Germany: Employee and Entrepreneur at same time (for getting AppStore payments)
"(Selling apps is AFAIK business, not freelancing - unless the type of app you produce is considered a freelancing subject. The tax office will give you a questionnaire and then decide).  As Einzelunternehmer, you can receive the payments for the apps to the same account where your wages go. However, there are lots of online accounts that do not cost fees, so consider to receive them on a separate account so you have the business and private kind of separate (for small Einzelunternehmer, there is no legal separation between business and private money - you have full liability with your private money for the business).  The local chamber of commerce can tell you everything about setting up such a business, ask them (you'll probably have to become a member there anyways). They have information as well on VAT (Umsatzsteuer, USt) which you need to declare unless you get an exemption (probably possible), and about Gewerbesteuer (the income tax of the business) etc. For the tax, you have ""subforms""  for the income tax e.g. for wages and for business income, so you just submit both with the main form. You'll get an appropriate tax number when registering the business.  Social security/insurance: as long as the app selling is only a side business, the social insurance payments for your main job completely cover the side job as well. You need to make sure that your employment contract is compatible with the app business, though.  A quick search indicates that there is a tax treaty between Germany and the Ukraine, Wikipedia says there are no contracts about social insurance in effect (yet)." In Germany you can register a Einzelunternehmen and receive payments into your personal bank account with a German bank. Apple will certainly be able to transfer to accounts in Germany as payments go via the European SEPA standard. Tax wise if you are living in Germany you will need to pay tax in Germany, so this is really the easiest way of doing it.
The way I have seen this done in the past is the business will withhold taxes on the amount of the gift.  Very much like receiving a bonus.  There are probably other ways to do it where taxes are avoided like you boss could buy the gift for you personally.  Not sure about all the legal ways to avoid taxes on this. They just spun off their consumer credit card portion that handles store charge cards. Synchrony Financial just IPOd, rather quietly (but still the biggest ipo of the year) at that. They've got a ton of money to throw around too. It's mostly VAT (value added tax or sales tax). For example an US IPad is $499 without tax, and a German IPad is EUR 499 including 17% VAT. The base price is actually only EUR 417.  In addition to that, cost of business is a little higher in Europe because of tax structures and because smaller countries cause higher overheads. Founder makes available 100% equity, but uses a reasonable amount of the proceeds to pay him/herself a salary (or wage) and from that salary invests in the same initial offering to acquire shares for him/herself.   I see several problems.   What is a reasonable salary?   Also, this leaves the door open to the following scam:  Founders say that they are going to follow this plan.  However, instead of buying shares, they simply quit after being paid the salary.  They use knowledge gained from this business to start a competitor.  Investors are left holding an empty company.   Tax consequences.  The founder would pay income tax on the salary.  By contrast, if the founder instead sells shares, that would be capital gains tax, which is lower in many countries (e.g. the United States).   Why would I want to invest in a business where the founders don't believe in it enough to take a significant equity stake?   Consider the Amazon.com example.  Jeff Bezos makes a minimal salary, around $80,000 a year, less than many of his employees.  But he has a substantial ownership position.  If the company doesn't make money, he won't.  Would investors really value the stocks with a P/E of 232.10 in 2016 if they didn't trust him to make the right long term decisions?   It's also worth noting that most initial public offerings (IPOs) are not made when the founder is the only employee.  A single employee company instead looks for private investors, often called angel investors.  Companies generally don't go public until they are established in some way, often making money.  Negotiating with angel investors is different from negotiating with the public.  They can personally review the books and once invested tend to have input on how the money is spent.   In other words, this is mostly solving the wrong problem if you talk about IPOs.  This might make more sense with a crowdfunded venture, as that replaces a few angel investors with many individuals.  But most crowdfunded ventures tend to approach things from the opposite direction.  Instead of looking for investors, they look for customers.  If they offer a useful product, they will get customers.  If not, they never get the money.   Beyond all this, if a founder is only going to get a fair salary some of the time, then why put in any sweat equity?  This works fine if the company looks valuable after a year.  What if it doesn't?  The founder is out a year of sweat equity and has nothing in return.  That happens now too, but the possibility of the big return offsets it.  You're taking out the big return.   I don't think that this is good for either founders or investors.  The founder trades a potentially good or even great return for a mediocre return.  The investors trade a situation where both they and the founder benefit from a successful company to one where they benefit a lot more than the founder.  