4 ms·

As someone who has been in business here since 2007, i would stop you right there! We have our share of a bureaucracy (example: took 6 months to get reply from

by dcc1 13y ago

As someone who has been in business here since 2007, i would stop you right there! We have our share of a bureaucracy (example: took 6 months to get reply from Revenue as to what VAT to pay or not on sales of hosting packages, 23% sales tax (VAT) on customers from EU-28 was the answer eventually) and you quickly realise there are 3 types of companies here: 1. Large corporations setting up shops to launder money onto somewhere warmer in Caribbean, these often dont hire many people or pay much in any tax despite moving billions (example Apple in Cork) 2. Small indigenous companies who dont receive much support, run by small families who never really grow to become large companies EU or worldwide, ask anyone outside of Ireland to name an Irish company beside Ryanair! And no Guinness are UK company 3. Zombie companies still clinging on from the haydays of the last boom, supported by taxpayers bailing out the banks, surviving thanks to the inbred gombeenism that is still prevailent despite the largest recession in any of the developed countries since 2007, see this great lecture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LCofepdUzE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LCofepdUzE

merrua 13y ago
Ireland doesnt have sales price, do you mean VAT? Edit. Sorry you have it on brackets on the next line.
- dcc1 13y ago
  Yes sorry VAT (i called it sales tax for US readers to relate) We have a lowish corporation tax of 12.5% yes paid on company profits, but everything else is very high! For example out of a ~€39000 salary last year after all taxes i was left with €25000, things get rapidly worse from there if you want to move money from your company to yourself, people can check http://www.deloitte.ie/tc/ http://www.deloitte.ie/tc/ for ideas of what income taxes people pay here As a director one could take a company loan (illegal above certain % but dont think anyone checks) but this would be liable to witholding tax of about 20% Capital gains is 33% here. And of course VAT of 23%.. tl.dr: the taxation structure here works great for large corporations who can hire expensive accountants to launder literally billions thru' Ireland to warmer climes BUT for anyone running a normal small business, expect to hand over 20-40% of your earnings and anything left after you pay income taxes for example, is heavily taxed with loads of stealth taxes (tv license, house tax, soon water tax etc etc) and of course 23% on anything you buy (essentials like food aside, some of these have lower VAT tax rate)
  - merrua 13y ago
    Did you find it difficult to get Incorporated as well? or is was that fast, just everything afterwards tedious and slow? Did you found in Ireland?
    - dcc1 13y ago
      No incorporation was extremely easy and fast. Its afterwards when the fun begins especially if you are in IT where Revenue might not know how to tax you and you need get a written judgement (So they don't accuse you of not paying taxes). For example I would love to start a bitcoin related business but afraid of what decision they might make (according to newspaper last week they are still deciding) Overall starting business here is not too bad, its growing and expanding that is hard, and misconception that Ireland is low tax, it is not nor is it a cheap place to live. Everytime i hear americans complain about sales taxes I say you seen nothing yet :D
      - merrua 13y ago
        It would be an interesting book to read about the difficulty in growing a company in Ireland. I have not heard about the unique problems. U.K. yes. Continent of Europe yes.
  - mnw21cam 13y ago
    > Yes sorry VAT (i called it sales tax for US readers to relate) Sales tax and VAT are different. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_added_tax#Comparison_with_sales_tax http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_added_tax#Comparison_with... VAT only taxes the value added to goods by an entity, so if they buy parts for £10, make a widget from those parts, and sell a widget for £20, they pay VAT on £10, with the assumption that they entity that sold them £10 of parts paid VAT on the rest of it. There are also possibilities for running costs (such as purchasing a screwdriver to assemble the widget) that are not taxed, because they are not sold on to the public. Sales tax is repeatable, so tax may be paid for a particular good each time it passes hands. Yes, there are exceptions.
luser 13y ago
Sorry, I have to disagree. I have run a small software consulting business in Dublin for nearly ten years. The one thing we get right in this country is our pro business climate. It is easy to set up a company, there is a lot of support and advice available. I think we do this well... Two caveats though: - You DO need to get a good accountant to get advice on international VAT charges as they are complex (I suggest bypassing them by using a company like FastSpring that manages them on your behalf). - Small business owners should have the same social welfare security net as everyone else (I think this might be changing). I agree with you on the inbred gombeens and cute hoors, but thankfully there seems to be less of them in the tech sector :)
- dcc1 13y ago
  re: fastsrping "You have the option to pay either 8.9% flat or 5.9% plus $.95 per transaction. " Wowza, thats steep! edit: Sorry but experience has been different here in west, in another lifetime I worked on an "innovation partnership" with EI, it was nothing more than a way to funnel state money to politically connected "friends", the business idea was crippled from day 1 but that didnt matter the objective was transfer money, which as as a taxpayer was sickening. Sorry for being cynical but I have many years of experience in business here, and seen it all in my interactions with state bodies. Maybe in Dublin they manage to put on a better show or things changed in last few years.
  - dleskov 13y ago
    > re: fastsrping > "You have the option to pay either 8.9% flat or 5.9% plus $.95 per transaction. " > Wowza, thats steep! FastSpring customer here. First, they handle lots of boring and complicated stuff for you, not just taxes. How much would it cost you to accept all major credit cards, PayPal, checks and (international) wire transfers, and provide customer service for all of those transaction types? Second, if you sell the more expensive B2B stuff like we do, and/or sell lots of your stuff through them, you can ask for a custom rate.
    - dcc1 13y ago
      I see, still thats quite a bit especially when need to hand over a large chunk on any sale from Irish/EU28 customers in tax! Currently working with Elavon for credit card payments (cant disclose exact rates, but much cheaper than Stripe), completely avoiding Paypal who can go and f&*k themselves, and getting several of the larger customers to pay via SEPA bank transfer or bitcoin which have nearly no fees.

