Jethro

Great, fantastic information... thanks a lot guys. One of the main advantages of using our service is the autonomy. So our users (teachers) do pay their taxes wherever they are, and as you mentioned importantly, they do invoice us with all of their legal information etc... The teachers are offered students but are not obliged to accept them and this is all handled in the back end by our Admin team. Our prices are fixed (not set by our users). As for whether or not our users are engaged in other employment (in supplement to our company), how can I have control over that?? I have heard of cases (Homejoy.com) where companies have been taken to court because their users (independent contractors) were being trained by the company. We provide informal training on how to use the teaching platform and offer curriculum "suggestions" but this is not required as the teachers are encouraged to use their own creativity in coming up with course subjects and material. This is all well, but I am still confused about how the company should be structured, my main concern is that we are not taxed on our TOTAL income for example... A customer purchases a one hour live lesson for 29.90EUR. We take 7EUR for administration and payment processing fees. At the end of the month we can't get charged 20% of that 29.90 eur (5.90) because it will wipe out our earnings. Because we are an internet start up one rout I am actively looking at is registering the business in Andorra but have no clue whether or not that is viable. Best regards!

Hi there Interested hearing from you regarding a few questions about a company we are starting. Background I am 22 and have been living in France for about three years, I am currently registered as an auto entrepreneur and have a French bank account etc. About the company We provide an online language learning platform specifically for people in Europe to learn to speak and write English through online courses with other native English speaking teachers. The company is 100% online and we simply connect the teachers with the students while charging a percentage of each lesson for administrating the lessons, course-ware and payments. The teachers come from all over the world. Questions Q1 - We are starting small but expect to exceed the annual revenue limit for Auto-entreprenures (€32,600). Due to our low profit margins we have to move to an EURL registration so that we are taxed on our profits instead of total revenue (which would kill our business). Has anyone had any experience with the different business structures in France (EURL, SARL etc...)? I'm specifically interested to know what the hidden costs are and whether I can navigate the registration process my self without paying accounting and legal experts as our business is bootstrapped with very little (read "no") expendable capital. Q2- This quote from an article entitled "The pitfalls of France's auto-entrepreneur status" got me concerned... it reads: Although some employers, especially English teaching academies will push you to be an auto-entrepreneur, you should be wary, lawyer Jean Taquet tells The Local. “The government knows a lot of language schools employ teachers on an auto-entrepreneur basis when really they should be putting them on their payroll. These teachers can suddenly get caught in the crossfire when authorities decide to audit a school,” Taquet says. “The government is using auto-entrepreneurs (AEs) as bait to go after the companies,” he adds. Andy Denison, who runs an advice website for Anglophones on all things administrative adds: “We have known of a couple of companies who were only employing AEs when really they should have had salaried people on their books and these businesses have been caught out.” Under the rules of being an auto-entrepreneur you should have more than one client paying you for your services, because if you don’t then really you should be on a contract and the auditors will be looking out for this. “If you are constantly working for someone or especially if you sign some kind of exclusivity agreement with them, then that will be an issue with authorities,” Denison warns. We make it very clear in our Terms of Service that we are not employing teachers, we are simply providing a platform for the teachers to manage and interact with their students as well as a service to manage their payments. So my question is how exactly will this work, we are not employers, we are service providers and the last thing we need is to be heavily fined and taxed on our already low profit margins. ----- Interested in hearing from anyone who has walked a similar path, what were the pitfalls, what should we be looking out for? Any resources or articles would also be very much appreciated. Thanks for your time, Jethro.

Haha, that's a good point I well keep in mind for the future! Thanks and all the best for you too.

Hi all, I want to truely thank you all for your kind and considered replies. Yesterday I went to Credit Agricole and successfully opened a bank account. The staff were extremely helpful - far more so then the other banks. I explained my situation and they offered an option that cost 4EUR per month that includes online banking etc... very pleased with Credit Agricole and will recommend. Kind regards! Jethro.

Bonjour a tous, I am 21 years old living in France and have recently registered as an Autoentrepreneur, with an expected income (monthly) of between 1-2k EUR. I have attempted to open a bank account at both Banque Populaire and La Post just this morning and both banks have tried to force a Professional account on me saying... "it is illegal to have a 'normal' bank account as an autoentreprenure". I was quoted at being charged 50 EUR monthly and 80EUR every three months for a professional account. I believe this is false. I understand that Autoentrepreneurs are required by law to have a dedicated bank account for their businesses, however that is not the same as a professional bank account. What I need is a NORMAL business bank account. What is the best approach to make it clear to the bank personnel that I am entitled to a normal BUSINESS bank account? Thanks for taking the time to read, Best regards – Jethro.