Not sure about the U.S., but in at least in Russia and Estonia sole proprietorship is a form of business – in a sense that you have to register it, do annual reports (or more often), calculate taxes etc.
In Russia, it is a bit easier than running an LLC, so many entrepreneurs choose to start as an SP. In Estonia I've seen zero sole proprietors – the burden is the same, but LLC taxes are more favourable (0% income tax until you pay out dividiends) and limited liability (which you don't get as an SP).
I've done some research (which in this case is a fancy way of saying “opened up Wikipedia” [1]) and looks like in the U.S. you can just run a sole proprietorship without filing anything. Neat!
This is confusing. Are people legally allowed to get a lot of income from Bitcoin without a SP or more in these countries? Will Stripe automatically deny people without a sole proprietorship in these countries? What happens if people are able to get on Stripe without an SP in these countries? I assume no one is going to jail over this.
I don’t expect you to know the answers to these questions, but the focus was on the difference between Bitcoin and Stripe/PayPal, etc. The thing I replied to specifically said there was an onus of several hundred dollars which I was disputing as well and which is not correct for the US.
> Are people legally allowed to get a lot of income
In Russia, they aren't if it's systematic [1] (and if you get caught, which is usually not a concern for many unregistered one-man businesses). Stripe isn't available in Russia but most local payment gateways check your paperwork thoroughly, so if you're not a registered SP, card payments are mostly off the limits and the main payment method is card to card transfer there. (There's a few options, but those aren't widely popular because who cares)
I don't really have any experience with SPs in Estonia, but I think it's pretty similar. Let me try and sign up for Stripe and see what happens :-)
Update: I've just signed up as a “sole proprietor” and charged myself 1 EUR. I've only had to fill in my name and home address. Not even I had to submit any documents, perhaps because I already have an LLC registered with Stripe. Still not sure if it's legal, but from the technical standpoint yeah, you probably can use Stripe without any paperwork here in Europe.
In the west, opening a business bank account does indeed take a few minutes. There’s more than enough that allow opening one online.
It isn’t needed for Stripe or many payment providers, so it’s a moot point. Same with many payment providers not requiring a business.
References: - https://support.stripe.com/questions/selling-on-stripe-witho... - https://www.statrys.com/blog/connect-stripe-bank