has to be for this extra step to be worthwhile.

I have been trying to close a UK company for the past 2 years (created post brexit). And reseat, as others say, is not as easy; the gravity of decision making has to be in the country of incorporation; if your main shareholders and directors are physically in Germany and you reseat the company to where-ever, Germany is going to see and act like this is a de-facto German company. Hence you gain nothing, you get more p…

>Hence you gain nothing

You're saying you get nothing, but you perhaps underestimate how time-consuming and expensive even the easiest company shut down in the Germany is. (I had a very smooth process winding down my company in the UK - you have my very sincere sympathies that things are a bit rockier for you).

>if your main shareholders and directors are physically in Germany and you reseat the company to where-ever, Germany is going to see and act like this is a de-facto German company. Hence you gain nothing, you get more paper work.

Looking online, here's a german tax-advisor who talks about the strategy of liquidating your company by first merging it with a uk company, saying you can close a company in 4-6 weeks by this process (though they recommend against it after brexit for liability reasons, but mention Ireland and malta as options). In germany you have a year of waiting, and lots of additional notary/accounts work. (OTOH, I don't know how you get it down to 4-6 weeks and avoid the uk's company house gazette notification period - they must pick a different kind of company - if your fees for closing down a company in germany are going into the thousands (or tens of thousands) for notaries, liquidators fees, and the like).

https://www.stmatthew.de/brexit-gmbh-sitzverlegung

Once again, not my specialty area, I just...wanted you to know that it does happen, is a specialty area of work for some companies, and it's presumably not irrational behaviour.

Post reply on HN