Lawyers and accountants just aren't that expensive. Really. For the common case ("I just want to set up a company") you could be in and out in an hour and face only a moderate premium over the underlying fees.
I mean I don't try to do my own dentistry. And like others on HN I make fun of people who think they can program after doing a mail merge.
So why would I try to do my own legal and accounting stuff? Given the potential downsides, that's just crazy.
The chances are that once I knew more about it, I'd think it's crazy too, especially for the general case. I'm curious whether it is possible to reduce the difficulty of operating as a single person limited liability company to the same level of difficulty as operating as a sole-trader.
The limit of my complexity is occasionally emailing my accountant to ask whether to book things against me or the company.
The people I work for require me to be incorporated, so that pretty much settles that.
As for curiousity: again, I just ask the professionals. They are likely to give me a correct answer.
I do sometimes look things up myself, but there's always the nagging doubt that I've mistaken a technical term for its common meaning, or that I lack some key conceptual framework or whathaveyou.
I mean I don't try to do my own dentistry. And like others on HN I make fun of people who think they can program after doing a mail merge.
So why would I try to do my own legal and accounting stuff? Given the potential downsides, that's just crazy.