I might be wrong, but they only have to take one if you are below a certain age _and_ below the border income (Beitragsbemessungsgrenze). Always be careful w.r.t. these kinds of decisions because they could cost you an awful amount of money later.
If you are above the border income, the private version is less expensive (I might also be wrong, checkout https://www.finanztip.de/pkv/pkv-basistarif/). It only really affects people below that income (way too many!).
It is the reverse, staying in the gov insurance costs you an awful lot of money upfront. It's the ethical but financially stupid thing.
True, the private insurance is typicall less expensive now (when I researched, it was 50%-60% of what I pay), but you have no guarantee that it will stay that way. They could just increase the fees for everybody, in the future, or just increase it with your age, as the health risks go up.
Without being able to contribute to your question: in hindsight of Brexit (UK will leave the EU) this might not be possible (as easy?) as in the past anymore.
Freedom of movement is still in effect until the end of October, as for after that time the visa/residency question is up in the air but there's an extremely good chance residency of some form will be offered to British citizens who are already established in Germany.
As for the company being incorporated in what will become a third country, from my research I can't see any reason why that will fall afoul of any regulations (as long as everything is properly reported to the authorities).
I think the "only" real change is that he will need a work visa, the other aspects should remain the same. A EU citizen can freely choose his workplace in the EU (which is a reason why the British voted exit, they specifically didn't want that).
Thankfully freedom of movement is still in effect until the end of October. So no visa's required just yet. As for residency after the brexit date that's completely in the air but I would rather be already inside germany than outside.
That is the way more ethical thing, but it is almost never the best thing from either a financial and certainly not from a health perspective _if_ you exceed a certain income (and the barrier here is pretty low unless you have many kids, which depending on your income distribution you may have to privately insure separately).
If you are self-employed, the public insurance is really nothing more but another (rather unattractive) insurance company you can choose from.
A lot of people in IT knowing how to negotiate well will probably cross the border. I would, at least.
I agree it doesn't make sense from a financial perspective generally but it does depending on your health records/situation. I, for example, have a chronic disease which implicates monthly medication which is crazy expensive. I could enter a private insurance (because I have a Anwartschaft, thank god I kept this from since forever) but the monthly rate will drive to insane amounts when I'm getting older and/or adding the fact of kids (Familienversicherung).
Going back to public insurance after being in private insurance is highly problematic and probably even impossible without playing grey-zone games if you don't want to lower your salary dramatically below the income border for multiple years.
Disclaimer: my knowledge is based on internet research, I am not an expert on this and might be wrong.
AFAIK if you are self-employed the gov insurance doesn't have to take you either! Yet both have to take you using that "base tariff" (600? Euro or sth) since a few years (before a self-employed could end up w/ no insurance at all, not possible anymore).
It is true that the private insurance increases significantly over the years, but it is still WAY less than the gov insurance. The costs for the gov insurance is about 25% of your salary (remember, it's split between employer and employee, but as a self-employed you have to pay both sides).
Assuming an income of just 5k per month, that would be 1.25k! per month, or more than twice the base tariff.
It often becomes problematic for self-employed low-wage workers when they enter pension. Which they often don't setup, and hence can't even pay their health insurance :-/ (and then move into social security, which again provides everything)
That it is difficult to get back to the public insurance is just non-sense unless you exceed a certain age. In fact you have to, whether you want or not, by law.
> It is true that the private insurance increases significantly over the years, but it is still WAY less than the gov insurance. The costs for the gov insurance is about 25% of your salary (remember, it's split between employer and employee, but as a self-employed you have to pay both sides). Assuming an income of just 5k per month, that would be 1.25k! per month, or more than twice the base tariff.
It's actually about 15% in total. The maximum amount currently is around €750 for both employer and employee.
That's not necessarily true. It depends on how many kids you'd want to insure (they're free on public insurance but cost on private), if you have any risk factors (even common allergies can drive up the price of private insurance a lot), your income later in life and health inflation. Over your lifetime it's not unrealistic that you're worse off with private insurance. So unless you're keen on that higher level of care (or luxuries as it's mostly about waiting times rather than getting care at all), staying in public insurance can be smart even if you pay the maximum amount.
