Small business: most difficult aspect of running one

Aard

This one's for small business owners. What's the most difficult part of it, in the context of tax law or labour laws? I've heard before that it's mostly Employer's PRSI that causes a lot of headaches, but is there anything else that makes it especially hard to start up a company in Ireland? What about charging VAT -- does it make prices uncompetitive?

srsly78

The dole being so high people are better off not working I would imagine.

RichardAnd

srsly78 wrote: »

The dole being so high people are better off not working I would imagine.

I fail to see how that would affect a buisness owner? Also, go over to the work and jobs forum and post that comment, see what happens.

paul71

It depends on the nature of the business, but the sheer volume of buruecratic paperwork can be a toil. Bi-monthly VAT, Monthly PAYE, Monthly intrastat returns, VIES returns, quarterly CSO returns, Annual Corp TAX & 46G, Annual Companies Office filing, P35 end of year, P60s end of year, P45s if relevent, monthly C30 subcontractors returns. Not all are relevent to all businesses, but if you are in businesss alone it can be annoying.

ei.sdraob

paul71 wrote: »

It depends on the nature of the business, but the sheer volume of buruecratic paperwork can be a toil. Bi-monthly VAT, Monthly PAYE, Monthly intrastat returns, VIES returns, quarterly CSO returns, Annual Corp TAX & 46G, Annual Companies Office filing, P35 end of year, P60s end of year, P45s if relevent, monthly C30 subcontractors returns. Not all are relevent to all businesses, but if you are in businesss alone it can be annoying.

Yes yes yes to all of the above

Especially VAT returns if there has ever been a more pointless paper pushing exercise then this is it (on-line form made it somewhat faster)

I think I spend about a day a month going thru accounts/receipts and all sorts of beuracratic correspondence, since I am not an accountant spending a day shuffling papers instead of doing what I like most (coding) is resentful and a waste of time. Having all sorts of stern sounding warning letters if you make a mistake is no help either.

HellFireClub

paul71 wrote: »

It depends on the nature of the business, but the sheer volume of buruecratic paperwork can be a toil. Bi-monthly VAT, Monthly PAYE, Monthly intrastat returns, VIES returns, quarterly CSO returns, Annual Corp TAX & 46G, Annual Companies Office filing, P35 end of year, P60s end of year, P45s if relevent, monthly C30 subcontractors returns. Not all are relevent to all businesses, but if you are in businesss alone it can be annoying.

This is exactly it, and behind every one of those tax headings is a building full of PS gimps who will give you nothing without asking for more paperwork "for the file", who do not answer phones, who will obstruct every form you send them, especially if you are due a repayment of tax.

Idbatterim

I am currently applying for a work permit for an employee, do you know what hours the DETI man their phones? Mon, Wed, Fri 09:30-12:30! Dont get me going on the tendering T&C's... The people drawing up the terms and conditions have so little knowledge of the industry Im in, that they rule out every operator bar one, who may meet the criteria or just lied...

RichardAnd

HellFireClub wrote: »

This is exactly it, and behind every one of those tax headings is a building full of PS gimps who will give you nothing without asking for more paperwork "for the file", who do not answer phones, who will obstruct every form you send them, especially if you are due a repayment of tax.

I'm inclined to agree somewhat, though I've never been one to engage in puc service flaming. Tell you what though, stop paying your taxes for a month and see how quick the boys in Revenue are to make you a priority.

CoyleJames

I've a few ideas on how to help get our small businesses up and running.

A 4 Point Profitability Proposal:-

1. RATES- 50% rates reduction funded by 50% Dublin City Council staff reduction.

2. RENT- Downward rent review for small business.

3. FINANCE- Collector General to extended credit for small business.

4. STAFF COSTS- Employer's PRSI should be reduced to help them keep their businesses and staff afloat.

Best wishes.

James Coyle

Mongarra

Have had a few friends who ran various types of business and all agreed that the paperwork for tax compliance, Central Statistics Office returns (of no direct benefit to the business but time-consuming form-filling) and Health and Safety inspections, regulations and compliance were all an annoyance. However their main gripe was in regard to staff, including employment legislation, entitlements, arguments over holidays/holiday pay, sickness, time off and complaints procedures that had to be followed to the letter of the law or the employer had not a leg to stand on.

Obviously legislation and regulations are vital in circumstances where there are differences and grievances, but the system seems to be heavily biased in favour of the employee.

paul71

CoyleJames wrote: »

I've a few ideas on how to help get our small businesses up and running.

A 4 Point Profitability Proposal:-

1. RATES- 50% rates reduction funded by 50% Dublin City Council staff reduction.

2. RENT- Downward rent review for small business.

3. FINANCE- Collector General to extended credit for small business.

4. STAFF COSTS- Employer's PRSI should be reduced to help them keep their businesses and staff afloat.

Best wishes.

