On 10 Feb 2010, at 18:40, Rafael Bugajewski wrote: > On 02/10/2010, at 07:19 PM, Caius Durling wrote: > >> On 10 Feb 2010, at 17:59, Jon Buys wrote: >> >>> Thank you all for your responses. My mind is made up, I'm not going to >>> worry about incorporating until there is a valid reason to do so. >> >> >> I'll just drop another thanks in here to you all, I'm (almost) in the same >> position as Jon and had started to wonder whether a LTD would make sense or >> not. (I'm UK based.) :) > > You have to keep in mind that local law is very different in all countries. > If you want to reduce your liability in Germany, you need to found a so > called GmbH. The GmbH must have a minimum founding capital of €25,000, so a > lot of indies work as the equivalent of a sole proprietor. > > At all, this is a very difficult topic and you should discuss it with your > lawyer / tax accountant and not on this list.
I happen to be a tax accountant in the UK, aside from also being a developer. Even if you live in Germany you CAN in fact set up a UK Limited company, but as you no doubt want to manage it yourself it will be deemed to be situated in Germany rather than in the UK. So while it is registered under the English Companies Act (the legislation that sets the framework for how a limited company can operate) and has to comply with it, it also need to be registered as a branch in Germany due to having a permanent establishment there. The UK company then gets onto the German company register as well, and receives a German company registration number. However the company is still British and the German branch is merely a local office. The branch also needs a separate German bookkeeping and has to comply with all the tax laws in Germany. You trade via the company as if it were an AG (which is the equivalence of a Limited company), only that you only need to pay in whatever share capital you as the owner decides that the company should have, for example £1000. As the UK company doesn't trade as such, it is basically dormant in the UK and only needs to be maintained to stay on the company register. This is all fully legal and approved by the EU. There are some more information here: http://www.frankfurt-main.ihk.de/english/business/legal_forms/zweigniederlassung/index.html http://ec.europa.eu/youreurope/business/expanding-business/opening-branch/germany/index_en.htm Robert ------------------------------------ MacSB email guidelines: http://tinyurl.com/2g55d6 Use MacSB-Talk for off topic messages: http://groups.google.com/group/macsb-talk Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/macsb/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/macsb/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
