4 ms·

But the company wants a proper invoice. And not every single developer is interested in founding a Limited and getting the tax office breathing down their neck

by mbirth 11mo ago

But the company wants a proper invoice. And not every single developer is interested in founding a Limited and getting the tax office breathing down their neck every year. Also, look at Gitea. People got paranoid and forked the project after the original author did exactly that.

Klonoar 11mo ago
> But the company wants a proper invoice. And not every single developer is interested in founding a Limited and getting the tax office breathing down their neck every year. I feel like it shouldn't be poor form to say on this site - a site that predominantly has been about building tech companies and revenue streams - to get over it and charge them.
- venturecruelty 11mo ago
  Especially a site that frequently champions, shall we say... more creative forms of running a company in its early stages (like how Spotify started out charging money for pirated music). If it's okay for OpenAI to launder copyright, it's okay for you to send a net-30 PDF to a Fortune 500 company. Alternatively, people could just stop complaining about it.
  - faidit 11mo ago
    Well the laws are like spider webs that only catch small bugs. It's "okay" for a Spotify or OpenAI because they can hire lawyers and expect to blitzscale. Harder to take those risks for a random solo developer who just wants to make things.
- aleph_minus_one 11mo ago
  [flagged]
  - ipaddr 11mo ago
    OpenCollective Europe You receive the money as contractor wages
  - Klonoar 11mo ago
    Well not every country is Germany. Dunno what to tell you there. The second half of that also sounds unhinged.
    - aleph_minus_one 11mo ago
      > The second half of that also sounds unhinged. Since Hacker News also centers on entrepreneurship: I know quite some entrepreneurs in Germany who think this way about the bureacratic chicanery that companies have to handle, and already thought about whether hiring a hitman for these politicians would be a good idea. The hate for the political caste in Germany among many people is insane.
      - askmike 11mo ago
        These laws may very well be terrible, but no need to mention on an internet forum you want to help (hire?) someone to mass murder people involved in making them. Jokes and sarcasm don't always land as intended. As to a more constructive path: bureaucracy all over EU is definitely considered a big problem (for startups, and for many others) and there are a bunch of movements aimed at addressing them at all kinds of levels. For example look at the eu acc movement.
      - distances 11mo ago
        One should hire an accountant to handle the bureaucracy, and of course charge enough to make that viable. And you should stop airing your murderous dreams in public, that's disturbed no matter your feelings towards politicians.
        renewiltord 11mo ago
        This is very entertaining. "Sir, this is a Christian website".
        AllegedAlec 11mo ago
        "My god, a slight hyperbole! Let me run over to my jewelry box and get some pearls to clutch!"
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
  - emmelaich 11mo ago
    You should definitely charge enough to hire an accountant to handle the bureaucracy. This might be multiples of the payment for the technical bits but probably still cheaper than a hitman/woman.
  - soloridindan 11mo ago
    At least where I live you can hire an accountant from an accounting company for $n/hr so you can ask them >"hey, can I do this?" <"no, you'll need fields from forms X,Y and the price needs to be at least Z with them" Same goes with a law-person. Then if you're lazy you'll just look at how much they cost you in some timeframe and add that to the price, and find that you've lowballed so hard you'll get laughed out of the bidding
