alt Hacker News> The only good thing is that an investor or an owner are not liable with their private money.
That’s incredibly important. More than a footnote. I would consider any other form to be non-viable if it doesn’t have such protections.
For comparison, starting an LLC in the United States is a trivial operation. I can’t even remember how long it took me to set mine up because it was a trivial event. Maybe a couple hours, mostly research? I also have to fill out an online form and pay a few dollars every year to renew the LLC.
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You can get the same in Germany with the much simpler GmbH or UG. GmbH & Co. KG is much more complex and mostly used to save some taxes in some scenarios.
(However I absolutely agree that all of this is much too complicated and slow here in Germany)
> That’s incredibly important. More than a footnote. I would consider any other form to be non-viable if it doesn’t have such protections
That applies to a normal GmbH as well, so does it to an UG. UG & Co. KG is sometimes done for tax reasons, but not liability
Setting up a plain UG or GmbH gives the same advantage of not being liable with your private money, and is also a comparatively trivial process. Especially if you are the sole owner. Still slow compared to the US or UK, but not half a year slow
Starting out a company as a UG & Co KG is a tax optimization move, not a liability issue