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Comment by Aurornis | Hacker News Reader

It is not the same all over the world. Starting a small company in the US is a breeze compared to what I’ve watched peers in the EU fight against.

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Back in college (USA) friends would spin up LLCs for the summer just to buy mowers or vans to do yard work. They would hire all the students who didn't get summer jobs. Those hired students would make about 3x a STEM intern makes in western europe today.

It was also in the context of Europe that I heard of the concept of an unpaid internship. I was like, what??

Sorry but do you imply interns are going to be paid? In Europe? /s

Interstate commerce also seems to be vastly easier inside the US in comparison to the alleged single market of the EU. The most companies seem to deal with is California-specific regulations. Meanwhile, most companies in the EU eventually opt to create a ton of subsidiaries, basically one per state, to handle all the localized duties that the EU requires.

Not sure if you are referencing something else but in the case of VAT (sales tax) this is simply not true, see: VAT one stop shop / moss. There are also no customs duties on inter-state shipments.

Employment regulations are different - if you have a lot of people working for you in another member state you'll need a branch office or subsidiary there (or you can easily outsource it via services like https://www.playroll.com/)

Yup the Constitution here has rightly prevented each State from adding regulations that burden interstate commerce. Sometimes that has resulted in overly broad federal oversight (CFTC versus state gaming boards) but most of the time that’s a good thing.

Starting a small company in many EU countries is a breeze too e.g. Estonia, Portugal, UK and no doubt many others. The rumoured 'EU Inc' entity should also help close the gap for member countries where incorporating domestically traditionally comes with more friction (e.g. Germany).

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