Husband and wife business

[Pursuivant]

why yes, but she is taxed as a freelancer and the whole situation is a can of worms...would be maybe easier if you two chucked up a joint company and operated as such... like erm... partnership.. what you want to do is your county has some sort of "yritysneuvonta" or "uusyrityskeskus" or something like that (and remember they love immigrants at the unemployment orifice going into enterpreneur classes) so you could "innocently" go there and get yourself into a business incubation scheme and figure out with those guys what form of company exactly it is you are best to have. see now if you "think" then comes the tax office and thinks your bank account... so you need a bit of inside knowledge (as in taking a course) of how to keep ahead of the tax office. its not complicated as long as you *know* what they expect and *know* the bookkeeping to keep them happy - if you "think" you know - they will make you think again...

[Rosamunda]

I've plugged this book before... but it does answer most of the questions. It is expensive but you can deduct it as an expense!

Establishing and Doing Business in Finland
Tuulikki Holopainen
www.edita.fi

The kind of business you establish depends on how much revenue you are likely to be making and the kind of risks involved. You can employ your wife if you have a toiminimi type business but you can also do a General Partnership (avoin yhtiö) where the partners are jointly liable for the commitments of the business with their entire property or a Limited Partnership (Kommandiittiyhtiö) which is the same set up but allows for sleeping partners (investors) who would have limited liability. Or, you can go for a Limited Company (Oy) where liability is limited to the shareholder's investment. Only you can decide what kind of business relationship you want to have with your wife and how you want to share the risks.
There are courses (I did one in English in Lahti a couple of years ago) - the place to go for all the info is the T&E Centre in your town. List on here: www.te-keskus.fi

[Rick1]

Or, you can go for a Limited Company (Oy) where liability is limited to the shareholder's investment.

Are you sure about this? Are private assets excempt when you go belly up?

[Rosamunda]

Well er... yes.... that's the whole point of a limited company. But then again it depends how you've done your bookkeeping. If you built your mökki and called it your office then.... If the company goes belly up, the investors stand to lose their investment, but not their personal property. OTOH, when a business goes belly up all kinds of people crawl out of the woodwork and ask for money so it could be that eg: Vero would pursue an individual (eg a director of the company) through the courts for taxes owed, especially if they were not happy with the bookkeeping.

IIRC a private individual cannot go bankrupt in Finland. So in that respect it may be better to have an Oy.

If you have specific questions then it's best to go ask the experts at T&E or vero etc.

[Rick1]

ok, thanks. Thought already that there was something under the grass