Rent office space as employee

[VWowner 0]

Hello all, I am located in Nürnberg and will soon start a new job for a company located in Ingoldstadt. I am supposed to work from home but prefer to rent an office so that I can concentrate better, especially during the first year. I have found some good office spaces in Nürnberg but they all require business tax number and will only sign B2B contracts. They asked me to register myself as self-employed "Selbstständiger" at my local Finanzamt in order to get such number. I have indeed a tax number together with my wife and we use this number in our income tax declaration. Can I send them the same number or do I have to change my registration at Finanzamt? Whatever I find in Google by searching "als Angestellte Büro mieten" is about really self-employed people, e.g. Amazon sellers, Youtubers, freelancers, etc. 

[karin_brenig 682]

if your new job is regular employment - not freelancing - creating the extra (tax)hassle for yourself by registering a business (saying you are self-employed) just to be renting some room as your office seems like "overkill" to me.

 

May I ask why you believe you will lack focus in your home? Are there other (noisy) people living there? Maybe you can designate one room in your home as the office and get yourself into the "working" mindset when you enter that room?

 

You may have better luck searching for something like  a "Hobbyraum".

[VWowner 0]

14 hours ago, karin_brenig said:

if your new job is regular employment - not freelancing - creating the extra (tax)hassle for yourself by registering a business (saying you are self-employed) just to be renting some room as your office seems like "overkill" to me.

 

May I ask why you believe you will lack focus in your home? Are there other (noisy) people living there? Maybe you can designate one room in your home as the office and get yourself into the "working" mindset when you enter that room?

 

You may have better luck searching for something like  a "Hobbyraum".

 

Thanks a lot. The problem is that I have a very difficult 2-year old son at home and he is often sick and cannot go to the daycare. Since I never worked from home, I am afraid he will not tolerate me locking myself in a room! If I cannot handle the tax, I have to deal with him. 

Does becoming "self-employed" affects the relation between me and my employer? 

[toBnruG 1,152]

30 minutes ago, VWowner said:

Does becoming "self-employed" affects the relation between me and my employer? 

Yes. It makes you a contractor to the company (if they even agree to this change) and means that they no longer have to concern themselves with paying your health insurance and pension contributions and all sorts of stuff like that. They can also end your contract at short notice, they don't have to pay you when you are sick and cannot work etc. etc.

It's certainly not something to be entered into lightly but there are many self-employed people on TTGermany and forums to search for information.

I can sympathize about the young child at home. The corona crisis happened and millions of people have made experience in working from home with young children in the house. For me, I literally did lock my door on occasion when it was my wife's turn to look after our son and my turn to work. He was older (4) so it was a little easier, but in every case it is possible.

I never looked into this myself (despite working home-office for 11 years now), but did you try looking for "shared" office space? A google search came up with this, I assume there are multiple companies doing this now: https://www.easyoffices.com/de/coworking-bereich/n%C3%BCrnberg

 

You should not need a business tax number to rent shared office space and it could have the added bonus of giving you some people to drink coffee with from time to time.

[VWowner 0]

9 minutes ago, toBnruG said:

Yes. It makes you a contractor to the company (if they even agree to this change) and means that they no longer have to concern themselves with paying your health insurance and pension contributions and all sorts of stuff like that. They can also end your contract at short notice, they don't have to pay you when you are sick and cannot work etc. etc.

It's certainly not something to be entered into lightly but there are many self-employed people on TTGermany and forums to search for information.

I can sympathize about the young child at home. The corona crisis happened and millions of people have made experience in working from home with young children in the house. For me, I literally did lock my door on occasion when it was my wife's turn to look after our son and my turn to work. He was older (4) so it was a little easier, but in every case it is possible.

I never looked into this myself (despite working home-office for 11 years now), but did you try looking for "shared" office space? A google search came up with this, I assume there are multiple companies doing this now: https://www.easyoffices.com/de/coworking-bereich/n%C3%BCrnberg

 

You should not need a business tax number to rent shared office space and it could have the added bonus of giving you some people to drink coffee with from time to time.

 

Thanks. I have already visited some of these co-working providers and they asked for my or my employer's business tax number. Maybe I should keep searching.

[toBnruG 1,152]

1 hour ago, VWowner said:

Thanks. I have already visited some of these co-working providers and they asked for my or my employer's business tax number. Maybe I should keep searching.

Providing your employer's business tax number should not be an issue. Every business has one, just ask your employer what theirs is and tell them what you need it for. I provide that of my business every time I have any expense bill sent to my company.

[VWowner 0]

2 minutes ago, toBnruG said:

Providing your employer's business tax number should not be an issue. Every business has one, just ask your employer what theirs is and tell them what you need it for. I provide that of my business every time I have any expense bill sent to my company.

But my employer isn't willing to pay the bill since they have a nice office 100km away.

