The point is that relative to everything else you need to get right to build a successful company in any country, taxes, payroll and accounting in Germany frankly don't even register.

Like I said, it's 1-2 days out of a year for me.

If that seems like a big hurdle, it wasn't the reason you didn't build a business.

There are challenges with building a business that are specific to Germany that actually matter.

By contrast, the concerns about bureaucracy are a tired stereotype. There's a grain of truth to them, but if they really pose a challenge to you, you didn't want to do this in the first place.