Which are the "popular services" you are referring to? Can you elaborate?
In my current specific situation there are no coworkers from Germany.
I didn't even know that a US-based company can give me a German contract. Do you know the specifics how the stuff got deducted automatically (except the taxes)?
For taxes I use the online version of WiSo Steuer for example: https://www.steuer-web.de These services can pull your records on file from the tax office, so all you have to fill in is any additional items (deductible expenses over the year for example).
I don't know any of the details of how the company made the employment work. If you PM me I will give you the name of our German accounting firm which handled everything.
Puh, I'm not a tax consultant, ask yours how and why that is. But you don't put VAT on off-EU invoices (not even within different EU countries I think). It's just net.
I think the reasoning is that a VAT - value _added tax_ - requires that the other party also pays VAT (you only pay the difference, the "value add"). Which simply doesn't happen if you are outside your own country. In "regular" cases this is compensated by tariffs, but there are none for consulting/dev AFAIK.
In countries that have a tax agreement with Germany (e.g. Canada), the Reverse Charge procedure is used; you signalise that on your invoice. In that case, the customer is obligated to pay the VAT in their country and you bill the net amount. However, that depends on the service/product sold. If you re-sell development services, for example, you still have to pay VAT in Germany on a part of the amount billed while the rest is covered by Reverse Charge.
In my understanding, if you have a client outside of EU, you can invoice them without VAT. It's the client's responsibility to pay VAT in their own country.
So that's what I do, and on my "Umsatzsteuererklärung" form, there is a field for income that is VAT-free, where I put basically everything.
Someone else will make huge money only because bogus laws in Germany which probably won't be fixed even in the year 2100.
Anyway, I really like the idea and it sounds totally hassle-free. I will contact them and ask. Should I give you as a referral? Maybe you get a check if it works out for me.
About bogus laws: I think the employee protection in the German system is a factor (not the single one) on why German economy did quite well and populists for a long time had limited success. The strong safety gives guarantees so that one has less fears and representation of employees on the board ensures long term perspective over short term gains. (With the downside that employees on the board represent current, not future employees and leads to more conservative operation as change is hard) Anyways, that's a different complex debate.
I don't know if that company is best. Just gave it as reference, also for finding competitors. I think for most part you'd need a company with a representation in U.S. and here, so that your "practical" employer can do a contract under U.S. terms and you do one under German terms ... and not sure they'd remember me - it's 10 years ago :)
„Ist der Auftragnehmer eine rechtsfähige Personengesellschaft (z. B. OHG, KG, GmbH & Co. KG, Partnerschaftsgesellschaft, GbR), schließt dies ein abhängiges Beschäftigungsverhältnis zum Auftraggeber im Regelfall ebenfalls aus. Dies gilt jedoch nicht, wenn im Einzelfall die Merkmale einer abhängigen Beschäftigung mit entsprechender Weisungsgebundenheit gegenüber den Merkmalen einer selbständigen Tätigkeit überwiegen.
Nach Auffassung der Spitzenverbände der Sozialversicherung [>>](ISRV:NI:SVBEIEC 2/2004 1) soll dies grundsätzlich auch dann gelten, sofern es sich bei dem Auftragnehmer um eine Ein-Personen-Gesellschaft (z. B. Ein-Personen-GmbH bzw. Ein-Personen-Limited) handelt. Insbesondere bei typischen Beschäftigungsverhältnissen – wie beispielsweise bei den nicht programmgestaltenden Mitarbeitern in der Film- und Fernsehproduktion – kann die Gründung einer Ein-Personen-GmbH oder Ein-Personen-Limited nicht zur Umgehung eines sozialversicherungspflichtigen Beschäftigungsverhältnisses führen. Beurteilt nach den maßgebenden tatsächlichen Verhältnissen sind diese Personen vielmehr weisungsgebunden in die Arbeitsorganisation der Unternehmen eingegliedert. Arbeitnehmer kann – anders als ein Arbeitgeber – ausschließlich eine natürliche Person sein, so dass die Gründung einer Ein-Personen-GmbH oder Ein-Personen-Limited in diesen Fällen sozialversicherungsrechtlich ins Leere geht.“
