Hello,

I am holding a work permit with BE. Looking for a break into freelancing.

I had look at the previous posts related to the same topic. I understood that, I can work as a freelancer(in effect)by starting a company in UK and register a representative office in Germany.

But some points are not clear :

1. At the auslanderbehörde, I need to change the my employment status. Since with BE I am only allowed to work as an employee, should I register as an employee of my own company ? Is it possible, since director of the company will be myself ?

2. How long the whole process will take ? ( Realistically,considering the time required for arranging the supporting documents also ). Because, I am getting calls from some employers and I need to convince them that this process will not take much time.

Waiting for valuable advices,

Thanks,
Gouri

@gouri,

for Freelancing you do not need to form a UK limited or GmBH. Read the berautiful post from Detlef on Freelance. I am also a freelancer, started from April.

all you need is to register yourself with the gewerbeamt (This i will explain below). Once done you need to apply for a Tax number from finanz amt and
find yourself a good Tax consultant who will file your VAT plus perform your Tax prepayment to the finanz amt. this is a little steneous procedure, but my best bet is if you have a good tax consultant he will help you to get the Tax number from the finanzamt. Remamber the form to be filled for Tax number and gwerbeanmeldung is little criptic. So pls contact the people who have good understanding abt it. Some tax consultant like mine also do the bookkeeping for you. In all u pay around 200-300 PM based onmyour anual income. Thats it when you sed your Bills to the customer you have to include your tax number on the bill. If you need some help then you can definitely mail me on saviosn@yahoo.com

for gewerbeanmeldung i have heard (not for sure), that there is a possibility to exclude this. If we are having a Degree in the area of our work (comp sc.). If we are successful then you save a bit of your taxes. And remamber its quite some money. your Tax consultant should be having this information. I did a mistake , but you can try and if successful, post it.

Regards
Savio

Further to my post abv, Opening a UK Limited or a GmBH is not a problem as long as you have a BE or a NE. But the decision to work as a freelancer or as a company should be decide based on Risk and also income/expenses rule or even future prospects for more business. Each have their own plus and minus points. The cost tax consultants plus taxes are more for companies than if you work as a freelancer. Plus the Gewerbesteuer has different rules for Freelancer and Companies.
For companies you pay Gewerbesteuer for every Euro you earn, but for freelancer you can minus some amount(approx 24,500) anually.

Regards
Savio