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Comment by nickb | Hacker News Reader

"Remember, you can always transform an LLC into a C corporation at a later date."

Sure, but the process is not easy nor cheap! It will cost you more to convert LLC to a C than by forming C right away.

What you should have done is form an S and then convert it to C later on. Converting S to C is a matter of filing one form and you don't even need an accountant/lawyer to do it.

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With S-corporations,

"Shareholders must be U.S. citizens or residents, and must be natural persons"

Since I live in Europe, the potential to find and add a co-founder or two who is not a US citizen is there, and an LLC would still work for that, afaik. Or at least it may be a possibility, whereas I'm sure it isn't with an S-corp.

Why did you form a US company then? VC money?! You should have formed a local one.

Cost of an LLC in Oregon: $55

Cost of an SrL in Italy: north of 3000 Euro

Cost of something similar in Austria, where we recently moved, and I don't speak the language yet: much closer to the Italian one than the Oregon one.

It would be insane for me to throw that kind of money away when I can just do it at 'home', and any businesses I do are likely to be internet based.

If you are anywhere in the EU you can probably start a British limited company, even if helpful government officials say you should register with the local overpriced companies registry. In The Netherlands there are several law firms that specialize in this, and they charge about EUR 500. I imagine lawyers in other EU countries have figured out the same trick by now. One thing to keep in mind is that you may expose your company to being sued in the UK, but you probably should be avoiding getting sued anyway.

Yep, thought about that too, but in the end, it's still an order of magnitude more expensive, involves a country I'm less familiar with than the one I'm from, and I just wanted to get something set up for Squeezed Books without thinking the choice through any more (I've been considering it for several months).

You can also consider setting up a single proprietorship or an unlimited partnership for the time being. That's a lot cheaper in Holland, and I imagine also in most European countries. The only big problem is that you cannot borrow money without being personally liable, and you cannot sell shares, but if you just need a "business" for the time being for tax purposes and to order stuff from places that will only sell to businesses (more common in Europe than in the US), it will do fine. In fact, I once set up a single proprietorship for the sole purpose of being able to buy food for cheap at a restaurant supply store, and it cost me about half of the Oregon LLC referred to earlier, and was done in a half an hour at the Chamber of Commerce, without lawyers involved.

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