Comment by pembrook | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pembrook | Hacker News Reader

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Ah great, not so bad then! So you just need to:

- Form a German holding company to manage the business

- Deal with any conflicting taxation/regulatory issues when operating a german holding company from your new country of residence (in some countries this is not trivial)

- Visit Germany twice per year and potentially more to deal with German authorities that require things be done on paper and in person (hope you didn't move too far away and hopefully you don't have small children!)

- Hire an abnormally expensive tax advisor, hope he is good

- Sell a large portion of the company to fund a giant exit tax bill (!!!!). For many companies this is likely a 1-2 year minimum process, and that's IF they can find a buyer. Not as many PE funds in Europe. Good luck on valuation when the buyer knows you're in this situation.

- Hope the government gives you a reasonable valuation on your company, and hope their decision is similar to that of your buyer (and the timelines for both line up), which I'm sure is a super easy and not at all complicated process.

Fun! I can't possibly see what people are complaining about.

One of the weirdest things about Europe is the irrational nationalism that arises when you tie a language, ethnic-identity, government and country into one thing. Anecdotal, but it feels like this leads to more of an inability to reflect on and criticize things. Americans have far thicker skin when it comes to criticizing themselves.

Can you not see how this incentivizes entrepreneurs to leave or start their companies outside Germany (not sure if you're aware the EU exists). Is this really how you think things should work in a non-authoritarian regime with democratic freedom of movement?

Snark aside, this chart makes total sense to me now: https://i.redd.it/fxks3skmvt4e1.png

Let's be fair here, the GP is comparing this to the complexity of other bureaucracy in Germany. In that context this does sound easy, e.g. here's how you form a GmbH: https://major-grooves.medium.com/just-how-complicated-could-...

    > Snark aside, this chart makes total sense
    > to me now: https://i.redd.it/fxks3skmvt4e1.png

Not that we're doing all that great here in Europe, but this list is somewhat an artifact of strong US financial markets, and skews against European innovation.

E.g. Booking.com isn't there because it's now ... an American company on paper, but it was started in Europe, has most of its operations there, and (last I checked) Europe was its most important market.

But because the US stock market and US capital dominates globally, companies like that tend to be sold to a US company, and become American on paper. But that financial arrangement doesn't really reflect the overall state of European innovation.

Similarly, there's countless European startups that would have probably had a NASDAQ listing if they'd been US-based, but were instead sold to some of the larger European incumbents in their sector.

The overall amount of innovation delivered to consumers etc. might be the same, so that's more of an artifact of how capital flows in the US v.s. the EU generally.

The overall amount of innovation is absolutely not the same, you can easily compare productivity growth in both regions to see the EU is also lagging there.

Also, the chart does include companies that are European headquartered (like Spotify) unless I’m mistaken.

Even if it didn’t though, don’t you think it’s a problem that a group of 600 million people cant form an attractive enough capital market such that its companies wouldn’t need to go abroad to a group of 300 million people to go public?

This is the weak complacency I’m talking about, as someone living in Europe it’s maddening.

I have no idea how you managed to read "this list is somewhat an artifact of" and "skews against" as a claim that the two would be "the same" if not for what I was pointing out.

Germany seems like a great country to be an employee as long as you're happy with making a fraction of what you'd make in any other country and have no designs of doing anything more with your professional life. Provided you can even get a full-time job since they seem to treat keeping your job as a civil right.

> Germany seems like a great country to be an employee as long as you're happy with making a fraction of what you'd make in any other country and have no designs of doing anything more with your professional life

Are you trying to just incite reactions? This is a very unfair take. German salaries are among the highest in Europe, sixth highest according to Wikipedia, and for many Europeans and non-Europeans it still is a land of opportunity. Certainly a better place to be a professional than almost "any other country", as you put it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_...

How on earth are Tesla, Uber, and T-Mobile not "high-tech"?

They're not exactly building leading-edge stuff, though they sometimes buy from companies that do.

Out of those you could only make an argument for Tesla, because at least they were pushing the envelope for a short while in the past (though more from a business standpoint), rather than merely operating within the possibilities of existing technologies others created.

Generally a high-tech company will have significant research (not development) spending, which T-Mobile and Uber don't.

But that chart is awful either way.

I guess that's fair. What about high-tech burrito? https://www.hightechburrito.com/

I would never again found a company in Germany - not because of the super high tax or these arbitrary rules like you need to pay insane amounts to the Chamber of Industry and Commerce (IHK) or the GEZ for radios you don’t have; but: dealing with the bureaucracy and the tax authorities is just insane. Like you are required to pay a registered tax accountant do your books then they have “screenings” where you PAY him again to check his work and explain it to the IRS - only to find you missed paying 13.09 EUR of social security for the artist guild. Spent 5k in tax advisory fees and countless working days dealing with the questions over 13 EUR.

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