by dcc1 13y ago

merrua 13y ago

Ireland doesnt have sales price, do you mean VAT? Edit. Sorry you have it on brackets on the next line.

dcc1 13y ago
Yes sorry VAT (i called it sales tax for US readers to relate) We have a lowish corporation tax of 12.5% yes paid on company profits, but everything else is very high! For example out of a ~€39000 salary last year after all taxes i was left with €25000, things get rapidly worse from there if you want to move money from your company to yourself, people can check http://www.deloitte.ie/tc/ http://www.deloitte.ie/tc/ for ideas of what income taxes people pay here As a director one could take a company loan (illegal above certain % but dont think anyone checks) but this would be liable to witholding tax of about 20% Capital gains is 33% here. And of course VAT of 23%.. tl.dr: the taxation structure here works great for large corporations who can hire expensive accountants to launder literally billions thru' Ireland to warmer climes BUT for anyone running a normal small business, expect to hand over 20-40% of your earnings and anything left after you pay income taxes for example, is heavily taxed with loads of stealth taxes (tv license, house tax, soon water tax etc etc) and of course 23% on anything you buy (essentials like food aside, some of these have lower VAT tax rate)
- merrua 13y ago
  Did you find it difficult to get Incorporated as well? or is was that fast, just everything afterwards tedious and slow? Did you found in Ireland?
  - dcc1 13y ago
    No incorporation was extremely easy and fast. Its afterwards when the fun begins especially if you are in IT where Revenue might not know how to tax you and you need get a written judgement (So they don't accuse you of not paying taxes). For example I would love to start a bitcoin related business but afraid of what decision they might make (according to newspaper last week they are still deciding) Overall starting business here is not too bad, its growing and expanding that is hard, and misconception that Ireland is low tax, it is not nor is it a cheap place to live. Everytime i hear americans complain about sales taxes I say you seen nothing yet :D
    - merrua 13y ago
      It would be an interesting book to read about the difficulty in growing a company in Ireland. I have not heard about the unique problems. U.K. yes. Continent of Europe yes.
- mnw21cam 13y ago
  > Yes sorry VAT (i called it sales tax for US readers to relate) Sales tax and VAT are different. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_added_tax#Comparison_with_sales_tax http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_added_tax#Comparison_with... VAT only taxes the value added to goods by an entity, so if they buy parts for £10, make a widget from those parts, and sell a widget for £20, they pay VAT on £10, with the assumption that they entity that sold them £10 of parts paid VAT on the rest of it. There are also possibilities for running costs (such as purchasing a screwdriver to assemble the widget) that are not taxed, because they are not sold on to the public. Sales tax is repeatable, so tax may be paid for a particular good each time it passes hands. Yes, there are exceptions.

luser 13y ago

Sorry, I have to disagree. I have run a small software consulting business in Dublin for nearly ten years. The one thing we get right in this country is our pro business climate. It is easy to set up a company, there is a lot of support and advice available. I think we do this well... Two caveats though: - You DO need to get a good accountant to get advice on international VAT charges as they are complex (I suggest bypassing them by using a company like FastSpring that manages them on your behalf). - Small business owners should have the same social welfare security net as everyone else (I think this might be changing). I agree with you on the inbred gombeens and cute hoors, but thankfully there seems to be less of them in the tech sector :)

dcc1 13y ago
re: fastsrping "You have the option to pay either 8.9% flat or 5.9% plus $.95 per transaction. " Wowza, thats steep! edit: Sorry but experience has been different here in west, in another lifetime I worked on an "innovation partnership" with EI, it was nothing more than a way to funnel state money to politically connected "friends", the business idea was crippled from day 1 but that didnt matter the objective was transfer money, which as as a taxpayer was sickening. Sorry for being cynical but I have many years of experience in business here, and seen it all in my interactions with state bodies. Maybe in Dublin they manage to put on a better show or things changed in last few years.
- dleskov 13y ago
  > re: fastsrping > "You have the option to pay either 8.9% flat or 5.9% plus $.95 per transaction. " > Wowza, thats steep! FastSpring customer here. First, they handle lots of boring and complicated stuff for you, not just taxes. How much would it cost you to accept all major credit cards, PayPal, checks and (international) wire transfers, and provide customer service for all of those transaction types? Second, if you sell the more expensive B2B stuff like we do, and/or sell lots of your stuff through them, you can ask for a custom rate.
  - dcc1 13y ago
    I see, still thats quite a bit especially when need to hand over a large chunk on any sale from Irish/EU28 customers in tax! Currently working with Elavon for credit card payments (cant disclose exact rates, but much cheaper than Stripe), completely avoiding Paypal who can go and f&*k themselves, and getting several of the larger customers to pay via SEPA bank transfer or bitcoin which have nearly no fees.