James Coyle

1. Agree (but there are other places in the country outside Dublin), however if rates are to be reduced expect fewer services or domestic rates.

2. Already happening due to market forces, people are going to their landlords and asking, when refused they are saying ok go find another tenant and sue me for contract breach.

3. Great idea but 2 years too late, as a state we can no longer afford this as our opertunity cost is 5.7% interest on money borrowed.

4. Agreed, the old agruement, reducing employment taxes increases tax collected, everybody wins employer, unemployed and taxman.

RedXIV

paul71 wrote: »

It depends on the nature of the business, but the sheer volume of buruecratic paperwork can be a toil. Bi-monthly VAT, Monthly PAYE, Monthly intrastat returns, VIES returns, quarterly CSO returns, Annual Corp TAX & 46G, Annual Companies Office filing, P35 end of year, P60s end of year, P45s if relevent, monthly C30 subcontractors returns. Not all are relevent to all businesses, but if you are in businesss alone it can be annoying.

This, I've been trying to close a company for weeks and everytime I get closer I'm missing one of these. stupid paperwork

professore

Idbatterim wrote: »

I am currently applying for a work permit for an employee, do you know what hours the DETI man their phones? Mon, Wed, Fri 09:30-12:30! Dont get me going on the tendering T&C's... The people drawing up the terms and conditions have so little knowledge of the industry Im in, that they rule out every operator bar one, who may meet the criteria or just lied...

LOL the one operator tells them what Ts and Cs to use so as they are the only ones that qualify. Cue brown envelope.

srsly78

paul71 wrote: »

It depends on the nature of the business, but the sheer volume of buruecratic paperwork can be a toil. Bi-monthly VAT, Monthly PAYE, Monthly intrastat returns, VIES returns, quarterly CSO returns, Annual Corp TAX & 46G, Annual Companies Office filing, P35 end of year, P60s end of year, P45s if relevent, monthly C30 subcontractors returns. Not all are relevent to all businesses, but if you are in businesss alone it can be annoying.

Are you currently an employer? Have you not noticed all the letters and notices from the revenue? Much of this has been changed as of January, P30s are now quarterly instead of monthly for example. They have cut down on a lot of the paperwork, and with ROS online it's simple to file anyway.

paul71

srsly78 wrote: »

Are you currently an employer? Have you not noticed all the letters and notices from the revenue? Much of this has been changed as of January, P30s are now quarterly instead of monthly for example. They have cut down on a lot of the paperwork, and with ROS online it's simple to file anyway.

It depends on the size of your business, there has been an annual VAT return in place for years if you pay by DD, but only if you are below a certain threshold. The point is that there is a hugh volume of paperwork which serves little or no purpose, personally I find the CSO forms to be the most ridiculous.

The ROS returns make things slightly easier on payroll side, but then to offset this you have the extra admin burden brought in by the income levy which means you need 2 forms from a new employee or to one leaving.

srsly78

My point was that there have been a lot of changes brought in only last month, many monthlies are now quarterly.

paul71

srsly78 wrote: »

My point was that there have been a lot of changes brought in only last month, many monthlies are now quarterly.

To an extent I agree, of all CS departments I think the Revenue are the most proactive (wonder why that is) but they are often the victim of government whim. The income Levy is a case in point, it brought a whole new teir of buruecratism into being when the same result would have been acheived by a simple increase in tax rates, but no PAYE increases are a political no-no.

If you want further examples how about the WEE, (electical waste packaging monthly returns) plastic bag tax monthly returns, the compulsory employment survey returns. How about herd slaughter figures to Dept of Agriculture for butchers.

For every improvement made in reporting online there seems to a new level of returns created for another government department.

clouds

Jesus lads are ye the same ones that whinge about having to wash up your own plate and fork after your dinner?
That stuff needs to be done no point whinging about it.

ei.sdraob

clouds wrote: »

Jesus lads are ye the same ones that whinge about having to wash up your own plate and fork after your dinner?
That stuff needs to be done no point whinging about it.

some countries you can setup a company and never have to do accounts for anyone or pay taxes for that matter, as many of the large companies laundering money thru this country are quite aware of...

srsly78

Yeah I was thinking of moving my business to somalia. Am a bit worried about not having electricity and internet there tho... Also there are additional expenses relating to body-armor and ordnance.

ei.sdraob

srsly78 wrote: »

Yeah I was thinking of moving my business to somalia. Am a bit worried about not having electricity and internet there tho... Also there are additional expenses relating to body-armor and ordnance.

Somalia?


how about Caymans, Seychelles, BVI and dozen other offshore jurisdictions with no paperwork and no taxes for companies.
or even Cyprus here in EU with simple flat rate tax system and lower corpo tax

Aard

paul71 wrote: »

It depends on the nature of the business, but the sheer volume of buruecratic paperwork can be a toil. Bi-monthly VAT, Monthly PAYE, Monthly intrastat returns, VIES returns, quarterly CSO returns, Annual Corp TAX & 46G, Annual Companies Office filing, P35 end of year, P60s end of year, P45s if relevent, monthly C30 subcontractors returns. Not all are relevent to all businesses, but if you are in businesss alone it can be annoying.

