481–490 of 1001 posts
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What are the redeeming qualities of Germany?
The hacker subculture there is incredible; closest thing to late-1990s bay area (before the flood of money killed everything) that's still alive today. But yeah, there are a lot of negatives counterbalancing that.
Minimum initial share capital of €12,500 to found a company where liability is limited to the firm seems like a very regressive impediment to business. For comparison in the UK, there's a £12 registration fee, and a £1 (one pound) minimum initial share capital. It must put limited liability out of reach of so many people.
It seems to be aimed either at well established business magnates who want to open yet another business (and 25k€ is nothing in that case) or small bakery-on-the-corner businesses who will go for GmbH anyways (and hence no reason to cough up 25k€).
There's no path that explicitly caters to the tech founder.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
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Since 2008 you can found a "UG" ("Mini GmbH") that doesn't require that much upfront capital. It can be foundet with 1 Euro. The catch is that you need use 25% of your yearly revenue until you reached the 25k of a proper GmbH. https://www.firma.de/en/company-formation/what-is-a-ug-haftu...
The registration at the notary alone already costs several hundred euros, you would be immediately bankrupt with 1€.
In my case, I burned through about 2500 euro in the first year just on stuff like that for a holding company that holds shares in my actual company. It takes about 4-5 months to get most of that behind you. Yearly running cost are about 1000 euro (accounting, recurring fees, etc.).
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I don't fully understand the comment you've made. Why do you believe it to be bonkers or a scam to allow no-capital limited liability firms? It effectively puts the entire country into a position where unless a citizen is born relatively wealthy, they have to perform labour for someone else for several years while they save up enough to start their own business. Who does the system benefit? What is it preventing? Why…
> It effectively puts the entire country into a position where unless a citizen is born relatively wealthy, they have to perform labour for someone else for several years while they save up enough to start their own business. Yup that's pretty much the idea. If you think that's unfair, oh boy, wait until you hear about our infamous trade schools and apprenticeships. Though you're right, incorporation doesn't shield f…
Got any stories to tell? ;)
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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…
No the point is my wife was struggling, and she asked for help integrating, and the state refused to help her integrate. Even as a hardcore capitalist you should be in favor of getting immigrants into the labor market ASAP.
The irony is that fifteen years ago when she was a new immigrant to Australia, the state sponsored TAFE system was amazing for her, taught her English, and totally turned her life around.
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I have a hard time believing there are many scams that have succeeded specifically because the scammer was permitted to set up an LLC with nominal share capital (at least in the last few decades). In the business world it is pretty standard to do due diligence and get collateral for any material exposure to an LLC. So the people who would be taken in would mainly be the vulnerable and uneducated who could likely be s…
If you read the German version of the Wikipedia article you linked, you'll find that this concept is rarely, and I mean _rarely_ applied by courts. It is also case law, which is exceedingly rare in German law. You're going to have a hard time arguing for it's application in court. Regardless, most laws around incorporation in Germany are a deterrent to any founder, I agree, but I honestly think we don't want this as…
I wonder how Germany will survive the 21st century, where a key part is to make/capture a market first by some innovation that comes out of some startup scene (Silicon Valley most prominently) and push out all the other players.
German's in tech spheres keep complaining that they are being "ripped of" by the Anglo-Saxon space, but it seems to me it's actually their own mentality that is holding them back.
And of course everyone knows the story about the mp3 format, apparently invented in Germany and monetized in the US
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So a normal GmbH, which would be the equivalent of what I'm talking about, can be incorporated online for 25 EUR in 30 minutes? I thought that's what the article is about. What's so specific about the form of incorporation they are talking about? A limited liability company is the most basic form of a corporation... Sole proprietorship / self-employment can be started here for around 20 EUR too, but that's not a comp…
> Or does Germany have some other forms of companies that I don't know? There are 9 forms of companies in Germany, only two of which (GmbH and AG [stock corporation/PLC/...]) require fixed capital and a notary.
I document German bureaucracy for a living,[0] and everything is like that. Every life event - immigrating, getting a job, getting married, having a child, buying a car - is mired in slow, paper-based bureaucracy. It is a constant, significant impediment to life in the country. Just last week, I was telling people that the best way to get married in Germany is to get married in Denmark. I cannot overstate how terribl…
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…
After being here for 10+ years straight, fully working. Existence of my whole family here and our whole life depended on it, yet I clealy hit a very incompetent (and completely unreachable) bureaucrat. My boss went through same process during mine, 3 weeks and done.
The difference? He is from western part of EU, I am from eastern. Shouldn't make a difference just like colour of skin shouldn't, but it does, in 1000 ways, subtle or not, but this was by far the worst and coming from state/canton.
Utterly miserable and prolonged experience, being in legal vacuum with small kids, while doing everything precisely and timely just like Swiss do and like to see in immigrants. Lost quite a few ideals about Switzerland during those desperate times.
Literally the only good thing about germany are the salaries compared to the rest of europe but even that is becoming less great nowadays.
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Incredibly high taxes? Denmark has higher taxes. And don't forget Germany has one of the lowest annual working hours in the world https://data.oecd.org/emp/hours-worked.htm
You're misinformed. Second highest tax burden [1], in Europe and the OECD [2]. [1] https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/global/tax-burden-on-labo... [2] https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/eu/tax-burden-labor-europ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Foundation
>Payroll taxes are typically flat-rate taxes levied on wages and are in addition to the taxes on income. In most OECD countries, both the employer and the employee pay payroll taxes. These taxes usually fund specific social programs, such as unemployment insurance, health insurance, and old age insurance.
Social security and pesnions aren't financed by taxes, in Germany taxes are not earmarked for a specific purpose.
If you would replace social security and pension contributions by private insurances with the same costs people wouldn't have more money available but the Germany's index position would be better.
You could even double the costs and the index would claim an advantage for workers even though they would have less money.