You can still go for a UG or GmbH later. It's really not necessary in the beginning, especially if you have hardly any revenue.
Getting a GbR (Gesellschaft bürgerlichen Rechts ) setup is also possible at the Bürgeramt and similarly easy.
Also: as mentioned in the interview getting a "Steuerberater" once you have some income is a good thing to do. They can advice you in many financial and basic legal things and do most of the paperwork for you so one can concentrate on actual work ;-)
still you have to know enough german or have a german friend who can help you.
in my case we are bootstraped and the cost of a Steuerberater (tax advisor) is kind of high so we are delaying it as much as possible. Still I will need one next month :)
I would actually recommend seeing a Steuerberater before you form your company or register anything anywhere. There's a lot of money you can save on that front.
In any case the registration at the Gewerbeamt (Gewerbeschein) is a different beast than the contract and paperwork needed to form a company. In some cases freelancers are required to register and in some cases companies can be exempt. It's basically a license to do business. If you register you need to pay Gewerbesteuer which can be costly (you can deduct that from you income taxes but often not in full).
So if you can freelance instead of registering a Gewerbe for a single person, do so, by all means. Talk to a tax accountant to know if you really need to register.
the bank asked me for the contract, I guess I can have a GbR founding contract without registering the GbR, but I registered just in case.
Thanks for the tip. I'll try to look it up. As a quick question, do these two forms provide you the same liability protection as LLC?
What about bookkeeping regulations? Is it any simpler than UG/GmbH? Simple that I can do it myself, with only a minimal help of Steuerberater?
is not actually a legal form. It only means that you are a single entrepreneur/founder.
> Gewerbeschein
is not required in all cases, especially not for IT people. The final decision is with the tax administration. Your tax accountant can help you there. The general consensus is that if you can avoid it and be a regular freelancer, do so. In pretty much any case you need it if you form a UG or GmbH.
Bookkeeping regulations depend partially on how much income you have. If you have less than 17 500 Euros income a year you can actually be VAT exempt which removes the need for a Umsatzsteuervoranmeldung, but on the other end of the spectrum, you can have the full bookkeeping requirement similar the one that a GmbH has for a GbR if the GbR earns too much.
This is not correct. The default case is Einnahmen-Überschuss-Rechnung, but if you surpass either 400k/year (or in some cases 600k per year) for two years, you're subject to double accounting even as Einzelunternehmer or GbR. The tax administration can even compel you to double accounting in other cases (like high earnings in a couple of month). I know, since our GbR was subject to double accounting. Sadly.
Right, but a Gewerbeschein helps if you have any other income that's not from freelancing. For example Google AdSense or Amazon Affiliate links etc.
Limited Liability is what you're aiming at.
That is correct, but in most cases highly overrated for people just starting out, especially in IT. An IT-Betriebshaftpflicht (insurance) could be considered though, depending on the type of work you do.
sure, depending on the income. However, having one subjects you to gewerbesteuer which you can otherwise avoid. So you might want to balance the benefits against the costs.
> That is correct, but in most cases highly overrated for people just starting out, especially in IT
It's highly overrated especially if you're a single person enterprise since then, the owner/ceo can be personally liable in a couple of situations. It's a pretty definite must though if you consider having employees.
Depending on what you want from the company you need a GmbH/UG or similar construction. For example it's very hard to find investors for a GbR since a GbR is not a legal persona and cannot own assets. So all the money invested would be basically given to the founders. For various legal reasons it's very hard to invest money into a startup as a GbR, the chief reason is that the GbR is not required to register who is the CEO and can legally speak for the company.
Still, the chief reason people form a UG/GmbH is limited liability :)
The larger issue associated with both legal forms are actually the bookkeeping requirements since unlike a GbR or freelance, the company is actual a legal entity and does own all its money, so you need to pay yourself a wage instead of just taking money from the company. However, you can get a tax accountant to do all the bookkeeping for you for a reasonable amount.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aktiengesellschaft_(Vereinigtes...
If you want to start a company in germany, it's a good idea to start as a one-man-show ("Einzelunternehmer") or if your more than one founder as a GbR ("Gesellschaft bürgerlichen Rechts"). The "more professional" GmbH ("Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung") is more expensive and has a lot of costs and paperwork involved.
Oh, and if you can effort an Steuerberater, do it! It saves a lot of time and stress!
I would say for IT: Either go Freiberuflich, or GmbH. Freiberuflich has the benefit of easier book keeping, lower tax (no Gewerbersteuer), and the drawback of liability and that you must not sell things (e.g. computers, or of the shelf software), but only own code or design. GmbH has the drawback that you need to do real book keeping, and likely need a Steuerberater.
The GbR is the default to avoid. One can do it as single founder, as long as there is no risk. But once you have more founders go for a different form.
something along the lines of "no big company makes business with a GbR".
Are you something like a freelancer/coder? Nobody gives a shit about your type of business. The task is to get the job done.
Do you have a B2C business? Customers absolutely don't care.
Do you have a B2B business selling a product or a service? Well, then it might make a difference, but not to every client.
People in Germany are waaaay to self-conscious about the type of company (Rechtsform). It is understandable somehow. I went to a couple seminars (Existenzgründungsseminare) and 2 out of 4 presentations were by lawyers about picking the Rechtsform. Who gives a shit? The attendees didn't earn a single Euro yet and still, they were discussing the Rechtsform as it was the most important thing on earth.