Comment by volta83 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by volta83 | Hacker News Reader

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I know a couple of people (EDIT: two people) that have started working for Tesla in Germany and the one that was there the longest quit in less than 6 months.

Basically, Tesla does not pay enough here for competent people to work for them.

EDIT: For mechanical and civil engineers, they pay ~10-20% more than market average, but market average works 9-4 (35h/week), has a pretty relaxed work, colleagues are also relaxed, etc. These type of people are used to a very relaxed life, spending lots of time with their kids, leaving their work phone at work, not checking emails after work or on the weekends, etc.

In Tesla you work your ass off, work shifts, there is apparently a high level of incompetency, high turnover, lots of stress to deliver impossible things, etc.

A very skilled friend told me he wouldn't do it for less than 3x their actual salary. For 20% more the offer made absolutely no sense. I think he was there for ~2 months or so. He took a pay cut for their next job, and did so very happily.

If the only people you can attract are juniors without anybody to help them grow, well this is what you get.

Wow, that's intense! And because of mismanagement or work style or something else? My impression is that Tesla/SpaceX really drive people hard and I'm not sure how well that culture flies in Germany.

Edit - saw your edit, thanks for clarifying!

If you got no stock options or anything else, why should you work in germany more than 35 hours for a company?

When you work more for more money, the taxes explode.

Stock options are "salary" in Germany, and they get taxed at ~45%.

---

In Germany, everything that a company gives an employee is salary. Company car? You have to pay 1% of the listing price of the car _per month_ in taxes (that's 1000$ per month in taxes for the employee if their company gives them a 100k$ car..). Stock? The day you receive the stock, price is measured, and 45% you pay in taxes. Stock options? The day you receive the option, the price of the stock were you to exercise it right away is measured, and that's taxed with 45% (which kind of forces you to exercise at least some of the options to pay the taxes), etc.

Otherwise companies could pay you by paying your whole life (car, house, etc.) to avoid taxes.

BTW, this is also why startup culture in Germany sucks. Startups can't really pay people in stock options, cause they are super highly taxed, and they are hard to value. Worst case you end up paying a lot of taxes for something that ends up being valued == 0 the moment you can't sell it (startup dies).

Correction, you have to declare (or whatever you call "anrechnen") 1% of the company car that you are allowed use in your free time, which often works out cheaper than a privately owned car. In the end you pay at max 45% of the 1% for it, although 45% only applies to every € over 250,000€/year. For every € between about 60,000€/year and 250,000€ you are taxed 42%.

That’s correct, but if you want to actually not pay the 1%, you need to justify how much time you use the car privately or for work, and the way you do that is per km: by tracking all trips that you make in kms and tracking how many of those are private or work (car book).

You can also pay 0% for the company car, but then you need to use it only for work, keep it parked at your employers, can’t use it for anything private, etc.

What most people understand by getting a company car is “a car that you can use for whatever whenever and however you want” (it’s your car). If you do that, and only use it privately, then 1% is what you pay.

That is just wrong. You have to tax the 1% of the list price, 0,5% for hybrid and electric and 0,1% for ebikes and bikes.

Also you don't have to pay the 45%. That is the highest tax bracket in the progessive system.

So you have to put the 1% (1000€ for a really expensive car you probably only get as a CEO) and assume that as payout. And then you tax that. For a good car you normally are in the range of 300-500€ a month for normal employees and then you can even pay the gas which is a bigger benefit for most people.

Also you don't have to pay taxes on unrealised gains, that is just bullshit. You have to pay taxes only when you realise those gains, e.g. when you pull the option and sell or keep the shares. As long as it is just options you don't have to pay anything.

But with your level of tax knowledge I would also be scared of the bad bad Finanzamt. OwO

Sorry, the parent comment is completely correct. Yes, exceptions exist, such as someone making 32k€ and given a hybrid/EV or e-bike as company car will not pay as much as an engineer making 80k€ and a diesel Passat. Otherwise, the comment is correct. Taxes are kind of insane in Germany.

Stock options (or crypto) counted as regular income _are_ taxed at your marginal tax rate, which, for anyone making above 55k€ or so is either 42% or 45%. Can't be bothered to look it up.

I said:

> You have to pay 1% of the listing price of the car _per month_ in taxes (that's 1000$ per month in taxes for the employee if their company gives them a 100k$ car..).

You said:

> That is just wrong. You have to tax the 1% of the list price, [...] so you have to put the 1% (1000€ for a really expensive car

Either we both are wrong, or we both are right, unless you are somehow using language in a super subtle way. EDIT: you are right and I'm wrong, sorry, you get 1% of the list price as if it were income, so you need to tax that, i.e., what you said is correct, 1% of the list price is taxed per month. With a 45% tax rate, for a 100k$ car, you need to tax 1k$ per month, and at 45% means you pay 450$ per month in taxes.

> Also you don't have to pay taxes on unrealised gains, that is just bullshit.

I work in Germany. I get stock every month. I don't sell the stock (gains are unrealized). I have to pay taxes for all the stock I get. I do pay the taxes for all my stock (my employer declares it as part of my income).

Also, I've interviewed and gotten offer for some SV startups and they would have allowed me to work from Germany. Talked with 3 financial and tax advisors here, and they all said the same: stock options are part of the income, and just like the stock, they get taxed with your income tax.

> Also you don't have to pay the 45%.

Right, you only pay that if you make more than 50k brutto per year or so. For example, in an entry level job right after the university, e.g., as a PhD student working on a publicly funded project, you have to pay 45% taxes.

> But with your level of tax knowledge I would also be scared of the bad bad Finanzamt. OwO

lol after reading my reply, read also the other replies to your comment

Tax evasion is a crime that you really don't want to commit in Germany. Arguing that "you didn't know" isn't really a defense.

