Earlier quoted context omitted.
Really? 5 years? That seems really harsh. Is it all business failures or does it have to be due to mismanagement? I've heard the climate is very hostile to businesses in Germany; my sister in law was trying to sell art on etsy and apparently she had to get a business license to do so in Germany. She's now back in the USA where she can just sell stuff online and the only thing she needs to do is file her taxes correct…
Can’t speak about Germany for sure, but usual euro way is you don’t need to do taxes at all if you do not run a business. Employer fills it for you. And getting a doing-business-as-individual is as simple as filling a form at revenue service website telling you’re starting a business. Then you get a tax ID to put on your invoices next day. If you sell as an individual, it’s just you selling random stuff that you don’…
Britain is great. I can file my taxes online relatively painlessly for any non-employment income. Employment income is done automatically. To set up a small business, I buy public liability insurance and a domain. Many tasks that require multiple notary appointments in Spain can be done online or, for some obscure processes, at the post office.
I suspect that business climate divides sharply between the north and south, with Germany and France being honorary southerners. I'd love to unpack the link between Catholicism and stultifying bureaucracy, since both involve archaic institutions imposing themselves between oneself and one's goal.