How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France • Hacker News Board

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#161

Post by toto444 » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 8:04 PM UTC

js4ever wrote: post #63

bouzouk wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sorry but no: a 30k salary does not cost the company 80k! It costs around 41k, or 49k if you take into account employee taxes (here is a simulator from the French government: https://entreprise.pole-emploi.fr/cout-salarie/ ). « Comité d’entreprise » are for 50+ employees and not 20. What’s the use in throwing around fake numbers just to make your point? Even if that sure must be a nice place to live, that is the…

I just use the link you have provided, if you fill the last field (net salary after tax, what is really paid to the bank account of the employee) to 30k/year, the total cost for employer is 57,950€. And not 41k like you mentioned

30K net / year is a decent salary in France considering it you don't have to save for retirement, childcare is cheap, school is free, uni is free, health insurance is cheap and you don't have to save too much in case you are unemployed because the benefits are decent.

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#162

Post by Nextgrid » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 8:14 PM UTC

bouzouk wrote: post #142

MayeulC wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, I could be in the market for a new bank a bit later, but what isn't clear on your website is whether the app is mandatory, or the functionality is available trough the web browser? (PWA or WASM binary would be OK, I guess?). I'm using N26 right now, but I have since stoped using closed-source software altogether on my phone, and will likely switch full-time to a pinephone. One of the things that irks me is that…

contact me ;) hackernews at blank dot app

Any chance you can just put the answer here? I am not in the market for a bank right now but would like to know anyway. I think it would be valuable for a lot of readers if you just addressed his concerns publicly.

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#163

Post by athenot » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 8:18 PM UTC

xur17 wrote: post #155

krstf13 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is grossly inaccurate. What you're calling taxes, are fees that allow employee to get several benefits. Practically speaking, these are delayed salary. They include social security, unemployment benefits, retirement benefits, training ... When your employee is sick, they can stay at home without losing their pay, and without your company paying for it. They can seek medical treatment without risking bankruptcy.…

All of this is called "tax" in the US.

Not quite: health insurance is not called tax in the US, yet is a benefit under the French system with premiums paid by the employer.

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#164

Post by ldng » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 8:19 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #150

ldng wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet hundreds of companies are created every year. You just illustrate the tipical French mentality ingrained by media all year long. A comment full of cliché. If France is so bad, move out. You'll learn a thing or two in the process. Beginning with the grass is not always greener elsewhere.

> A comment full of cliché. If France is so bad, move out. Please don't do nationalistic flamewar like this on HN. (This also is a cliché, and a nasty one.) https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

It was not meant as nationalistic. But point taken, it can read across that way.

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#165

Post by bgorman » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 8:33 PM UTC

shard wrote: post #156

user5994461 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

French has multiple words historically (impots, taxes, charges) with subtle differences in meaning. However they've not been observed strictly in a long long time. It's all money taken out of the employee pocket at the end of the day. In English it's all translated to "tax" and rightfully so. English languages and cultures don't have subtle semantics like French does. For example everything in the UK is a tax, corpor…

Same in the US. On my paycheck there are Social Security tax, Medicare tax, State disability insurance tax, State unemployment insurance tax. If it is a mandatory deduction taken out of your paycheck to fund a government project (not the best word, but can't think of the proper word at the moment), even if you get benefits later, it's called a tax.

The US Government tries the same trick.

Social Security is a called an "insurance program" although it is completely unrelated to conventional insurance. The closest financial instrument is a Ponzi scheme, which is illegal under US law.

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#166

Post by nicbou » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 8:34 PM UTC

balfirevic wrote: post #141

nicbou wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have done it in Germany. I had to register my website as a business, and documented how to do it on that same website. Honestly, it wasn't so hard, and I can honestly say that I made it a little easier. The hardest part was taxes, and the honest solution is "hire a tax advisor, pay 300€ a year, be done with it". The biggest problem for me is the cost of health insurance. As a self-employed person, you pay double. I…

> As a self-employed person, you pay double. What do you mean, pay double? If you mean that, with regular employment, your "employer pays half" - that is just an accounting trick and you actually pay all of it.