That's not good for either side. This depends on whether you are interested in having two partners in the same company. Either way, each software should get its own business for liability etc. However, the parent company can be with three partners. Just makes sure you get voting control in the agreements. Not sure where the confusion is coming from - software/digital/intangible goods are just like any other product, with regard to VAT. Turns out it's being made complicated by HMRC... Anyone would think they enjoy making everyone who collects tax for free on their behalf a crook! You charge customers everywhere in the EU VAT and pay it to HMRC, the only exception being customers outside the UK who can provide you with a VAT number. For these customers you are free to not charge VAT, as it's assumed they would be reclaiming it in their home country anyway. The above is true until 2015, when the rules become more relaxed - you will not need a VAT number from customers outside the UK in order to exempt yourself from collecting VAT. Turns out you need to be part of the MOSS scheme (more here) which was set up to prevent you having to register for VAT in every country you sell your software. Unless you only sell through app stores, and then it's easier because each sale is treated as you selling your software to the store for it to be sold on. You can reclaim all VAT on your eligible purchases in the UK, just as any other UK VAT registered business would (usual rules apply). And of course you don't collect VAT from anyone outside the EU, so you can either reduce the price of your software or pocket the additional 20%. Gnucash uses aqbanking, so I'd suggest looking at aqbanking to see if it will do what you want. It seems to be actively developed (as of 26.2.2011), but the main page is in German and my German is a bit rusty... You might also try asking on the gnucash-users list. I believe the answer is no, since your income from royalties and app sales would fall under FDAP income. (another conformation of this would be the fact that Apple and Google requested a W8-BEN form from you and not a W8-ECI form) Generally, All income EXCEPT FDAP income (fixed or determinable annual or periodical income) are ECI income.  FDAP income includes income from interest, rent, dividends etc. IRS link to a list of all Income classified under FDAP below:- https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/fixed-determinable-annual-periodical-fdap-income https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/iw8eci.pdf (page 3 - under effectively connected income) 60 Minutes is just reporting this now?  Been going on for years &amp; years.  In the Silicon Valley tech industry, the jobs themselves are outsourced to Infosys, Wipro, TCS, or similar who hire &amp; manage the H1-B visas.  Apple, Facebook, PayPal, Mattel, utility companies; yep they all do this. I've been hearing storied from Germans that this is happening in Germany, too, but at the bank level. All anecdotal, people I've met telling me their personal stories, but they follow the same pattern. Go to the bank, try to take out a few grand for a vacation or large purchase, bank tells them they can't have that much and that they just have to do with less, even if the account balance covers the withdrawal. I have a hard time swallowing this opinion from somebody who actually thinks startups can or should get into a contract with anybody stipulating continuing employment.  Nobody does that.  If that was done, any VC worth their salt would insist that it be undone before they got involved.  As for the rest of her article, I don't care for the venom but underneath theres a lot of stuff that's mostly true.  VCs have a set of motivations that you have to understand to be successful with them.  Those motivations are often at cross purposes with cofounders and almost certainly at cross purposes for general employees.  The problems start when startup folks don't understand the motivations.    Yes, you have to check your wallet and your fingers too whenever you deal with VCs but if you don't think that's the case with almost every deal you make, you are delusional. "So, I am one of these ""job creators"" right now.  I am doing software development and have hired 1 person from the U.S. and a team from Germany. So I will leave it to someone else to determine how changing my tax structure impacts job creation." Permanent employees are the distinct opposite of contractors. Upwork can easily have business entities (limited liability company equivalents) in multiple countries, and it can make payments between them. Or they can merely use existing payment infrastructure (paypal, amazon) to accomplish the same thing. Their corporate structure is a red herring and most likely unrelated to what they've accomplished. The article mentions it briefly, but this is likely a defensive patent. So much of Amazon's business comes from cross-checking or reading reviews in retail stores. I bet they just want to make sure people can still do that. Berkshire Hathaway issues first ever-negative coupon security from back in 2002 had this part: The warrants will give the holder the right to purchase either shares   of the Company's class A or class B common stock at the holder’s   option. The initial exercise price represents a 15% premium over the   closing price of the class A shares on the NYSE on May 21, 2002. The   Notes will pay holders a 3.0% interest rate per annum and holders will   pay 3.75% installment payments per annum on the warrants. The warrant   payments due from holders will be greater than the coupon on the   senior notes, effectively making SQUARZ the first negative coupon   security. Berkshire Hathaway will use the net proceeds from the   issuance for general corporate purposes, including possible   acquisitions, none of which are pending. This would be an example where the strike price was 15% higher than the closing price yet the security sold well.