[Dembo 495]

51 minutes ago, VWowner said:

But my employer isn't willing to pay the bill since they have a nice office 100km away.

They could pay the bill and take it out of your salary.

 

Is there a legal reason not to rent office space to someone who's only an employee? I wonder if they're concerned about somehow looking like they're responsible for you.

[HH_Sailor 3,532]

3 hours ago, VWowner said:

 

Does becoming "self-employed" affects the relation between me and my employer? 

 

From the tax office (Finanzamt) point of view, you'd only have one customer - soon fall into the trap of

not really being self employed (Scheinselbstständigkeit) and be liable for all sorts of trouble.

 

12 minutes ago, Dembo said:

They could pay the bill and take it out of your salary.

 

That's an idea worth following up - perhaps after you've been there a while.

[karin_brenig 682]

how's about a furnished mini-apartment?

https://www.immobilienscout24.de/expose/79633766

[pappnase 2,572]

That isn't a bad idea Karin, looking at regus The average desk price in Nuremberg is €218/mo and you gotta assume that is ex-vat so €220/month cold rent on a furnished place seems competitive.

 

 

[VWowner 0]

52 minutes ago, karin_brenig said:

how's about a furnished mini-apartment?

https://www.immobilienscout24.de/expose/79633766

 

An apartment would need a separate internet contract (costly especially if I want a short notice period), adds energy costs, complicates my tax declaration, etc. 

[VWowner 0]

12 minutes ago, pappnase said:

That isn't a bad idea Karin, looking at regus The average desk price in Nuremberg is €218/mo and you gotta assume that is ex-vat so €220/month cold rent on a furnished place seems competitive.

 

 

Regus offered me a desk in a shared room for a monthly payment of around 180€ + VAT for a 6-month contract. I think it's much cheaper and less complicated than renting an apartment. But unfortunately they sign only B2B deals. 

[karin_brenig 682]

ok - how about this: for the days that your 2-year-old can't go to daycare (because he is sick) you get a babysitter to come to your house?

 

Another question within that context: suppose you actually had an office outside the house, who would take care of your sick child at home then?

[karin_brenig 682]

have you checked out these guys?

https://workspacein.de/coworking/

[scook17 247]

One option you might want to consider is to rent an apartment close to the company and work in the company offices, as 'they have a nice office'. You drive Monday there and come back on Thursday/Friday. The cost of the apartment (It can be an AirBNB, Hotel, whatever) is a deductible (second home) from your taxable income as the apartment is for the purpose of working. It kind of sucks being away from home in this way, so it not for everyone.

 

Another option might be to find a neighbour/friend/parents who has a house and is happy to let you come around and work in the study/basement/kids room/shed/garage in exchange for a daily fee or other compensation. Maybe the person is old and you do the shopping or mow the lawn or something in exchange. Often older people are in houses with children who have grown up and left or maybe are away for one reason or another. You can claim a tax allowance for this even as an employee.

 

All you basically need is your laptop, and a desk/chair, and I'd strongly suggest a monitor as working on a laptop will give you back ache. You could supply this by popping down to Ikea, or maybe collect it from the office 100km away when you pick up the laptop. Often employers are fine with monitors, laptop docking station etc. A mobile internet 'box' is 80 Euros a month, which may or may not work at the location, if using the person's WIFI is an issue. You can even use your phone as a portable wifi hotspot if you have a suitable data package and a reasonable phone.

 

Regarding being self employed, if you are currently an employee, I would suggest against. You can be an employee of the company, or of an agency, but being a freelancer really means having a proper business, often admin staff, and not just one client. You need a tax accountant. You get to pay also the employer half of the pension, insurance, sickness costs etc. Also you loose unemployment insurance cover.

 

[toBnruG 1,152]

The OP has never said that they are responsible for looking after this difficult 2 year old. In fact, we can assume they are not responsible during working hours (otherwise how is an office going to help?).

Therefore, given that no other solution seems to work for them, it's time to loop back to the beginning and confront the initial problem. Get a lock for your home-office door (or use the one it already has) and teach the difficult 2 year old that daddy isn't available during the daytime if he is too sick to go to day care.

It's not that difficult. And the child is two, so the problem is not with the child, it is with the parents.

[snowingagain 5,201]

Noise cancelling headphones?    

 

1 hour ago, toBnruG said:

It's not that difficult. And the child is two, so the problem is not with the child, it is with the parents.

 

When 2 year olds disasgree they can be very, very loud about it, for an astonishingly long time.  My first 2 were ok, but wow the third.  Neighbours (even strangers in the street) seemed to think I was beating him up or something.    Or even that I needed to give him a wallop, as some children need that.   Ha.  I can imagine being in a locked room with a boisterous 2 year old body slamming against the door, screeching would make boring conference calls more interesting.  Sure, he will grow out of this phase soon.