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Comment by quonn | Hacker News Reader

I did it, it's very easy. It just requires opening a bank account and then an appointment at the notary. All in all it takes about two hours. Obviously in Germany the documents are in German, this should not be a surprise. Most people doing business there will speak German and I'm sure many lawyers would help those who do not with the setup.

edit: Yes, you need a tax accountant to do your taxes later, but that's not related to registering. They also can do your normal accounting which you will need if you pay salaries. It's normal in most countries.

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My first thought after reading the article was "the comments will be full of German people explaining that this is actually not complicated, and is in fact very efficient and therefore good."

I have seen it with a Delaware company and checked out the process in Spain. I wouldn't call it much easier there.

> Yes, you need a tax accountant to do your taxes later […] It's normal in most countries.

What is not normal is the price tag attached to it. 1000-2000€ for a tax filing for a company with no profits (or not revenue, it’s all the same) can be called anything but normal. The reason for this is that in Germany the tax accounting prices are cartel-regulated.

I don't think there is any way you can describe that process that I list in the post as "very easy".

Since the tone is hyperbolic, it's hard to discern how much it has been exaggerated/misrepresented (I suspect a lot).

For example, for someone who describes themselves as:

> I have learnt German. I speak fluent German. I am German.

The following:

> To have the Steuerberater file your tax returns on your behalf, you have to grant them Power of Attorney, so that is another nice form for you to fill out. I could have signed away one of my kidneys for all I know. It’s in German.

is grossly misrepresented. Power of attorney forms are generally easy to understand. Here's a sample one: https://www.vollmacht-muster.de/diverse-vollmachten/vollmach.... Anybody who's fluent in German could read and understand it, certainly not mistaking it for signing a kidney away. For those who don't, forms like this can be discussed with an English-speaking accountant (and there are), no reason to fuss about.

EDIT: No doubt that Germany has an English language problem - a significant part of the 40/45+ y.o. population speaks it poorly, so bureaucracy is definitely a problem. This also applies to the south of Europe, though.

No misrepresentation. Not even really any exaggeration I would say. Some attempts at humour, yes (like the PoA bit).ie I was aware the PoA would not affect my kidneys.

Sounds like you talked to a notary, talked to an accountant, opened a bank account and registered with a couple organizations. You never actually describe any difficulty you had registering with any of them other than like "it’s german" and "it took some time"

How did you get the bank account before the company? You can't act "as" the company before it being founded.

You can. You use your new/unregistered company name and the suffix "in formation" ("i.G."). Technically the company exists immediately in this "i.G." form without any paper work or process from the moment the founders decide to create the company. Later you tell the bank to change the name (for free) by showing them the documents you got when registering. The bank will do this for you anyway if you don't know about it.

The reason the bank account has to be created first is that you deposit the 25k there and pay the registration process fees from it.

That only works after you've been to the Notary, I think. The company doesn't exist at all before that step. It's Nothing => Notary => in Gründung ("in formation") => Registry Publication => Completed.

No bank will give you a company account on the promise that you'll go see the Notary next.

The company exists from the moment you decide to create it. [0]

This company is already an "entity" and can act accordingly. It can, for example, make contracts, hire, buy stuff and open a bank account. The main difference is that the owners are still liable. Liability only ends once the process has been completed.

In practice these processes happen concurrently. You call the notary to make an appointment and a bank to create an account. Then you show up at the bank first and the notary later and then afterwards submit the documents you received to the bank and you are done.

To me this seems neither complicated nor strange.

edit: I think you have a point about the timeframe. I can't remember this exactly, it may be that the bank account is completed after the notary. Nevertheless it just starts concurrently and the "i.G." exists from the very start, even before the notary. The process is concurrent and short and both the bank and notary will tell you whatever you need (except your company statute/contract which you need to draw up before or use a template). So I'm surprised the author found a need to do much by themselves.

[0] "die Gesellschaft besteht vom Zeitpunkt des Zusammenschlusses der Gründer", "Mit dem formgültigen Satzungsbeschluss der GmbH" ("at the moment the founders formally pass the statute" - this is when you formally create the company. This can be over a beer at home if you want. You draw up a contract and shake hands and from that moment the company starts to exist.) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vor-GmbH

You have a GbR (or OHG) then, not a GmbH i.G., so you'll create the GbR, and then convert it into the GmbH. I assume that step comes with extra costs?

Feels overly complicated, the process I know is to see the Notary and then go see the bank with the company papers (GmbH i.G. / Vor-GmbH), create the account as the company and deposit the required amount. You'll then inform the Notary and provide the proof of deposit, and he'll complete the registration.

> I assume that step comes with extra costs?

No. The GbR does not have to be created formally. It exists just by deciding to start a company. There is no formality at all. This is, by the way, a fully functional company. It does not have an "i.G." suffix itself, because there is no process that could be completed. It already exists. It's kind of like you don't have to register to be a "participant in traffic" when you ride a bike, but you do when you ride a car. But there is not formal process to become a "participant in traffic".

Now what you want to do is to limit liability and to do that you create the GmbH. This GmbH will then get the "i.G." suffix.

In any case this is really only interesting for a lawyer to decide on edge cases. Such as what would happen if you break a law before being at the notary and things like that. In practice the process is just to draw up the contract (download and adapt a template), then go to the bank and notary in parallel. Then you're done. (Afterwards you also submit the data to the central register).

if I recall correctly, we could open the bank account before the company was properly registered but we only had something like 30days to submit the registration documents.

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