> Either we both are wrong, or we both are right [...]

You said: "pay 1% of list price in taxes". They said: "pay taxes on 1% of list price".

There's a difference. For example, given a 50k€ car and 35% marginal income tax rate, your version would result in 500€ additional income tax per month, while their version would result in 500€ * 35% = 175€ additional income tax.

Sorry, I made a mistake, I meant 1% of the list price is taxed (so you end up paying 0.45% per month of the list price).

This isn't really the reason that they don't give stock options like they do in USA for startups, though. I think it's a little unfair to say that you're taxed at ~45%; as far as I'm aware exercised options are taxed as income at the value they have when you exercise, not at a flat rate like capital gains. Beyond that, companies probably don't really care about giving employees a big tax bill, and you would only get taxed 25% on the capital gains when you sell the stock you've gained from exercising (after some amount of time, I think 1 year). It's fine for early stage startups that have a low valuation, although for later stage startups and established companies it would lead to a larger initial tax bill.

A bigger reason from the startup perspective as to why you don't give options to employees is because you become a voting member of the company and have to sign off on major changes (via a notary). Many startups skirt this issue by giving you "virtual options" which turn into money directly after some exit event, as if you got a bonus, and some startups let you pseudo-exercise by allowing you to put the exercised options into a pool controlled by a member of the board or company.

It's a lot more restricted compared to USA (it would be nice to be able to exercise really early when the company is tiny so your tax bill is low, or do something like an 83B election) but it's not that onerous and there are ways to get around some of the worst of it.

> nd you would only get taxed 25% on the capital gains when you sell the stock you've gained from exercising

FWIW is true for all capital gains after taxes (doesn't matter how you got the stock). If you get stock as income, you pay first 45% tax on the stock, and then when you sell 25% tax on gains.

I hear this 35h/week thing in Germany a lot around here but when looking for tech jobs there all companies I saw expect 40h/week, so which is it?

Or is 35 the standard for government workers and unionized companies like in construction?

35h/week is IG metall, i.e., "metal works" / mechanical engineering work, machine manufacturing, etc. Think Daimler, BMW, Thyssen, Porsche, VW, Bosch, ...

> Or is 35 the standard for government workers

Government workers typically have 40h/week, but govenrment supports 50% and 75% time (so 20h/week or 30h/week) with the corresponding reduction in salary.

> tech jobs

That's usually 40h/week unless you do a tech job at a "metal works" company like BMW, VW, Porsche, etc. in which case its 35h/week. Outside of these companies, you can negotiate your work time pretty much freely up to the legal limits for salaried employees.

Legal limit on a particular day is 10h/day, and you need 1 day off per week, so your max weekly workload can be 60h/week. However, the legal limit _on average_ is like 45-50h/week, so if you work 60h one week, you have to work 20 the next one to avoid violating the average limit.

These legal limits are actually very harshly enforced. It isn't uncommon for, e.g., chinese companies to get fined in germany for violating this, and after the first fine, they are required to report the exact work times of each employee. The fines grow significantly, so usually chinese companies end up closing the office and kicking everyone out after 40h/week to avoid getting close to a second fine.

I used to work for a company that had a very hard time getting used to the culture.

The "You will do X", followed by our "well actually..." reply, was quite common in the early years.

You are allowed to reduce hours by law (at least at above 20 employees (and after probation time))

This is a common myth, but you'll never get less money in your account by earning more. Never. (If other conditions remain the same, naturally)

> This is a common myth, but you'll never get less money in your account by earning more. Never. (If other conditions remain the same, naturally)

That wasn't the original claim. If you're paying a high marginal tax rate, you may be making a nonnegative amount of money, but that doesn't mean it's a sufficient incentive to get you to do work when you'd sooner play video games.

But on top of that, it isn't even true. It's not unheard of for marginal rates in practice to exceed 100% as a result of overlapping benefits phase outs. You pay a 25% tax rate, an education benefit phases out at a rate of 25%, a housing benefit phases out at a rate of 30%, a childcare benefit phases out at a rate of 25%, you earn an extra $1 and the government takes $1.05.

This also doesn't account for the cost of earning the money. Your boss offers you an extra half shift, but then you pay the commuting cost (say $10) for 4 hours instead of 8. If your hourly rate is $10, maybe you still take it and make $30. If it's $10/hour but there is a 50% marginal rate, you spend two hours commuting and four hours working to come home with $10/day, and screw that. If the marginal rate was 80%, you're nominally "making" $8/day but in practice you're losing $2/day (and the six hours of time).

No, but you can earn more per year and earn much less per hour of work.

That’s the problem with Tesla in Germany: annual salary is 10-20% higher, hourly salary is 30% lower.

My friends quitting lost in yearly salary, but won huge in hourly rate.

This type of behavior and far worse has been well documented at Fremont. There’s multiple lawsuits currently open, including one black employee who was called the n word multiple times by a superior and found swastikas in the restroom. Plenty of cases of over working employees and holding them to unrealistic expectations, as well as ignoring government regulations like the COVID lockdowns.

https://jalopnik.com/elon-musk-tried-to-destroy-a-whistleblo...

I'd say it's a positive sign, they still operate like startup.

if the hallmarks of a startup are a lack of foresight, poor planning, incompetence and ignoring the law, then you have a good case.

I mean...

That's not "operating like a startup", that is just plain illegal behavior. This is a company that operates heavy industrial equipment and makes machines that can kill both the people inside and outside them when they are shoddily built. Moving fast and breaking stuff is not acceptable when you are the size of Tesla.

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