Can any/all of these be done online? Would it help if they could be?

srsly78

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Somalia?


how about Caymans, Seychelles, BVI and dozen other offshore jurisdictions with no paperwork and no taxes for companies.
or even Cyprus here in EU with simple flat rate tax system and lower corpo tax

Well Somalia is a lot cheaper. Cayman Islands is feckin expensive man (yes there would have to be a director resident there).

Oh, you do realise startup companies are taxfree for 3 years in Ireland right? I'll stick around for the remaining 2, then go work on my tan in Caymans. Seychelles is sinking I think, do not want.

@aard: Yes pretty much all of them can be done online. It's very easy to run a small business but people will always complain.

ei.sdraob

Aard wrote: »

Can any/all of these be done online? Would it help if they could be?

Like mentioned earlier, credit to Revenue for making things somewhat easier with online forms BUT they ended up coming up with even more things to do now so end result is same

Something like doing a VAT return, due to having to keep paper copies of everything in case of audit, requires pouring over all paper receipts crunching numbers

And god forbid you make a mistake, they sure love their sternly worded letters and the presumption of you being guilty until proven innocent.

srsly78 wrote: »

Well Somalia is a lot cheaper. Cayman Islands is feckin expensive man (yes there would have to be a director resident there).

Oh, you do realise startup companies are taxfree for 3 years in Ireland right? I'll stick around for the remaining 2, then go work on my tan in Caymans. Seychelles is sinking I think, do not want.

@aard: Yes pretty much all of them can be done online. It's very easy to run a small business but people will always complain.

company in Seychelles costs 500-700 euro to incorporate and as much to renew per year, and no you dont have to even know where the place is on a map, one director, no reporting and anonymity, somewhat same in BVI

srsly78 wrote: »

Oh, you do realise startup companies are taxfree for 3 years in Ireland right?

New companies, turnover of up to 120K

srsly78

I try to make sure all my receipts are electronic for that very reason, buy online etc. I don't run a retail business tho so it's not really a problem for me, I can see how it would drive other people up the wall tho
Without fail I manage to lose every paper receipt >.<

Aard

On VAT, does having different rates make things more difficult at all? What about other areas that have different rates (i'm thinking PRSI)?

Dirk Gently

professore wrote: »

LOL the one operator tells them what Ts and Cs to use so as they are the only ones that qualify. Cue brown envelope.

yup, very specific t/c's, written by the company owner currently holding the contract who usually who has a politician or other person of influence in the family somewhere. It's so blatant I don't know why they don't just put company x name in the t/c's and say any future contracts can only be awarded to companies called x.

srsly78

Aard wrote: »

On VAT, does having different rates make things more difficult at all? What about other areas that have different rates (i'm thinking PRSI)?

I export (to eu companies, not individuals) so there is no vat at all. Also, PRSI doesn't exist anymore, they merged all the levys+prsi into USC (universal social charge). A hell of a lot of stuff changed last month.

Has anyone tried the EU VAT reclaim thingy on ROS? I want to get VAT back from germany (bought pcs from hardwareversand), but the webpage kept giving errors. Not tried in a few weeks, maybe I should have reported bug

ei.sdraob

Aard wrote: »

On VAT, does having different rates make things more difficult at all? What about other areas that have different rates (i'm thinking PRSI)?

Main difficulty I encountered was working with companies outside of Ireland, the amount of time I spend chasing people in Revenue to figure out whether to charge or not VAT how and at what rate, when dealing with companies outside Ireland

I offloaded as much of the paperwork as possible to an accountant, the fact that you can not run a business without relegating work to an accountant is kinda sad.

Business should be simple: income - expenses = profit

instead you have some alphanumeric forms full of jargon to fill and all sorts of taxes to pay


And its not just Revenue, Customs, Council and CSO either to deal with, last week I had to refill and return a form to Welfare for employee on who they wanted more details, needless to say they lost my earlier correspondence with them so had to do it again :rolleyes:, then spend about an hour on phone trying to find the correct department to talk to in order to make sure they dont loose it the second time, its like Fawlty Towers of some sort.

Employing people should not be so much hassle for gods sake .

srsly78

That's exactly why I only hire contractors, less hassle.

Aard

srsly78 wrote: »

Also, PRSI doesn't exist anymore, they merged all the levys+prsi into USC (universal social charge). A hell of a lot of stuff changed last month.

The USC amalgamated only the Health Levy and the Income Levy; the various rates of PRSI still exist. It seems that there's about 20 different PRSI rates (not all of which are applicaple to the private sector though). Enda Kenny recently said something about reducing the number of different rates here.