by TacticalCoder | 2026-01-21 14:36:35+00:00
> It's inordinately difficult and expensive to start an LLC or SA in some EU countries.

Totally.

One of the biggest and most horrific aspect of it is the KYC/AML. We regularly read articles explaining that drugs are so out of hand that several EU countries, like Belgium, are becoming narco-states: these are front page, major newspaper, stories. We also read articles explaining that cash bills from petty drug dealing are "necessary for the underground economy of the poor oppressed people".

Official numbers say 2% to 5% of the world's global GDP is tied to criminal activities.

So major drug trafficking is ongoing and that money is definitely being laundered.

Yet when regular people like myself want to open a company, the gates of the KYC/AML hell do open.

Bureaucrats and many people at various institutions like banks, notary, etc. do believe that the KYC/AML meant to catch actual criminals is actually a greenlight to go full stasi-mode on everyone.

Things go, literally, a bit like this:

stasi agent: "Source of funds: where do the 50 K EUR of capital come from?"

honest person: "I sold at 600 EUR shares of Meta I bought at 60 EUR in 2015 (making that up), here's a printed copy of both the buy order at the bank in 2015 and the copy of the sell order, at the same bank, 10 years later."

stasi agent: "Nice try! Where did the 5 K EUR you bought those Meta shares with in 2015 come from?".

The above is, literally, happening. It happened to me. It happened to people I know.

At one point I had no trace because I had to go so much back in time that the bank wouldn't give the proofs anymore: and it cost something insane like 25 EUR / month per account to get old infos. So for say four accounts we're talking 1 200 EUR per year to ask for old bank statements.

I'll remind everyone that a principle in many EU countries is that if there is no suspicion of fraud there's a delay after which the IRSes cannot legally go back. They have to prove that there's potential fraud to be able to go back more than, e.g., 7 years.

But the stasi-agents working in KYC/AML at banks, notary, etc.? They believe they have a mission to make regular's people life hell.

Oh and a good one: you think it's bad that legitimate citizens to denounce illegals? You wanna me to tell you about the phone numbers the governments put in place in many EU countries so that citizens can denounce other fellow citizens "because they believe they're frauding the IRS"? How's that one? Where's the outrage?

In my native country of Belgium I heard that at least one in every four solo-preneur ("independant") / entrepreneur has been the subject of at least one such denunciation.

Stasi.

Also totally counter-productive: when everybody is a suspect, nobody is.

I see on LinkedIn people whoring their profiles to would be employers by boasting about how many SARs denunciations they made (Suspicious Activity Reports).

Stasi agents.

And then don't get me started on people who are just bitter and sour because, in the EU, they may be net 3 K to 5 K EUR a month, and yet are authorized to KYC / AML on people owning Porsche and Ferrari, hundreds of thousands or millions of EUR worth of equities/investements, expensive real estate, etc.

These people cannot comprehend, in their own little minds, surrounded by people limited the same way they are, that there are people out there who are just legitimately more succesful than they'll ever be in life.

Their bitterness and jealousy turns them into little stati agents.

Bank menaced to not only not open my company's account but to close not just my account but also my wife's account. I had then to spend three weeks, full time, while my wife was on vacation (I sent her on vacation and stayed to produce the papers for the stasi), to produce a 49 pages (49 fucking pages) document full of proofs going back more than 10 years. Only to create a company and bring 50 K EUR in capital.

Just fuck this entire system.

You simply cannot hate bureaucracy enough.

> It's even difficult and expensive to _stop_ an LLC and dissolve it.

It's some countries it's near mission impossible. A friend of mine who had the equivalent of a LLC in Belgium who was then acquired by an US company spent 10 years to close the belgian entity. And it's much worse than that: while they refuse to do what's necessary to close it, many taxes are due and keep on coming each year. But of course those did manage to close a company or who know someone who closed a company are going to say: "I had no issue, so there's no issue".

All of this really does feel like a dystopian bureaucratic nightmare, in the style of the Brazil movie. It'd be nice if more movies were produced in that genre for it's badly needed to at least be able to vent off with some well-deserved satire.