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

christianpetroske.com

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

#171

Post by kelnos »

krstf13 wrote: post #109
user5994461 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the taxes on French salaries for reference. - The company has 60k budget. - 25% goes to employer tax (charges patronales). 45k left. That's commonly called the gross salary (salaire brut). - 25% goes to employee tax (charges sociales). 34k left. Commonly called the net salary (salaire net) - Employee pays income tax at the end of the year. The rate is progressive and highly variable depending on personal situa…

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.…

I think quibbling about terminology misses the point. If you think about it as the total cost per employee, it seems like a a lot that doesn't actually go directly to the employee as take-home pay. I think a lot of that is good, and replaces other external costs, but it's still a lot of extra money a small company will need to budget just to hire someone.

And things like tax credits are only useful if you have the cash on hand immediately, and can wait up to a year to get it back. A brand-new venture may not have that.

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

#172

Post by kelnos »

lma21 wrote: post #112
user5994461 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the taxes on French salaries for reference. - The company has 60k budget. - 25% goes to employer tax (charges patronales). 45k left. That's commonly called the gross salary (salaire brut). - 25% goes to employee tax (charges sociales). 34k left. Commonly called the net salary (salaire net) - Employee pays income tax at the end of the year. The rate is progressive and highly variable depending on personal situa…

Charges patronales and charges sociales are not really "taxes" given your understanding of taxation. Charges patronales and charges sociales are well explained in every payslip, i.e. where that money goes and how the employee/employer benefit from them. Also, every person's net income tax is also explained and you can see where it goes. At the end of the day, when a French person loses their job (even if they're a no…

I agree that it's great for the French worker (way better than how US workers are treated), but you have to also see how it's a disincentive for a French entrepreneur to create a new company, no?

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

#173

Post by balfirevic »

nicbou wrote: post #166
balfirevic wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

> since the half the employer pays is not included in your net income

There is a total cost for employer for a particular employee and the take-home pay for that employee. Where between those two we put a number that's called "your net income" is just arbitrary convention.

Employer knows how much the total cost will be when they negotiate the salary. It's all the same to them if the entire amount goes to you personally and then you use it to pay health insurance, or they first pay some of that amount to health insurance and then give the rest to you.

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

#174

Post by rihegher »

bouzouk wrote: post #17
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…

Living in Paris for a very long time and having started a few businesses (current one: a challenger bank with 20+ employees), I don’t relate to anything you are saying. Yes there are high taxes, (not half of the salary, for a software engineer it is very often around 30%) but they basically cover a lot of employee services that you would need to pay extra for in the US (health coverage, retirement,...). Most startup…

Something I never see anyone mention about France taxes is that the biggest your family is the less you'll pay income tax (living with a partner makes the better paid one pay less tax and you'll pay ever less for each kid). Plus you get money for each of your kids that get borned and then money to help you raised them for a few years. Plus you get financial help to get them in a nusery. In short France is a fiscal heaven for families.

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

#175

Post by read_if_gay_ »

P-ala-din wrote: post #146
read_if_gay_ wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then your underlying assumption is that religion isn’t part of cultural integration. Why is religion separate from culture? I would say it’s a subset of culture.

- I mean freedom of religion is a human right. - So In a majority christian state, is it ok to discriminate against jews?

I guess you could say freedom of religion is a human right but it's not a human right to be culturally integrated. And so you could absolutely be required to give up that freedom in order to integrate, in the same way your workplace may require you to be at your office and do certain things, which is clearly not a violation of your freedom.

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

#176

Post by 908B64B197 »

ciconia wrote: post #91
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…

Why should a startup get a better deal than an independent plumber, or a farmer? You pay your taxes like everybody else, and in return you get a more level playing ground, more solidarity, and a safety net in case you fail... (I'm also living in France).

Because one of them scale and can be exported and the other doesn't?

Also if a startup ends up getting VC funding in an other country it can move there unlike a farm or a plumbing business.

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

#177

Post by smonff »

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…

Not worth mentioning that health care is free for everyone in france thanks to all the money employees "steal" from startup founders.

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

#178

Post by krstf13 »

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…

Also, you lie and move the goal posts. You really should say that you don’t wanna pay your employees. Fine by me, but be frank about it. I know I’ll be downvoted here, but the truth is this guy doesn’t want to pay his employees and pretends it’s because of additional costs that burden him. He’d rather give them more, if only they were able to spend responsibly. Yet, he doesn’t know the first thing about taxes, fees and lumps them together. I welcome disagreements, but I wish un readers were slightly more rigorous.

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

#179

Post by fredo »

Well I lived in US and created a company in Paris. US administration didn't look simpler to me... Tax in NYC were huge and it didn't include the schools for my kids. If you're 18 yr old and care only about your own needs, go to US (if you can get a visa, remember trump don't like foreigners and 401k). France is better when you want a family or life conditions of a rich country.

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

#180

Post by x87678r »

amarka wrote: post #168
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.

OK then, in your opinion what are the main reasons there are many more successful tech companies in the US vs EU?
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