A new law aimed at helping small companies get off the ground will protect the homes of small business-people, help against bankruptcy, and allow non-EU residents who open a business automatic residency and work permits.
The law actually contains a number of manifesto promises that the PP hadn’t yet got around to implementing, and people were starting to agitate for the changes promised.
The ideas behind the new Ley de Emprendedores are three fold:
– It aims to help people get their new business off the ground by lowering the fixed costs of setting up, and helps to protect them if it all goes pear shaped. For example, your main home (or the first 300,000€ worth of it) will be protected against any debts you incurr, and if you have debts of under five million euros which threaten to sink your business, a new extra-judicial arbitration service aims to help you renegotiate these debts and continue trading.
– It hopes to attract new residents to Spain. If, say, a lady from China wants to move to Spain, she can setup a business here, and in return gets an automatic residency / work permit. (Or, she can buy a house here, and get an automatic residency. Up to her. The house route doesn’t give her the work permit, tho’).
– And it aims to help existing small businesses in a number of small ways. For example, the long awaited “no IVA until you get it” measure comes in – from the next tax year you will only be liable for IVA on invoices you’ve had paid, not IVA on invoices you’ve issued. Tax on profits and personal income derived from self-employed work has been lowered again for people just starting up, etc.
Finally, something sensible!