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Comment by realPubkey | Hacker News Reader

Of you live in germany: don't do it, the bourecraty will kill you with a 360 no-scope.

Actually, the German burocracy (employment agency, tax office, city hall) keeps handing me leaflets about starting my own company (which I find strange, but appreciate it). They offer a lot of support nowadays like courses for founders and help getting started with the paperwork.

Also, there is a special rule for small enterprises: as long as you don't make much money, or in the first year, you can do your accounting like a private person (e.g. you pay VAT when buying, and don't pay Umsatzsteuer). There are other simplifications. This sounds great if you are bootstrapping. Just register, do your business, and only if you are successful, incorporate properly.

Of course, not everything is rosy, but I think entrepreneurs (Selbständige) are still in high regard in Germany.

Or in Italy. As you start to go solo, expect to spend 30-50% of your time dealing with paperwork and kafkian bureaucracy

Small business is a fist pumping cheer word for even our left here in the US - I remember being really surprised when I found out that it wasn't the same everywhere.

It IS the same everywhere. Just that, everywhere, and in the US too, the cheer words don't match the reality.

What? A small business is very easy to run in the US from a government interaction perspective.

Plenty of bureaucracy and disadvantage for small business in the US ... and really, this is the land of the megacorp. Most other countries have more palpable small business presence.

I'm still paying taxes on money I didn't even earned.

I have founded three companies in the last three months (2 GmbHs, 1 UG), and I think the amount of bureaucracy is fair.

I highly recommend choosing a good notary and tax accountant, they can guide you. My advise is to invest the money in both, it can save you a lot of trouble.

There are also some consultancies that help found a company.

The author is from the Netherlands. Is the bureaucracy really that much worse in Germany than it is there?

In my experience the real bureaucracy has no direct relationship to the bureaucracy expressed/perceived by individuals. This seems true both for statements about your local level of bureaucracy and that of other areas.

I'm seeing a bit of the employer side burocracy: Currently, I have a weird job. I work in Germany, but am payed from abroad. My employer would have to pay German social insurances, but can't/won't deal with that. So they give me the cash and I hand it to the insurances, and do the paperwork.

It was quite a steep learning curve: registering a company with the health insurance agency, calculating the different contributions (health, unemployment, care, pension, ...), and making monthly reports.

Was it hard? Hell yes, it was horrible. But that's just because I hate paperwork. Everything has its internal logic, it's entirely learnable in a few afternoons. Most importantly, the burocracy was incredibly patient with me, even though I screwed up a few times. I overpaid, and realised months later, but they will still pay me back. The thing is, they want you to fill out everything correctly, they have no interest in you failing or do so, so you get support. And many many people have gone through that same process before.

Also, I think in an actual business, I'd just pay somebody to deal with these things.

Oh, man, the envy. In Portugal, I just paid a 200€ fine for failing to pay 20€ in taxes - which I didn't owe, I just marked the wrong box on the form.

They are surprizingly chill here :-) If you don't file taxes (as a regular employee), you will get increasingly sternly worded requests to do so... and after a few months they say "ok whatever", and just estimate your taxes conservatively. Of course that would be stupid for you, because you'd leave money (deductions) on the table. It is actually hard to accidentially evade taxes. If you make an honest mistake, and come clean, you are not likely to be fined. Maybe it helps that we pay everything (tax, insurance) in advance, and largely automatically (as salaried employees).

... and he is talking (judging from the brand new PC-XT he got) circa 1984.

So the comparison should be more between 1984 bureaucracy and 2017 one.

Cannot say what happened in these 30+ years in Germany or the Netherlands, but I can tell you that here (Italy) the number (and frequence) of bureaucratic obligations (and number of Laws that you have to be compliant with) has almost tripled in many sectors (maybe not if you are putting together a software - or similar "immaterial" - company). Things are getting (slowly and only slightly) better lately because of some changes in the way things can be done remotely (via Internet, etc.) but seemingly a lot of public offices managed (since all in all doing this kind of stuff with modern technologies is easier) to multiply the requirements, nullifying the progresses in terms of saving time (and costs).

This is simply not true. It is pretty reasonable to start a company in Germany and the authorities are pretty lenient and helpful (at least in the big cities).

You will need a lawyer and tax consultant though.

Please reconsider that. There's a fuckton of Turks who barely speak German running their own successful small companies. If they can do it, anyone can do it.

Your business doesn't have to be in Germany.

it sounds like an excuse.

Don't go solo. There's a reason why most people recommend having a co-founder.

Or, do go solo as there is a reason some people do that too.

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