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Comment by davidw | Hacker News Reader

Sorry to hear about starfighter, but it looks like you've more than landed on your feet. Good luck! I think with a big company at your back, you may be able to leverage that to do some great things.

People in the US have no idea how easy they have it with creating a company, something I helped to fix a little tiny bit in Italy: https://blog.therealitaly.com/2015/04/16/fixing-italy-a-litt...

One of the key points:

> All told, the price of creating a company in Italy was several months worth of salary for the average Italian worker, whereas even at minimum wage, someone in Oregon could open that LLC after a few days worth of work.

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In Denmark you log in using your national identity card (a card with some one-off passcodes) on the following webpage; limited liability companies carries a fee of approx 100 USD, other forms of companies are free.

The process takes a few minutes in the simplest case:

https://indberet.virk.dk/myndigheder/stat/ERST/Start_virksom...

It's not for nothing that .dk is #3 on this list:

http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings

But their reported procedures/costs differ from what you wrote:

http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/denmark/#...

Something that's nice in the US as compared to most continental European countries is that no 'initial capital' is required.

In Austria, you don't need any capital at all, to start a EPU (One-Person-Company) which is really convenient.

Same in Denmark; you only need capital for certain kinds of limited liability companies.

Limited Liability Companies are "real" companies that you need to do real things like take investments or take on other people as partners, without putting your other assets (houses, etc...) at risk.

Unless you're doing something super simple, you don't want to mess around with a "single proprietorship" or the like.

In most states you can freely run a business under your own name, and if you'd like a business name to be simply an alias for yourself (not a separate legal person) a Doing Business As arrangement is trivial, fast, and cheap.

But the whole point of a company is limited liability, an entity which can own property, sue and be sued, etc. separately from its collection of owners.

Yep, pretty much this, it's the limited liability you incorporate for.

> In Austria, you don't need any capital at all, to start a EPU (One-Person-Company) which is really convenient.

You can do that in any country. Austria sucks donkeyballs for staring an actual company however. You need 35.000 in capital and you need to involve a notary. The additional cost for actually getting the company in place is a few thousand euro, you need to listen to the notary read down the contract you made yourself and then you are subject to all sorts of utterly bizarre rules and regulations such as publishing your yearly report in a specific newspaper which charges you an arm and a leg for this privilege.

Can we please fix this?

Heh - your comment reminds me of one of my impressions of Austria, where we spent a couple years: "a lot of the same bureaucratic BS as Italy, just administered a lot more efficiently".

I'm cautiously optimistic that things are going to change. The bureaucracy is efficient, no doubt there. However some of it just has no reason to exist and we all would be better off by getting rid of it.

> Heh - your comment reminds me of one of my impressions of Austria, where we spent a couple years: "a lot of the same bureaucratic BS as Italy, just administered a lot more efficiently".

German administration feels exactly the same. I have heard that situation being called "Prussian administration": slow and cumbersome to operate like a Prussian tank, efficient in its task like a Prussian tank.

BTW, here is a Prussian tank: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A7V#/media/File:A7v-wotan-dior...

It seems incredible that you need such a lot of money. What is the justification given by politicians or those who support such a system?

UK it's £20, no capital needed, ten minute job online.

It's come down since you've tried, its £12 now.

Getting a business bank account is also trivial and you can do it over the phone. Pretty awesome.

Really? 2.5 years ago still involved going to a bank, signing in blood, and several hours. Most complicated past of the process, would be good to hear it had changed

I started a Ltd a couple of months ago and applied online for a Santander business account, I had my card and account set up within 7 days or so (I was away from home so it could've been quicker). I got a company credit card 2(!) days after applying online to Barclays. No phone calls, no visits to a branch for either.

Interesting. I switched to Barclays for my personal accounts, and they seem unusually tech savvy.

I'm with them for personal and the app is great (website also pretty good but it has an unusually strict timeout on entering indentity codes that makes me sit there with the app poised, so I can enter it within 3 seconds!)

Santander's mobile app is awful though. It kind of works but it's a chunky pre-iOS 7 hybrid monstrosity. Web access is pretty smooth however.

Co-op who I was previously are a crap beast on all counts.

It depends on the bank I think, some are still doing it that way but others you can set up over the phone no problem.

As in a useable account? IIRC in the UK we had to show birth certs, drivers licence, have an interview, present a business plan, sign several lots of dead tree, provide details of other finances ... just to get a deposit account.

Yes, I did it this year, over the phone, ready to use same day.

Golly, looking at that table I really wonder how Canada is #105 for "Getting electricity". Energy is one of our largest export sectors, how on earth are we so incapable of electricity?

It is the same here.

Over the past few decades we got our rules "synced" to the rest of the EU (or the rest of the world). We now have several forms of limited liability companies. The capital requirement ranges from approx. 0.20 USD (IVS) to 100.000 USD (A/S) (or more ... if you want to make a bank).

It used to be that to do a Danish LLC you had to put up at least 20.000 USD in capital but because of the EU you could just go to the UK and start a LLC with no/very little capital there and then operate in DK with the same creditor protection.

Anyways; the point was that in many places creating a company is of very little trouble.

One thing I like about the US is that there are so many different jurisdictions all in the business of having competitive incorporation services. So although LLC formation might cost $800 in California, it can be like $50 in a nearby state.

Both a feature and a bug, is that there is no federal incorporation statute for private persons in the United States.

> although LLC formation might cost $800 in California

That sounded really high, so I looked it up here:

http://www.sos.ca.gov/business-programs/business-entities/fo...

It looks like CA is $70, unless I'm missing something. I've never started an LLC in CA though. (EDIT: keep reading down the thread for more clarification.)

(But: there's another thread here that says IL is $500, which does appear to be correct.)

The $800 usually mentioned is actually the yearly minimum tax for an LLC in CA.

From the LLC-1 form:

"Filing Form LLC-1 will obligate most LLCs to pay an annual minimum $800 tax to the California Franchise Tax Board. For more information about taxes, go to https://www.ftb.ca.gov."

Awesome, thanks for the clarification!

CA is not a small business friendly state. $800 is the hefty minimum amount of tax a corp has to paid annually even it makes no money.

not anymore in Italy you can create a new type of company: S.r.l.s. (società a repsonsbailita limitata semplice) with only a few hundreds euros I'm italian and owner of an S.r.l.s.

Errrr, yes, that's what I helped create:

https://web.archive.org/web/20120831053519/http://www.govern...

It makes me very happy that it's working out for you!

Same in Croatia, 100 Euros for a j.d.o.o. (simple limited liability company) vs cca. 4000 Euros for d.o.o. (limited liability company 3k for capital, 1k expenses). I still wouldn't recommend, since VAT is 25% and capital gains is 20% (which is ok). Bulgaria and Romania have better terms and are within EU too.

AFAIK, LLC in Bulgaria requires no capital, there's 50 euro tax for the opening; VAT is 20% and the capital gains are 10%.

I'm honestly considering opening a company in Bulgaria instead of Croatia. I guess I'll visit Sofia within next six months and check out what I need.

If you have to go abroad, why not UK or Ireland?

UK - eventual Brexit and I'm doing business within EU, and Bulgaria is closer than Ireland, if I have to go there. If Brexit is canceled then I'll reconsider.

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