Setting up a “Business” in Holland
As some of you know, I am a qualified spin instructor, and after a year of teaching in Australia I have been keen to teach over here too. Really keen: I’ve provided all my qualifications, asked for opportunities to teach, led classes while the instructor has chilled out in the back row. I’ve even learned Dutch expressions for “more resistance!”, “back on the flat road!”, and “If you don’t hate me by the end of this track, you’re not working hard enough!” (Okay, so I have to work on my delivery of the last one.)
One thing I haven’t done: the admin. The gym I help out at explained to me I needed to register as a freelancer, and obtain a KVK number. So a few months after teaching my first class for them, I finally got my butt into gear last week, printed out my forms, and headed for the Dutch Chamber of Commerce.
Immediately, I got a feeling this might not be such a successful visit: I put my folder full of papers down on the ground, locked up my scooter, turned to pick up my folder – and it was gone!
I must have looked like a character from a screwball comedy as I turned around every which way looking for the folder. With the wind picking up around me and my hair flying everywhere, I realized the wind must have blown the folder somewhere. A I looked around panicked, I noticed the Ij river just to my right. “Oh please don’t have flown into the river!” I whispered.
I looked the other way. As a car sped past it flicked up a piece of paper.
“There!” I thought with relief.
The relief was short-lived as I noticed there were papers flying all over the road – and this was not a quiet street!
So there I was, dodging traffic like Kit Ramsay in Bowfinger, trying to pick up the twenty-odd pieces of paper which had escaped form my folder.
After five minutes of this ridiculous situation, I had collected them all, and I walked into the Chamber of Commerce. The papers clutched in my hands and my hair windswept, I must have looked a sight to the woman on reception. She must have thought I was a nutcase when I proceeded to try to sort through the papers in front of her, smooth down scrunched up edges, and try to rub away the tyre marks across most of them!
Customer of the day?
Nevertheless, we sorted through, confirmed I had all the papers, and I sat down to wait my turn.
The adviser called me up and we proceeded to work through my papers. He explained that in order to get a KVK number, I would need to make a declaration to the tax office on what my earnings would be.
“Can it just be an estimate?” I asked, panicked. I had no idea!
“Yes that’s fine,” he replied.
I put my structured problem solving brain to work, and determined if I received around 25 euro for a class (having no idea what the pay rates are over here!), and I were to teach 20 classes throughout the year, I might make 500 euro.
The workers eyes popped out of his head when he read this. “You want to set up a company that might make 500 euro a year?”
“Well, I want my KVK number … Is this the only way to get it?”
“Yes, but … Are you sure? I mean, the tax office is going to frame this and stick it on their wall as a joke! I’m going to tell all my friends and colleagues about it at drinks after work tonight. I’ve never heard of anything like this!”
Yep – customer of the day!
Nevertheless, I’ve set up my own business and am therefore an entrepreneur before my 30th birthday:)
An Australian in Amsterdam 