341–350 of 1001 posts
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As bad as Germany is, it is better than average. Eastern Europe is harder, and Asia borders on impossible. Africa is literally impossible.
> Eastern Europe is harder Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania? I doubt it.
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I can confirm that moving out into the bacon belt of Brandenburg drastically improved the quality of my public services interactions (as an immigrant). Getting an anmeldung done didn't require a 3 hour ordeal and the local Ausländerbehörde answers their emails. My favorite Berlin anecdote is when my wife (then girlfriend) and I first arrived in Germany, she was unemployed for the better part of a year as no-one would…
> My favorite Berlin anecdote is when my wife (then girlfriend) and I first arrived in Germany, she was unemployed for the better part of a year as no-one would give her a chance. She actually got quite depressed about it, and reached out about state sponsored integration courses as the language lessons she was taking were expensive and she wanted to do something more holistic. The authorities told her in no uncertai…
The national slogan of Germans is "Papiere, bitte!"
1. these kind of stores are technically owned and legally run by somebody who just made the paperwork and gave the finances. The people working there dont do any paperwork, and of course they cannot as they often (like in the vietnamese produce stores) dont speak german on a level that would allow to fill out paperwork.
2. Lots of smaller business actually didnt fill out anything, and surpprisingly it somehow works for them, sometimes for years, even in busy areas, i mean they serve hundreds of customers per day but never filed any invoices, only accept cash, nobody speaks german and they dont have any documents. It's fascinating. There are a lot of rules in Germany (of course) when you serve food or alcohol or operate at night or have tables and chairs, and i can tell you it's not even legal to NOT have toilet or to not have prices on the menu, but well, they still run the business, probably without even knowing all the rules.
We can learn from them I think, just SHIP IT!
Not to brag, but there are so few things to actually feel some civic pride for in America, and business registration is one of them, so I guess we have that. I can get an IRS EIN (tax ID), register an LLC, obtain a sales tax license (only required for selling stuff), and open a business checking account in about 2 hours in Colorado. Someone who knows what they’re doing and doesn’t spend time researching banking optio…
Unless you're opening companies on a daily basis to evade taxes or whatever, I fail to see why you would need the process to be that fast. Because with such short delays, nobody will have actually checked anything, so the only winners are fraudsters, in the end.
Having lived here for 1.5 years, I can say that beraucracy in germany basically works in the sense of how bureaucracy in other lesser third world countries work. Basically, the system works in general for the average population but is broken such that it affects most those at the margins (for example, the rich, the poor, those entrepreneurial, etc). In other countries, when this happens, you see the rich paying their…
> Estimate your revenue at 0€ for now unless you have real reason to believe otherwise (do you have paying customers lined up already? probably not). That way, you only have to pay corporate tax at the end of the year based on your actual profit (vs. having to prepay tax every quarter).
This is funny. I tried to set my revenue to 0 in the beginning and the tax authority simply set it to 60k (they couldn't even tell me where this number came from). After a couple of harsh phone calls (from their end, they were yelling) they simply kept it and told me I could file a "Verwaltungsklage". Of course, they (and IHK) derive the quarterly pre-taxes from that and didn't give a rats ass if I actually made any revenue. I got my money back a year later (which got worse and worse over time). Simply kills you, If you have to pay the bills and try to route your little boat through the stormy seas. Several times I spontaneously had to credit 2-3k EUR to get my customers to shorten the term of payment.
> IHK: Domains are not allowed.
This is funny as well because my company name was a domain name. IHK noticed that and I told them (on phone w/o any proof) that it's mine and they were okay.
The rest, I'd say is batshit crazy bureaucratic but somehow manageable. Germany is just not a good spot for "some SaaS idea" or maybe not even for bigger ideas as well anymore. At least not until they radically streamline their bureaucracy (which depends on radically professionalized politics which is not realistic at this time).
PS: Founding a company made me stop believing in "Social Market Economy" (German self-label) since the taxation system and social systems allow for amazing things once you're out of the employee system.
Edit: Typos and grammatical mistakes.
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I completely agree. I have been living here for 8 years, and recently applied for a permanent settlement permit. My application went into a blackhole for more than 4 months, while my existing permit expired, essentially making me a prisoner here (I can stay and work in Germany but if I travel internationally, I won't be allowed entry back). Meanwhile, my applications for a temporary travel permit were unanswered for…
As far as I know, it's par for the course for immigration in most countries I ever heard of. On the other hand, anyone who heard of consistently nice immigration procedure for normal people (not Messi) should chime in. From a incentive strucutre POV, they lose nothing from false positives (denying entry to someone who would have been fine) as candidates will probably try again anyway, and no one will come after them…
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> The concept that any idiot can start an LLC with no collateral (which the 25k are) is completely, absolutely, mind bogglingly bonkers to us Germans. Uhh, what? Have you never heard of UGs? That is, 1 Euro GmbHs.
No it's not. With UG's limited liability is only extended to the collateral put in, meaning that as soon as someone sues you for 2€, suddenly you're liable with your private wealth. A GmbH is a true shield against that, you can be sued for millions and are shielded behind the 25k collateral.
Funfact: you should always use the full title, Companyname UG (haftungsbeschränkt) on all communications and contracts. Emitting the 'haftungsbeschränkt' or shortening it 'haftungsb.' may make you as a CEO personally liable for damages occured.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I completely agree. I have been living here for 8 years, and recently applied for a permanent settlement permit. My application went into a blackhole for more than 4 months, while my existing permit expired, essentially making me a prisoner here (I can stay and work in Germany but if I travel internationally, I won't be allowed entry back). Meanwhile, my applications for a temporary travel permit were unanswered for…
As far as I know, it's par for the course for immigration in most countries I ever heard of. On the other hand, anyone who heard of consistently nice immigration procedure for normal people (not Messi) should chime in. From a incentive strucutre POV, they lose nothing from false positives (denying entry to someone who would have been fine) as candidates will probably try again anyway, and no one will come after them…