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Comment by Scotrix | Hacker News Reader

Don’t start a company in Germany if you don’t have to. Expensive and bureaucratic tax system (accountants and time wise), regular accountancy checks which you have to pay your accountant for, very hard to close down and insolvency is very complicated.

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Meh... It's not quite as easy as one might wish, but I haven't seen any business where it had any significance. If you're small, it's about $300 to start and maybe around $500 for an accountant.

It get's more complicated once you have employees, but even that's not relevant compared to almost any other aspect of a business. I think we're paying EUR30 per quarter for managing the employees taxes and various benefits.

If you're doing GAAP accounting, you're 95% done with taxes as well. And since these standards have converged over the years, the only difference in bureaucracy that remains is people's enduring stereotypes.

Is this hearsay or your experience? "regular accountancy checks"... I even forgot when our last one was...maybe 5 years ago. And this seems is typical.

It's not any more bureaucratic than the US. With the significant difference that German bureaucrats usually stick to the law, while the US ones occasionally feel like making shit up. (Especially my friends at CBP.)

This isn’t true. Starting and ending limited liability companies is an order of magnitude faster, cheaper, and easier in the US.

I'm not sure how often you intend to spin up LLCs and turn them down again? Every quarter? Your partners must be thrilled to work with you, standing before closed doors all the time without notice.

I said nothing of frequency, just that the two operations involved in most startups, starting and ending, are way easier in the US.

My business has been around for 10 years this year, so who knows wtf you’re on about.

What does it matter if the paperwork takes 3 weeks (which doesn't mean "you have 3 weeks of work to do": it's a 1h meeting with a notary, mailing two form and one bank transfer) if the business runs for 10 years?

Which means that unless you're in the business of flipping LLCs, "way easier" seems like a made-up concern to me.

Yeah it is very bureaucratic indeed. If you want to raise money or add shareholders you need to make official appointments w/ lawyers and pay significant fees.

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Because it protects entrenched players?

It doesn’t really stifle innovation in any way?

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