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Exit Tax: Leave Germany before your business gets big

eidel.io

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Re: Exit Tax: Leave Germany before your business gets big

#31

Post by mensetmanusman »

olieidel wrote: post #21
psychoslave wrote: post #9

[flagged]

While rather sarcastic, your comment does hit an interesting point: How much does the infrastructure and society of any given state contribute to the "building" of a company? I'd argue that, for software companies, not very much; at least if you contrast it with a hardware company. If you're, say, forging steel, you're using roads, trains, a lot of electricity, you've got an industrial plant, worker unions, public ac…

You need peace, law enforcement, trust in others to lower stress and increase creativity, good teachers and education.

Someone growing up in a society is strongly an outcome of that society.

Re: Exit Tax: Leave Germany before your business gets big

#32

Post by [deleted] »

olieidel wrote: post #21
psychoslave wrote: post #9

[flagged]

While rather sarcastic, your comment does hit an interesting point: How much does the infrastructure and society of any given state contribute to the "building" of a company? I'd argue that, for software companies, not very much; at least if you contrast it with a hardware company. If you're, say, forging steel, you're using roads, trains, a lot of electricity, you've got an industrial plant, worker unions, public ac…

[deleted]

Re: Exit Tax: Leave Germany before your business gets big

#34

Post by olieidel »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #31
olieidel wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While rather sarcastic, your comment does hit an interesting point: How much does the infrastructure and society of any given state contribute to the "building" of a company? I'd argue that, for software companies, not very much; at least if you contrast it with a hardware company. If you're, say, forging steel, you're using roads, trains, a lot of electricity, you've got an industrial plant, worker unions, public ac…

You need peace, law enforcement, trust in others to lower stress and increase creativity, good teachers and education. Someone growing up in a society is strongly an outcome of that society.

What about a software company founded in Germany by someone who grew up in another country, and accordingly got their education elsewhere?

What if that company is a remote company which hires people all over the world, and none of those people benefited from the {education|peace|law enforcement|trust} in Germany?

I do agree with you, in principle, that a company is somewhat coupled to the country it was founded in. The exact nature of that coupling, however, is not that simple, I would say.

Reality is complicated, I suppose :)

Re: Exit Tax: Leave Germany before your business gets big

#35

Post by bigstrat2003 »

psychoslave wrote: post #9

[flagged]

Presumably you paid for that infrastructure in the form of taxes while you did business in the country. Why, then, should the state have additional claims on the money you made? Were the taxes they collected already not enough?

Re: Exit Tax: Leave Germany before your business gets big

#36

Post by EndsOfnversion »

olieidel wrote: post #34
mensetmanusman wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need peace, law enforcement, trust in others to lower stress and increase creativity, good teachers and education. Someone growing up in a society is strongly an outcome of that society.

What about a software company founded in Germany by someone who grew up in another country, and accordingly got their education elsewhere? What if that company is a remote company which hires people all over the world, and none of those people benefited from the {education|peace|law enforcement|trust} in Germany? I do agree with you, in principle, that a company is somewhat coupled to the country it was founded in. T…

Lets drop you into the mid Cretaceous period and see how far your education takes you.

Without the contributions of millions of others on a daily basis you’d have nothing.

Re: Exit Tax: Leave Germany before your business gets big

#38

Post by nbadg »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #35
psychoslave wrote: post #9

[flagged]

Presumably you paid for that infrastructure in the form of taxes while you did business in the country. Why, then, should the state have additional claims on the money you made? Were the taxes they collected already not enough?

That's not what the exit tax is, though. The German exit tax is effectively just a way to give the existing capital gains tax a way to tax unrealized gains when you leave the country, to prevent you from dodging taxes on capital gains by simply leaving the country.

In other words, it's not an additional claim. It's simply an enforcement mechanism for the money you already hypothetically owe.

Re: Exit Tax: Leave Germany before your business gets big

#39

Post by djoldman »

olieidel wrote: post #25
lifestyleguru wrote: post #4

also buy fax machine, dozen ring binders, and paper shredder before you start that business

Also: - A printer (the most important equipment of any German startup founder) - Envelopes for letters - A stamp with your company name (some companies and agencies you deal with require you to stamp things, because a stamp obviously proves, beyond any doubt, that you are acting on behalf of your company, because obviously no one would be able to create a similar stamp with your company's name on it, right) - A virtu…

Given that this kind of thing seems to be widely reported, are there any significant efforts to reduce the friction all this causes?

Re: Exit Tax: Leave Germany before your business gets big

#40

Post by caseysoftware »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #31
olieidel wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While rather sarcastic, your comment does hit an interesting point: How much does the infrastructure and society of any given state contribute to the "building" of a company? I'd argue that, for software companies, not very much; at least if you contrast it with a hardware company. If you're, say, forging steel, you're using roads, trains, a lot of electricity, you've got an industrial plant, worker unions, public ac…

You need peace, law enforcement, trust in others to lower stress and increase creativity, good teachers and education. Someone growing up in a society is strongly an outcome of that society.

> You need peace, law enforcement, trust in others to lower stress and increase creativity, good teachers and education.

This is a great point.

The flip side is that if a government fails to deliver those, they have failed their side of the social contract. Then ideally, the citizens they've failed should be able to opt out..

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