Starting a business: is it legal to hire freelancers if you haven&#39;t registered the company yet? The reasons I would want to delay the registration of this business as much as I can are: I don't foresee having a single dollar of revenue until at least 2 years later (the product I'm building is way immature at the moment; users that are testing at the moment are only using the "free" edition). Given the above, the first months of operating would be all costs (employees, plus any bureaucracy costs) with no income. And last but not least, I didn't think of a name yet! I'm perfectly aware that a business receiving income without having been registered would be illegal (because all businesses need to pay taxes from their income), but how about starting to pay workers (freelancers, not full-time employees) out of my pocket? Is this illegal?
You don’t need a company to run a business As an individual (sole-trader) you can operate a business, hire employees and contractors and do everything else a business does. The purpose of a company is to separate and protect your personal assets from your business assets. As a sole-trader you are personally responsible for all the liabilities of the business - if it goes bust, you go bust. If the business is operated by a company, then, providing you and the company follow the law, your personal assets are not at risk if the company becomes insolvent.
Yes, this is a valid concern As written, every piece of IP you produce while employed belongs to the employer. This includes your hypothetical game. It also includes your weekly shopping lists, your Christmas card to your Great-Aunt Nellie, the … a-hm … private video you make of you and your significant other. As written this is overly broad and probably unenforceable. However, it’s always better to have clear and legally enforceable clauses in your agreements because unclear, arguably unenforceable ones lead to disputes. To be fair, the employer has probably lifted some (bad) boilerplate and hasn’t actually thought through what it means. Get it redrafted.
The company probably owes U.S. and state corporate income taxes because income from services performed in the United States are usually considered "effectively connected" with the United States. The fact that the servers are located in the U.S. is pretty much irrelevant, relative to the fact that the services are performed while located in the United States. I can't think of a single tax case that has ever turned on the location of the servers in a company. Unlike a U.S. company, a foreign company is not taxed by the U.S. on its worldwide income, nor is the individual, a non-resident alien (having an F-1 visa rather than a green card) taxes on the individual's worldwide income. But, a non-U.S. person is still taxed on income that is effectively connected with the United States. Generally speaking income from property is not effectively connected with the United States merely because it is managed by someone located in the U.S., so if the company had owned an apartment in Brazil that it received rental income from, for example, that would not be subject to U.S. taxation. Also income from intangible property (like interest payments on loans or dividends on publicly held stock) is generally not subject to U.S. taxation if paid to a non-resident, non-citizen of the U.S. But, generally speaking, income from the performance of services is taxable in the place where the services are performed. For example, Colorado can impose state income taxes on income earned by a Texas baseball player while playing at a stadium in Denver. The lack of a salary or employee status shouldn't change the fact that the income received by the company from performance of services in the U.S. is effectively connected with the United States. When the owner performs services in the U.S., the company is performing services in the U.S. and so it is subject to taxation in the U.S. Dividend payments from the offshore company probably wouldn't be subject to U.S. taxation in this scenario, but the company itself would be subject to corporate income taxes in the U.S. from the profits it earned from the services performed in the U.S.
The usual method is that every country charges you income tax for income that you make while your body is in the country. Big exception is the USA which wants a chunk of every income, and some countries like Germany calculate your tax rate based on world wide income, but charge that tax rate on your income in Germany. &quot;Double taxation agreements&quot; usually have the purpose that if two countries think you should pay tax on the same money, then somehow you only pay once. If you were a US citizen, then being tax-free in Indonesia wouldn't help you at all, because the USA would want full US tax minus zero Indonesian tax. In the UK, you need to check what money you have to pay tax on as a UK citizen, especially in the first and last year when you are still in the UK. For the use of a bank account in which country, ask a lawyer. Especially as making a stupid mistake could be very costly. It may be easier to set up a company in Indonesia and your company pays the company, because it is very unlikely that your UK company wants to learn about Indonesian tax law and risk getting it wrong.
No it’s not illegal It’s called retailing: https://youtu.be/ywSkKkuGQ2A https://youtu.be/k8OreiHU91Y https://youtu.be/XpR6y1sNArU You are allowed to advertise the products you sell. Even if you don’t make them. You can even use their trademarks to identify them - that’s what trademarks are for.
Making a profit does not make the act illegal: it is illegal without there being any profit. The act of copying without permission is what makes the act illegal. Profit might maybe enter into the matter if you are talking about the "fair use" defense, since certain kinds of works can be partially copied for certain purposes. You could quote a few lines from a novel in a review, for instance. The judgment of whether a given act of copying without permission is allowed under fair use is complex and involves a balancing act. Profit becomes relevant in that a non-profit use favors fair use and a for-profit use disfavors it. Wholesale copying of works of art as you describe is illegal (is infringement). However... "illegal" is a pretty broad concept. If you infringe on my intellectual property, you almost certainly will not suffer any consequences unless I sue you. Taking "illegal" to mean "in violation of the law", infringing copyright is illegal because it violates the law, but I have to make a federal case out of your infringement – I have to sue you. As it happens, it can also be a crime to infringe copyright, and in that case, the government and not the copyright holder pursues the matter. If a person knowingly infringes copyright, he might be prosecuted, thus the Megaupload case which in the US is realized in the indictment US v. Dotcom. Moreover, profit motive is a required element for criminal infringement. (Also note that you don't have to actually make a profit for the profit element to be present). You cannot sue a person unless they have harmed you, so if you know that Smith copied Jones' work you can't sue Smith for harming Jones. (This is what they call "standing"). You might sue Smith, but not for infringement itself. If they sold you an illegal infringing copy, then you could sue. Or, their infringement could diminish the value of your legal copy. This website gives a multi-nation overview of criminal copyright infringement laws.
Fairly easily. You want to use their API. They give you the conditions for using it. As long as their conditions aren't illegal or unreasonable, you need to adhere to them to use their API. Is it illegal to not include "insta", "gram", or "instagram" in your company or product name? Almost certainly not. Is it an unreasonable term? Almost certainly not. If you want to include "insta", "gram", or "instagram" in your company or product name, you can try - but you can't then use their API.
In the UK, you would need a new contract, because the old company will not be able to pay you and will possibly cease to exist, but that contract must not put you at any disadvantage. Basically, all terms would have to be the same, and the time at the previous company would have to count as continuous employment.