Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Swedish tech startups and scaleups

swedishtechnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 116 posts

Re: Swedish tech startups and scaleups

#71

Post by andsoitis »

dazc wrote: post #65
archydeb wrote: post #28

I heard that Sweden's high income tax actually incentivised startups, because the only way to get _seriously_ wealthy was through capital gains. Does anybody know whether that's true? If so, it really undermines the narrative that is somewhat dominant in Britain, that high income tax will disincentivize entrepreneurship and innovation etc etc

Look at Ireland, low corporation tax (we won't even force you to pay it at all if you're big enough) and a booming economy - producing feck all. If it wasn't low taxes that achieved this then what was it?

Taxes are a part of the story, but neither the whole story nor sufficient on its own. There are other countries with lower corporate taxes, but with a worse economy.

Other things it’s got going for it is a highly educated English-speaking population, geographically favorable location between Europe and the US, which, together with the favorable tax policies, makes Ireland especially useful for American tech and pharmaceutical companies.

Re: Swedish tech startups and scaleups

#72

Post by alkonaut »

catears wrote: post #45
archydeb wrote: post #28

I heard that Sweden's high income tax actually incentivised startups, because the only way to get _seriously_ wealthy was through capital gains. Does anybody know whether that's true? If so, it really undermines the narrative that is somewhat dominant in Britain, that high income tax will disincentivize entrepreneurship and innovation etc etc

My understanding, as a Swedish native, is that income from labour is taxed rather high (i think 70%+ for income over a certain amount). However, capital gains are taxed comparatively low. The two most common ways tax either 30% of the profit, or 1-3% of the annual total value (ish, I don't know the exact numbers and they are probably changing from year to year). How the incentives play out you have to ask someone els…

Top marginal rate of tax paid by the employer is 55.5%. Employer pays some payroll taxes too but those usually aren’t included when comparing income tax. As a rule of thumb it costs the employer $1.50 to pay someone $1

Re: Swedish tech startups and scaleups

#73

Post by pazx »

dijit wrote: post #9
eandre wrote: post #7

Founder of Encore here (on the list). Great to see so many wonderful companies represented. Sweden is a great place to start a startup these days.

I'm starting a subsidiary of a start-up in Germany in Sweden. It's not my experience that Sweden is a great place for startups, the bureaucracy is extremely hit/miss. Setting up tax information for example is really difficult as a non-Swedish speaker and even tripped up my Swedish speaking friend (who is a project coordinator on the new Skane hospital: so she's somewhat aware of the tax system). How much of your dail…

All of these things are easy if you know how to do them. But if you have never done them, it takes some time to learn. My advice is get an external accountant to do this for you, only takes a few hours and they can teach you everything you want to know.

Re: Swedish tech startups and scaleups

#74

Post by pazx »

dijit wrote: post #25
eandre wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK in Sweden you need a managing directory who is resident in the European Economic Area (EEA), not necessarily in Sweden.

You must have at least one legal representative, usually a director, in Sweden. You can apply for temporary exemptions, but they are temporary and you are supposed to have good reason. There’s no explicit requirements that any particular position must be held in Sweden, you can be a VD in the EEA for example, but you still need at least one legal responsible person to be domiciled.

No you don’t, it is very clear. Within EEA, not in Sweden. I work in accounting and we just solved this for a Spanish client without any initial employees in Sweden.

Re: Swedish tech startups and scaleups

#75

Post by alkonaut »

archydeb wrote: post #28

I heard that Sweden's high income tax actually incentivised startups, because the only way to get _seriously_ wealthy was through capital gains. Does anybody know whether that's true? If so, it really undermines the narrative that is somewhat dominant in Britain, that high income tax will disincentivize entrepreneurship and innovation etc etc

I don’t know anyone who started a business and did so to be wealthy to be honest. Sure it’s always a nice side effect but I think all the people I know who started businesses would answer “yes” to the question “do you want to do this even if you never make more money than as an employee”.

Re: Swedish tech startups and scaleups

#76

Post by varispeed »

dazc wrote: post #68
varispeed wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This grinds my gears as this attitude essentially reinforces the serfdom in the society. If you are born into a working class you will remain working class. The salaries are taxed in a way that a worker cannot easily save money to start their own business, they need to beg bankers for a loan or go cap in hand to the rich people - and oh be sure they'll have to give shares to the business. In the UK we used to have a…

The Gov't believed it was tax avoidance for the simple reason that it was. It is still possible to build a business in the UK the old fashioned way of working hard and making personal sacrifices.

Government was never able to prove it was a tax avoidance. If you wanted to draw all the money from the company you would pay broadly the same tax as an employee. The only angle that one may consider as avoidance was that the client wouldn't have to pay employer's NI - but given the freelancer services were charging considerably more than employees, that wasn't an incentive either and they weren't employees, so it shouldn't apply either. Basically tax avoidance angle is a red herring and based on research it was the best carrier for this law to gain public acceptance plus it could paint freelancers in a bad light. The real reason this was adopted, was that big consultancies had a hard time competing with freelancers - they offered better price and expertise and as it happens a lot of government members and party members have vested interest in these corporations.

Re: Swedish tech startups and scaleups

#77

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

sandebert wrote: post #33
SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A shame, because IMO Sweden has one of the better gaming start up scenes in the world as well.

Might you perhaps be the Swedish musician Solar Fields, who also made the music for the game Mirror's Edge?

I am not, only a fan of his music. Sorry to disappoint :)

Re: Swedish tech startups and scaleups

#79

Post by tommiegannert »

junofan wrote: post #39
archydeb wrote: post #28

I heard that Sweden's high income tax actually incentivised startups, because the only way to get _seriously_ wealthy was through capital gains. Does anybody know whether that's true? If so, it really undermines the narrative that is somewhat dominant in Britain, that high income tax will disincentivize entrepreneurship and innovation etc etc

The only thing that incentivizes startups is access to capital. You need rich people.

You could also run pools via institutional funds. Why do we need rich people?

I'd think the rich people is a side-effect of successful pooling in finance. If you can get away with fees of >1% for "just" finding PE deals, that sometimes ramps up profits really fast.

Post reply on HN