> Someone wanted to turn a winery into a eco-tourism boutique hotel with a winery tour and experience.

Because a agricultural business and a hotel business are two different things, and Spain has, rightfully so, their thumb on the spread of tourism, because it affects local communities negatively.

Otherwise investors could just come in, buy a random agriculture business and then turn it into luxury hotels/lodging.

> I’ve been involved with startups and small businesses for more than a decade, and I haven’t still heard of any of them doing things 100% by the book, because it’s just impossible.

Because entrepreneurs are notoriously bad thinking further than their own interests. It always, "just" something they want to do.

Zoning rules and regulations have their purpose. Are some of those in some places idiotic? Yes. Do most of them still have their reason? Also yes.

Otherwise we can stop protesting datacenters and the trump family building a eco-luxury resort in a nature reserve.

I don't dislike that they at least want to see you in real life once tbh. I love ease of registration like anyone else, but with tax avoidance and all that, idk. Feels right to me to have at least seen yourself once.

Unsure how long ago this was, but I recently registered with KvK and didn't have to show up at all, just pay 80-ish euros.

The face to face meeting is not a thing any more. There are some exceptions but they can often be done online if at all.

I've done it in 2018 and just needed to go to a notary to wet sign something (not KvK)

You phrase this as if it’s absurd. Why should it be possible to offshore your future capital gains without paying an exit tax? You live in a country with a tax system that assumes people pay into it.

That is nothing: wait until you want to _close_ a company in Germany :)

You can delay it until the disposal of your shares , if you move within the Eu

Is it different from the tax you would face if you just realize your gains?

Can confirm. JDG registration took like a couple of days and I didn't need to get my ass off my chair.

But I understand the admin has gone up significantly. Though I presume AI is pretty good at generating the boiler plate bureaucratic work (privacy policy, anti slavery statements, etc).

That won't get you a VAT ID, which is the key thing he says he needs to be able to bill people outside of Germany. It is significantly cheaper than 9k EUR and faster than 6 months to get in the UK, however.

Yep, it is straight-forward.

It's not about a loan. You have to put ~2,000 EUR in your company account in order to start it, and they might refuse opening an account for you. They're not going to talk with other banks, but if they have a good reason to think working with you is going to be difficult, chances are other banks will think so as well.

They can't convince others, so I shopped around until I found a willing bank. This is due to introduced KYC requirements and the harsh penalties associated with them - so banks are preferring to err on the side of caution.

Same story goes for opening a personal account.

it sounds more like they can choose not to work with you just like in America, but maybe the reasons are allowed to be more spurious

This is pretty bad advice as your company will be dual resident with Germany having the right to tax .

That means you pay German taxes + double amount of compliance ( because you have to file everything in Germany+ Estonia ).

That way, AFAIK, the German government will determine that the "place of effective management" is Germany, and tax you also there.

Double taxation is not better.

No, it’s generally a pretty terrible idea. Germany applies taxes based on the place where a company is managed. If you live in Germany and remotely manage your Estonian company then you’re expected to pay your corporate and other company taxes in Germany. The overhead of managing the international situation is more complicated than opening a company in Germany to be honest

You should Google "Place of effective management"

A lot of the entrepreneurs I meet become tax & social insurance fraudsters as soon as I mention this, because they think they can setup a company somewhere but live in Spain, without paying or registering companies here.

That could work _if_ your company has actual substance in the US. Otherwise you just expose yourself to much bigger problems.

Yeah the "making tax digital" thing sucks, but there are lots of little companies that will do a simple filing for you. I hate the theory, but at least in practice it does work okay.

Don't you have an equivalent of Økokrim? They seem to be pretty ruthless in Norway.

I don't think it's that different from pointing out that registering and/or operating a company in e.g. Delaware or Texas is a very different experience from doing so in New York.

For one thing, it’s a geographic location and not automatically the same as the EU

The duchy 3km away is impenetrable fortress where the trace between money coming in and going out magically disappears.