- mbirth 11mo ago
  Depending on the local laws, that's easier said than done. E.g. in Germany, a private entity (read: person) can't just bill a company. And you can't just write something that resembles an invoice either. Especially, you're not allowed to make it look like a business invoice by putting net sums on it. A German business on the other side of the transaction rarely will pay anything if there's not a proper invoice (listing net sums and VAT separately) on file. And they usually also require the (business) tax ID of the other party. To be fair, founding a business is a matter of filling in some form, paying a small fee, and a few days of time (depending on the workload of your local trade office). But still - if this is a one-off thing and you don't even know whether there will be more... I'm not sure I'd want to go through the hassle. Especially if it means having to hire an accountant with monthly costs, when I don't even know whether there will be more income.
  - Klonoar 11mo ago
    In case it wasn't clear from my other comments up and down this comment chain, I don't really care about the specifics of Germany. If it's hard for you[1] to do it in Germany, then suck it up and figure it out. More than enough has been written about how the ecosystem in various EU countries stifles entrepreneurship. It's not new information, but it's not a problem for the vast majority of people reading this site. This site is also focused on supporting entrepreneurship, we should be supporting the default approach of getting paid for your work. Germany needs to change, not the stance of this site or the argument of charging for your work/time/etc. [1] (the proverbial you)
    - rurban 11mo ago
      Germany doesn't need to change, just Germans need to change talking lot of bullshit. I registered a private SW development entity in Germany easily, without any costs. You just need to declare it as System SW, not Applications, or you'll have to pay Gewerbesteuer and Kammermitgliedschaft. Which is a lot and not needed at all. Your yearly taxes are trivial, no need for an accountant.
carlosjobim 11mo ago
Come on, stop with this slave mentality please. You can make invoices without funding any company and without the tax office getting in your hair. It's not illegal to charge for your services and never has been. You can declare that income just fine, or skip it. The tax office won't bother you.
- SoftTalker 11mo ago
  The IRS will definitely bother you if they figure out you have unreported income. Will they find out? Maybe not if it’s a few hundred or even a few thousand dollars. More than $10K? Then it gets more likely. If a client sends you a 1099 then they’ll certainly know.
  - phendrenad2 11mo ago
    Reporting income from freelancing is no more difficult than reporting income from your day job. So we're left still mystified what mbirth was talking about.
  - digi59404 11mo ago
    They’ll know because in the US and abroad the banks send the balances and transactions to the IRS. I get letters every year/6 months that I’m subject to additional withholding because they haven’t gotten any $$ but they show I have.
    - SoftTalker 11mo ago
      AFAIK only transactions over $10k are reported, maybe different between personal and business accounts?
      - salawat 11mo ago
        Reporting to tax authorities by banks/financial institutions was bumped down to any receiving of an amount in excess of $600 during the Biden admin.

