On: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

[Robin_f]

This is actively preventing me from sending packages to other countries as a maker. No matter how small the risk is, I don't want to risk a 5000 euro fine for sending a small amount of packages to other EU countries.

[dgellow → Robin_f]

Really sorry you’re experiencing this, that whole regulation rollout is a complete mess. The leadership should be sacked for such an incompetent regulation, it’s insane how much troubles they are creating for small businesses.

Another small business owner reported their experience in this Reddit thread, looks really bad: https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1vrz88a/comment/p4i...

I’m as pro-EU as one can get but that’s a mistake we should solve asap

[contravariant → dgellow]

The main reason I'm not particularly pro EU is the following.

How would we even sack the leadership?

[RandomLensman → contravariant]

Who is the leadership? The Council - then it would be national elections etc for the individual national representatives; the Commission - then it would be the European Parliament.

[contravariant → RandomLensman]

Requiring a 2/3 majority from the European Parliament seems a bit like a theoretical option more than anything. Even if it did (almost) happen once.

[anigbrowl → Robin_f]

No matter how small the risk is

That's just an excuse then. Register with whatever local authority in your country handles these things and in the unlikely event you get a grumpy letter just send them a copy of your registration documents.

[Robin_f → anigbrowl]

It's clear you didn't read the article. As its not about registration, but rather the absurd costs of doing all this for small businesses.

[criddell → Robin_f]

Do you send them as your business or as yourself? If it's the latter, then I would consider forming a business to take on the risk. That's not free either, but think of it as insurance.

[thesimon → criddell]

Can't comment on all European jurisdictions obviously, but a 1 person LLC/Ltd. is not a great shield in Germany. Usually they'll still consider the owner/director liable because they were making those executive decisions.

[graemep → Robin_f]

Some people did the same when VATMOSS was introduced.

[jeltz → graemep]

And those people were idiots. MOSS was trivial to implement and an improvement of what was there before. I implemented it myself for our company.

[graemep → jeltz]

Not far small businesses with very small numbers of cross border sales.

[sokoloff → catigula]

Fortunately, buses are not invisible and you can look for a bus before crossing a street to gauge and control your risk of being struck by one.

[tygon → sokoloff]

Schrodinger's Bus: You do not know if you will be hit until you are already in the street. I feel like there is some promise in naming a band this, but it is unfortunate it so often is what people have to deal with when bringing an item to market.

[Hizonner → sokoloff]

... but you can still fail to notice one, and you can gauge and to some degree control your risk of being fined.

In fact, if you sell 10 hobby prototype boards to other hobbyists, you probably have a higher risk of getting hit by a bus on the way to the post office than you do of being fined.

[throw-the-towel → catigula]

Umm akchully, not crossing a highway to avoid being hit is a perfectly sane course of action.

[fitsumbelay → throw-the-towel]

except he said "street" not "highway"

[x0x0 → catigula]

Sorry, that's a really poor analogy.

Because there's a handful of companies (lectronz, seeedstudio, ebay, etc) that have the full shipment lists. So the compliance agencies don't have to go after individual business records one business at a time; they can go to probably fewer than 10 businesses and find the suggested mass rule breaking with a sql join.

See also the national tax agencies with NACE codes (euro version of NAICS).