You pay twice as much as regular employees, whose employers cover half of it. It's not an accounting trick, since the half the employer pays is not included in your net income. The same applies to public pension payments, although freelancers can opt out of them.

For those who are curious, I wrote a plain English introduction to German health insurance: https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/german-health-insurance

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#167

Post by mrep » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 8:38 PM UTC

vladvasiliu wrote: post #94

laurent92 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tax data for a SASU company: - 20% VAT on revenue, - then, after your marginal costs: - Either distribute as dividends. IS is 15% to 30% of profit, then long story short with CSG, there is a 17% tax, - Either distribute as salary to employees: 46% as taxes/contributions, - In either case, dividends or salaries, we have to pay 0% to 45% income tax, averaging at 10-15% of our incomes. Don’t forget mandatory paperwork (…

Although your calculation isn't quite correct (see below), non-French people should note something related to the way taxes are perceived to be in France and especially related to social security. As a freelance going with this scheme, you get basically nothing: * You only have the basic, state social security (the 17% part OP talks about). This basically only covers you for emergency situations. There's tons to pay…

Healthcare is quite variable in the states. I for example have good insurance with my job so I have a max out of pocket spending limit of $2500 per year and I can also put $3500 per year of pre-income tax money into a health savings account (HSA) to use for healthcare spending so it's a total non-issue for me. The people that really get hosed are usually the ones that don't get it through a job such as if you are self-employed and those plans can run over 10000 a year and have really high deductibles.

As for the income tax wedge, between federal income taxes, social security, and medicare mine was about 27% on 221k income as a single person with no kids. It helps that I was in washington which has no state income tax and sales tax was about 10% there if you were curious.

edit: forgot state unemployment insurance which ranges from .2% to near 6% depending on the number of claims.

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#168

Post by amarka » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 8:39 PM UTC

x87678r wrote: post #158

Taxes and paperwork in France (and Europe) really doesn't sound that bad to me. What does sound very different are the labor laws. You can't just fire someone because its illegal to do so. You can't just hire a bunch of people quickly because people dont switch jobs as often. The team can't work 80 hrs a week because that isn't allowed either.

What's worse is that I heard rumors they don't allow slave labor either. Labor laws, ugh, they're the worst.

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#169

Post by 908B64B197 » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 8:51 PM UTC

Uberphallus wrote: post #3

Honestly, this reads as those books titled "How to make money selling books on Amazon". Living in France, I can tell, France is very startup hostile. The amount of taxes a company has to pay and the amount of paperwork to do (or money to delegate it) is just absurd. The only way a small tech company can make any money and be sustainable (let alone grow) is having all employees as associates (with all the organization…

The French model of high taxes that can potentially be offset by subsidies and grants is an interesting one. I've heard stories of companies getting an employee early on who's sole purpose was applying for these grants and subsidies.

Now, I think the one issue the French (and really European) tech sphere should tackle is low salaries for engineers. France has stellar engineering schools but lose so much talent because local companies are simply unwilling to match the international offers their graduates are getting. That brain drain erodes the talent pool and make the tech scene less attractive in the long run.

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#170

Post by krstf13 » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 8:53 PM UTC

user5994461 wrote: post #145

krstf13 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is grossly inaccurate. What you're calling taxes, are fees that allow employee to get several benefits. Practically speaking, these are delayed salary. They include social security, unemployment benefits, retirement benefits, training ... When your employee is sick, they can stay at home without losing their pay, and without your company paying for it. They can seek medical treatment without risking bankruptcy.…

French has multiple words historically (impots, taxes, charges) with subtle differences in meaning. However they've not been observed strictly in a long long time. It's all money taken out of the employee pocket at the end of the day. In English it's all translated to "tax" and rightfully so. English languages and cultures don't have subtle semantics like French does. For example everything in the UK is a tax, corpor…

Nope,that’s not correct. Even in English health insurance is not tax, unemployment insurance is not tax... And by the way what you call ‘charges’ is historically‘cotisations’ (fees).