771–780 of 789 posts
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I would say Europe in general. And I get the sense they don't aspire to social mobility either, the way Americans do.
Honestly why should I? As long as I have anything I want.
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I haven’t seen it manifest any differently elsewhere?
Americans on the Internet will often heartily agree with foreigners about all kinds of things that are shit in America and need to be changed: public transit, walkability, health care costs, university costs, money in politics, lack of basic geographic knowledge, etc. Of course there are some more conservative folks who may be more resistant to those critiques, but the average American will just nod along. If you men…
Because conservatives/progressives agree on this. What they disagree on is how to fix it.
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Americans IRL only rarely have Confederate flags these days. If you want to discuss the extreme right, say so.
I see them IRL in Washington state, which makes them unthinkably common IMO. But it is hilarious to see you respond so defensively to my comment saying Americans dislike criticism of their country.
lumping these two together clearly shows your bias and lack of knowledge on who actually voted for Trump in the last election. He won every demographic except one.
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It exists, it is called "UG", minimum capital 1€. You have to increase capital up to at least 25k though, out of your annual profits.
Why have a different category that sounds like "unserious" to german people? I can see people in procurement departments say "oh no, we don't deal with UG".
Second, not that I claim to be any representative, but this "UG is weird, unknown, not serious"... I have personally not heard that for about 10 years, so yeah, absolutely true when it was new.
Third, it's still relatively rare I'd say. You stumble over one every couple of months or years, in my experience mostly online shops without their own manufacturing (but maybe that is where I am looking) - if you just look at what tradespeople have on their vans: Nope, never. Always GmbH or GbR/single person.
But I have no insight into procurement departments.
> 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 OP really has decided to take the path of most resistance: An UG is exactly what his business is meant for. If he wants to be a GmbH just for appearance's sake then (a) a one-man band as a GmbH is no more "serious" than a UG (isn't a GmbH minimum 500 employees in any case?), and (b) it's an entity meant for something like Bosch GmbH, not J.Random Dude GmbH.
I am on the other hand constantly surprised how many AG (Aktiengesellschaft) there are in Switzerland which only employ < 10 people.
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That is refreshing to hear. Unfortunately I can't get out because of exit tax, an unrealized capital gains tax for the privilege of leaving the country. That is way worse than what I mention in this post and will get its own post soon.
That is nothing: wait until you want to _close_ a company in Germany :)
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…
> 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. But it was his call. As the author has already pointed out, he could have started a sole proprietorship, but he did not want to take on that risk. The 25'000 is because it's not his risk if he starts a GmbH, it's the GmbH's r…
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Is the gmbh pierce proof? Because then I like the situation where if you start with $25,000 under no circumstance can they get past the liability shield.
Usually, yes. There are a few exceptions, such as serious misconduct, tax fraud and not declaring insolvency when necessary. But as long as you're following the law, you're fine.
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> So if you have an Estonian equevilant of a GmbH/AG your company will get taxed by Estonia and your salary by Germany Estonian CIT is 0%. If you pay dividends (which is not required), or if you pay director’s salary (optional if you’re a one-man company without a ton of admin), those will be taxed in Estonia. If you only pay yourself for your actual services – no taxes in Estonia. Germany might tax your Estonian com…
Estonia isn't 0% cit . Tax is just deferred until distribution.
You might have to pay yourself a director’s salary. That would indeed be taxed at 22%, but you still only have to bill for the time you actually do admin / management work. So if you spend, say, 5 days a month on it and 15 days a month on everything else, the effective rate would work out to 5,5%.
And for a single shareholder company with no employees and under 2M € annual revenue (and probably some other criteria like not having employees or veing liable for VAT or something) it is the general practice to just not pay the director’s salary at all.
(This is probably a gross oversimplification, definitely ask a real accountant about the details.)