It probably varies a bit from country to country. In Australia, you can either incorporate or register a business name. Then you have to register with the tax office to get a business number [separate government departments]. If you can't quote a business number on your invoices then your customers are obliged to withhold 48.5% of the invoiced amount and send it off to the tax office. To make it worse, if 80% of your income is derived from one customer then the tax office will treat you as an employee of the customer and different tax scales apply.
I hate to say it but, if Bob is to start his own business, he should talk to an accountant first. A former Prime Minister of Australia once said, "Life wasn't meant to be easy". Regards, Llew Griffiths ________________________________ Llew Griffiths & Associates Pty Limited Embedded Controller Design Consultants Melbourne, Australia http://www.llga.com.au > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:root@;fatcity.com]On Behalf Of Jaap van > Ganswijk > Sent: Tuesday, 22 October 2002 15:19 > To: Multiple recipients of list CHIPDIR-L > Subject: Will Bob start a business? was: test or ping > > > At 2002-10-21 14:44 -0800, Bob Paddock wrote: > >Any one know how I go about setting my self up as a leagal contractor? > > Despite that I am trying to get you a new job, > I think that you indeed should start your own > business. > > Here in the Netherlands it's quite easy: You go > to the local chamber of commerce and have them > fill out a form. Costs you half an hour and $50 > or so a year (and you get a free quarterly > newspaper with local business news). They can > also help you with all kinds of issues but I > didn't need that. > > You also have to inform the tax 'service' within a > week or so. > > I quit my old job as an embedded systems programmer > in januari 1997, which wasn't easy because my boss > desperately wanted to keep me. (That was not during > a recession. ;-). Anyway, I started working on the > Chipdir 'full-time', but didn't bother registering > a company yet. (You don't need to be a company to > do business.) I did that early 1998 and asked the > person at the chamber of commerce to ante-register > it as of january 1997 and that was no problem > if I was willing to pay from that date onward > which wasn't a problem for me of course (only $50 > extra). I didn't know that the tax 'service' needed > to be notified on such short notice and called them > some weeks later to inquire how I should notify them. > I got a letter 'that they had discovered that I > started a company' and summoned me to register > my company with them as soon as possible. I did > it and that was that. > > Haven't had any troubles with either of them since. > The only problem in the beginning was that it was > unclear if I should charge VAT (value added tax) to > foreign advertisers or not. I called them about > it and the expert I discussed it with couldn't > tell me because the WWW was still so new and > there was no legislation/directive about it yet. > So I did what I thought was best and later that > turned out to be the correct way. > > My experience with the Dutch tax 'service' is, that > they are very helpful when you ask them about how > to do things. They also gave new companies a book > and later CD-ROM's explaining all tax matters (and > much more) in detail and currently there is a good > WWW site, explaining it all. > > If you have any doubts starting a business you > shouldn't worry about these details much. Both > organizations will offer all kinds of help. > > Strangely enough, in those days, you would have > to register a company to get the information > that you needed to make an informed decission to > decide if you wanted to register a company... > > Luckily this information is now available for > everyone on the WWW. > > Of course you must worry about the business side > of things: Can you make enough money to support > yourself (and your family)? Before I started the > Chipdir I didn't have a good enough business idea > that could support itself yet and I had a friend > that did (or thought he had), so I worked for him. > > By the way, even if you don't know what your > business should do, just start with something > and make sure that people notice it. When you're > good it's amazing how many people will come to > you and ask you to design and sell products > that you had no idea that existed, was a market > for, but that those clients need. This happened > to my friend's business. He started out with an > idea for a combined modem, answering machine, fax > (what every $20 modem card has standard now) and > winded up making all sorts of other things like > last-call-recorders for post offices, digital > harddisk/tape recording devices for the police, > communication systems for retirement homes, > automatic taxi-call systems for bars, electronic > locks and a lot of other things. > > >> Be a consultant specialist? Safety expert (protecting them from > >> lawsuits? People love it when you know the things that need to > be done to > >> keep them out of court. > > > >I have been studying for my Certified Quality Software Engineer > certification. > >Was going to take test in December, with every thing up in the > air now, not > >sure about that. Some day maybe I can set my self up as a > software inspector > >to see that the embedded code is written safely. Following > guide lines like > >ISO9001, UL1998, MISRA, ISO9899, DO-178B and more alphabeat soup. > >Any one here ever hear of such a thing, or better need such a service? > > If you should start out for yourself, don't > underestimate the power of press releases > and/or small advertisements. > > When we had just started and had finished our first > product (the last-call-recorder PCB)we sent out > press releases to all technical magazines that we > could think of and most of them honored us with a > small article. (Most magazines appreciate ready-to-use, > well written, free, content, especially when it has > an easy to use relevant picture.) > We never sold much of those PCB's or products based > on it, but it gave us an enormous amount of contacts > and therefore ideas for products that companies and > governmental organizations wanted instead. > > One of the most important lessons we learned was, > that you should never underestimate the popular > (low-level) magazines. We got most of the response > from the articles in Elektuur and Computer!Totaal > which are popular electronics and computer magazines > of quite unscientific level, but which obviously > also get browsed through by a lot of experts (or > managers) to get inspiration (?). > > Here is the WWW site of the company of my friend: > http://www.ii.nl/idd/ > (I have given the link earlier on this list. I played > and worked there from about 1985 until januari 1997 > and I wrote most of the software during that period). > > As regards small ad's: Another friend used to put > a couple of small ad's in each saterday issue of the > Telegraaf, the most populistic Dutch newspaper in > which he offered PABX's (telephone exchanges for > businesses). What he would do was buy the existing > PABX of clients and sell them a new one, with the > main difference being that he had reprogrammed the > three EPROM's with the latest software version. > > > Greetings, > Jaap > > -- Chip Directory > -- http://www.chipdir.biz/ > -- http://www.chipdir.info/ > -- http://www.chipdir.net/ > -- http://www.chipdir.nl/ > -- http://www.chipdir.org/ > -- And about 30 other mirror sites world-wide. > -- > -- To subscribe to a free 'chip issues, questions and answers' > -- mailing list, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with > -- in the body 'subscribe chipdir-L'. About 500 experts are > -- willing to think with you about electronics problems etc. > > -- > Author: Jaap van Ganswijk > INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Fat City Network Services -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com > San Diego, California -- Mailing list and web hosting services > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message > to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in > the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB CHIPDIR-L > (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may > also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). > -- Author: Llewellyn Griffiths INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California -- Mailing list and web hosting services --------------------------------------------------------------------- To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB CHIPDIR-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