by mbirth 11mo ago

Klonoar 11mo ago

> But the company wants a proper invoice. And not every single developer is interested in founding a Limited and getting the tax office breathing down their neck every year. I feel like it shouldn't be poor form to say on this site - a site that predominantly has been about building tech companies and revenue streams - to get over it and charge them.

venturecruelty 11mo ago
Especially a site that frequently champions, shall we say... more creative forms of running a company in its early stages (like how Spotify started out charging money for pirated music). If it's okay for OpenAI to launder copyright, it's okay for you to send a net-30 PDF to a Fortune 500 company. Alternatively, people could just stop complaining about it.
- faidit 11mo ago
  Well the laws are like spider webs that only catch small bugs. It's "okay" for a Spotify or OpenAI because they can hire lawyers and expect to blitzscale. Harder to take those risks for a random solo developer who just wants to make things.
aleph_minus_one 11mo ago
[flagged]
- ipaddr 11mo ago
  OpenCollective Europe You receive the money as contractor wages
- Klonoar 11mo ago
  Well not every country is Germany. Dunno what to tell you there. The second half of that also sounds unhinged.
  - aleph_minus_one 11mo ago
    > The second half of that also sounds unhinged. Since Hacker News also centers on entrepreneurship: I know quite some entrepreneurs in Germany who think this way about the bureacratic chicanery that companies have to handle, and already thought about whether hiring a hitman for these politicians would be a good idea. The hate for the political caste in Germany among many people is insane.
    - askmike 11mo ago
      These laws may very well be terrible, but no need to mention on an internet forum you want to help (hire?) someone to mass murder people involved in making them. Jokes and sarcasm don't always land as intended. As to a more constructive path: bureaucracy all over EU is definitely considered a big problem (for startups, and for many others) and there are a bunch of movements aimed at addressing them at all kinds of levels. For example look at the eu acc movement.
    - distances 11mo ago
      One should hire an accountant to handle the bureaucracy, and of course charge enough to make that viable. And you should stop airing your murderous dreams in public, that's disturbed no matter your feelings towards politicians.
      - renewiltord 11mo ago
        This is very entertaining. "Sir, this is a Christian website".
        AllegedAlec 11mo ago
        "My god, a slight hyperbole! Let me run over to my jewelry box and get some pearls to clutch!"
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- emmelaich 11mo ago
  You should definitely charge enough to hire an accountant to handle the bureaucracy. This might be multiples of the payment for the technical bits but probably still cheaper than a hitman/woman.
- soloridindan 11mo ago
  At least where I live you can hire an accountant from an accounting company for $n/hr so you can ask them >"hey, can I do this?" <"no, you'll need fields from forms X,Y and the price needs to be at least Z with them" Same goes with a law-person. Then if you're lazy you'll just look at how much they cost you in some timeframe and add that to the price, and find that you've lowballed so hard you'll get laughed out of the bidding
mbirth 11mo ago
Depending on the local laws, that's easier said than done. E.g. in Germany, a private entity (read: person) can't just bill a company. And you can't just write something that resembles an invoice either. Especially, you're not allowed to make it look like a business invoice by putting net sums on it. A German business on the other side of the transaction rarely will pay anything if there's not a proper invoice (listing net sums and VAT separately) on file. And they usually also require the (business) tax ID of the other party. To be fair, founding a business is a matter of filling in some form, paying a small fee, and a few days of time (depending on the workload of your local trade office). But still - if this is a one-off thing and you don't even know whether there will be more... I'm not sure I'd want to go through the hassle. Especially if it means having to hire an accountant with monthly costs, when I don't even know whether there will be more income.
- Klonoar 11mo ago
  In case it wasn't clear from my other comments up and down this comment chain, I don't really care about the specifics of Germany. If it's hard for you[1] to do it in Germany, then suck it up and figure it out. More than enough has been written about how the ecosystem in various EU countries stifles entrepreneurship. It's not new information, but it's not a problem for the vast majority of people reading this site. This site is also focused on supporting entrepreneurship, we should be supporting the default approach of getting paid for your work. Germany needs to change, not the stance of this site or the argument of charging for your work/time/etc. [1] (the proverbial you)
  - rurban 11mo ago
    Germany doesn't need to change, just Germans need to change talking lot of bullshit. I registered a private SW development entity in Germany easily, without any costs. You just need to declare it as System SW, not Applications, or you'll have to pay Gewerbesteuer and Kammermitgliedschaft. Which is a lot and not needed at all. Your yearly taxes are trivial, no need for an accountant.

carlosjobim 11mo ago

Come on, stop with this slave mentality please. You can make invoices without funding any company and without the tax office getting in your hair. It's not illegal to charge for your services and never has been. You can declare that income just fine, or skip it. The tax office won't bother you.

SoftTalker 11mo ago
The IRS will definitely bother you if they figure out you have unreported income. Will they find out? Maybe not if it’s a few hundred or even a few thousand dollars. More than $10K? Then it gets more likely. If a client sends you a 1099 then they’ll certainly know.
- phendrenad2 11mo ago
  Reporting income from freelancing is no more difficult than reporting income from your day job. So we're left still mystified what mbirth was talking about.
- digi59404 11mo ago
  They’ll know because in the US and abroad the banks send the balances and transactions to the IRS. I get letters every year/6 months that I’m subject to additional withholding because they haven’t gotten any $$ but they show I have.
  - SoftTalker 11mo ago
    AFAIK only transactions over $10k are reported, maybe different between personal and business accounts?
    - salawat 11mo ago
      Reporting to tax authorities by banks/financial institutions was bumped down to any receiving of an amount in excess of $600 during the Biden admin.