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How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

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Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#861

Post by duggan »

Rinzler89 wrote: post #568
duggan wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can deal with the world either how you wish it were, or how it is. The reality is that bureaucracies are full of humans – and we all know how humans are.

Everything is full of humans, but private companies with terrible processes workers would usually have consequences that demand some change. Government services have no competition sos they are exempt from consequences if they're terrible.

Plenty of exceptions to that – broadly speaking, oligopolies, but generally anywhere with low competition like the only convenience store in a locality, rural broadband, etc.

There is no perfect competition, supply doesn't perfectly meet demand, and incentives aren't always perfectly aligned ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In any case, government services change through policy and, thus, indirectly, through the electorate. But a) it lags, b) is not the only issue the electorate care about, c) the supply of money is not infinite, d) the supply of labour is not fungible and e) in this specific case, policy on immigration is generally driven by people not immigrating, so the incentives are not aligned.

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#862

Post by LtWorf »

SeanLuke wrote: post #735

For those of you griping about German bureaucracy I urge you to come to Italy to learn just how good you have it. My wife is Italian and wanted to get married in her small home town. In order for her to get married to an American in her home town required paperwork that bordered on the Kafkaesque. We had to show up at the Italian embassy in Washington DC (fortunately we live there!) with proof and witnesses that I wa…

All my italian friends who moved to Germany tell me that in Italy it's much easier than germany. Just FYI

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#863

Post by amanda99 »

usr1106 wrote: post #420
nicbou wrote: post #114

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 am familiar with both German and Finnish bureaucracy. German bureaucracy is (in)famous for paperwork and using faxes. Citizens/residents have no unique identifier (more and more weakened recently) and need to present documentation for everything. If you have no paper birth certificate you are not born... Finland has had much higher digitalization for decades. You have a person number and authorities store everythin…

It sounds like these are just issues with processes taking a long time. In other words, that there are long queues. Of course that is a problem too, but it sounds like there's less "active time" and it's more streamlined, if still with long wait times?

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#864

Post by quitit »

When it comes to European bureaucracy:

If we put Germany on one end of the scale and put Estonia on the other end, most of Europe is going to be placed near Germany. Germany isn't the outlier, Estonia is.

Also one would be mistaken to believe that these bureaucratic processes produce a better result - there's already numerous examples where weaknesses in these systems have been exploited. One recent example exploits the requirement for applicants to supply their own photos. In this case people who looked somewhat alike used computer graphics to merge facial features to produce a mid-point headshot, resulting in one identity that worked for two individuals.

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#865

Post by hot_gril »

xxmarkuski wrote: post #18

To be honest, I don't think much of notaries and believe that they stifle innovation and harm the German economy, especially SMEs, but also clubs and citizens. For example, the purchase or sale of a property can only be carried out with a notary who reads the purchase contract for both parties. For this service, he charges a fee of around 1.5% of the sale price. The entire profession is strictly protected by law and…

This sounds like an escrow.

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#866

Post by hobs »

BytesAndGears wrote: post #834
hobs wrote: post #775

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is, the GP is wrong, its called a Statement Of No Marriage, many states can provide this.

No, I had to do this when I moved to Europe with my non-married fiancee. Some states can give you a statement saying "This person never has gotten married in our state ", but they cannot pull the records of every state. In fact, the state that I was living in could not even do that -- only individual counties could pull records saying "This person did not have a wedding within this county". There are no central recor…

Well, if they want a federal document that makes sense, and yeah I don't think the fed issues that, we're too stratified so there's no such thing as a federal marriage license afaik.

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#867

Post by omginternets »

miracle2k wrote: post #764
SeanLuke wrote: post #735

For those of you griping about German bureaucracy I urge you to come to Italy to learn just how good you have it. My wife is Italian and wanted to get married in her small home town. In order for her to get married to an American in her home town required paperwork that bordered on the Kafkaesque. We had to show up at the Italian embassy in Washington DC (fortunately we live there!) with proof and witnesses that I wa…

It's actually somewhat similar in Germany. You need a Ehefähigkeitszeugnis , essentially that document proving that you are not married yet. You would have needed to get this from the US. Because most countries don't have that sort of document (including the US), you then instead need to apply to your local Oberlandesgericht (Higher Regional Court) for an exemption. All the way, any foreign government documents need…

How does one prove one isn’t married? Is it a sworn statement, or is there something else?

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#868

Post by hiq »

mike_hearn wrote: post #581
hiq wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To your counterexamples: if you move to the US or the UK for a job, you don't really suffer directly from Brexit or healthcare being tied to your unemployment. Sure, these could make things worse in certain cases (let's say you get laid off while in the US and end up having to get your own healthcare for a while). The thing with bureaucracy is that it's part of normal life, there's no way around it. You can assume th…

Swiss bureaucracy isn't really better, in my experience. It's not as overloaded but things are still somewhat German-like.

When doing what for instance?

I've never founded a company in Switzerland but it didn't seem that hard, talking with people who did. As an individual most of the things I've had to do (residence permit, taxes...) are also quite straightforward.

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#869

Post by screye »

lifestyleguru wrote: post #445
usr1106 wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am familiar with both German and Finnish bureaucracy. German bureaucracy is (in)famous for paperwork and using faxes. Citizens/residents have no unique identifier (more and more weakened recently) and need to present documentation for everything. If you have no paper birth certificate you are not born... Finland has had much higher digitalization for decades. You have a person number and authorities store everythin…

IT in general is stuck in blind valley and doesn't make anything easier anymore with its aggressive outsourcing and profit extraction. The only systems which go quickly and efficiently are those against the interests of an average citizen - e.g. the covid certification apps determining and limiting basic citizen rights. Oftentimes I prefer to show up in person with ID and fetch a printout with confirmation, than to i…

Aggressive outsourcing is hilariously out of touch.

Western consultancies win contracts to build IT systems. The project is outsourced to India for low cost. Indian outsourcing team hires the cheapest talent possible. Cheap talent provides cheap quality. Website is bloated and slow. Some person on the internet uses these systems, hates it and develops a strong negative bias for all Indian (replace with any 3rd world country) talent.

On the other hand, Indian Govt hires the competent Indians at fair prices. (These aren't even our best or that well paid). It treats them with (moderate) respect and allows them to own their projects. Indian Govt. websites turn out to be seamless, performant and handle 10x the scale of western IT systems. This is a recent phenomenon, but India's digitization of railways, covid management, aadhar, social welfare and UPI has been best in class.

Reminds me of when westerners visit India, eat at the most suspicious looking street food place, and inevitably get sick. You never want your street food (programmers) to be cheaper than the bar set by local middle class (or their taxes). Yeah, outsourcing will save money. But, have some standards.

You get what you pay for.

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#870

Post by OtherShrezzing »

avar wrote: post #813
amaccuish wrote: post #809

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm responding to the parent "It effectively puts the entire country into a position where unless a citizen is born relatively wealthy..." Sure the thread is about limited-liability, but parent argues as if non-wealthy people can't form businesses, which is not true.

I see, I think it's implied there that if you're not wealthy then forming a business while assuming all the liability of the business is an equally or larger moat to cross for the poor. It means that as soon as you screw something up or just get unlucky you might not only lose your business, but your personal savings, house etc.

You're correct, this is the opinion I was trying to get across in my original comment about the inequity in the German system relating to limited liability firms.
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