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Exit Tax: Leave Germany before your business gets big

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

#521

Post by jwr »

CalRobert wrote: post #488
jwr wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh this is even more terrible than I thought :-/ This means lots of additional reporting work plus 49€ per ETF yearly for tax preparers. US really hates expats.

It's not just the filing, the tax burden is heavy and complicated. You need to opt for one of three regimes, etc. https://accountinginsights.org/how-does-pfic-taxation-work-f... I live in Europe and contemplated writing a tool to analyze ETF holdings and buy the stocks individually with the IBKR API, but it's an expensive and error-prone approach.

There is also an amusing (?) catch-22: you could theoretically sign up with a US-based broker and buy through them, which would make you exempt from these requirements. But most US-based brokers and banks will not want you as a customer if you don't have a US address. And those that do (Charles Schwab International) will not sell you ETFs, because… you are "based" in the EU, which has information requirements for selling financial instruments, and US ETFs cannot be sold to consumers in the EU.

I can't believe how badly the US screws their expats, and nothing is done about this, it only gets worse over the years.

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

#522

Post by zgk7iqea »

oulipo wrote: post #460
zgk7iqea wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

maybe better in terms of overall living standards but not in terms of innovation or the state being friendly to someone running a business

well what matters in the end is living standard. Innovation is cool, but it's pointless if it is to serve a stupid fascist society

the OP is about the difficulty of running a business in germany, not living standards. And what matters is always subjective

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

#523

Post by jacquesm »

eqvinox wrote: post #457
throw9349494 wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crazy theory: most posts here are from German Tax office. They give a "free" advice, and send a fat tax penalty 5 years latter! Suprise: you never left!

If you move back to Germany within 7 years, you actually don't have to pay the tax, so this would be a pretty poor use of their time :P

That's a point for that theory, not against ;)

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

#524

Post by Geee »

FredPret wrote: post #372
saubeidl wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also an attractive destination for people wanting to live in a society that's not completely broken by inequality and are willing to pay their membership dues for living in such a society. Not everyone's top priority is building a big ol' dragon pile of gold.

In what way does inequality break society? I’ve frequently heard this article of faith bandied about. But if the rich get 10X richer, and the poor get 2X richer, then everybody is better off. The stagnant, ultraconservative, ultracentralized economic systems tankies like to propose always end up leaving everyone 100X poorer. But at least they’re equal, right!? Seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Wealth inequality is a good thing, but the cause of it matters. Was wealth inequality caused by theft and corruption, or by merit-based capitalism? If wealth is created and concentrated by capitalism, it doesn't cause social unrest.

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

#525

Post by carlosjobim »

bluecalm wrote: post #509
carlosjobim wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you only see one side of the transaction? Just because somebody is willing to sell a chunk for X doesn't mean there are enough sellers for all chunks at this price. The agreed price for the last executed sale is the de facto value of anything traded. This has been a fact for hundreds of thousands of years by now.

The whole point is that it isn't. Liquidity availability is big part of finance. In your specific example of other side - yes - just because someone who needs to sell a chunk for reasons like an emergency, retirement or consumption needs doesn't mean they are happy to sell the rest of the chunks at that price. Market based valuations only work in case of very high liquidity publicly traded assets and only if you don'…

You still argue like there aren't two sides to every transaction: A buyer and a seller. You're only talking about the sellers perspective as if the buyer side is something abstract and non-human. Do you think anybody would purchase anything for more than they think it's worth because of "liquidity"?

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

#526

Post by tomhow »

gopher_space wrote: post #147
probably_wrong wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Internet evolved from Arpanet, a network established by DARPA. Given that was created by a government agency, and therefore funded by the same taxes companies are trying to avoid, I'd argue that it's a great example for why companies should indeed follow their civic duties and pay their taxes. It's also worth pointing out that many of those "wonderful things" had to be regulated by governments due to how bad thei…

[flagged]

> Nobody’s that jejune.

Edit out swipes like this from comments on HN please, no matter what you're referring to.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#527

Post by Strix97 »

logicchains wrote: post #265
Strix97 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Empirically that seems to be false Could you tell me on what data you are basing this argument on? I see this sentiment pop up in every related conversation but haven't seen the source of these claims. Could you help me out?

Here's some articles on Europe falling behind the US and China in business creation: https://www.economist.com/briefing/2021/06/05/once-a-corpora... , https://www.weforum.org/stories/2019/03/europe-is-no-longer-... , https://www.wsj.com/tech/europe-big-tech-ai-1f3f862c , https://skaleegenkapital.com/2025/03/11/a-decade-of-startup-... .

Thank you

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

#528

Post by ExoticPearTree »

ExpertAdvisor01 wrote: post #222

Exit taxation on corporate level is in every EU country , because of the atad directives .

I was not aware of that, but just read through it and it is crazy. It basically makes your company a hostage of the country where you incorporated it.

You cannot even move your company between member states without paying the exit tax. It is funny how the EU claims it is a single market but it is actually not.

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...

^^^ The Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive.

Jeez.

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

#529

Post by ExoticPearTree »

djoldman wrote: post #39
olieidel wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> Pretty much all political parties loudly announce that they'll reduce bureaucracy, but, judging by the outcomes, not much has happened so far.

I do not believe that this will be possible in our lifetimes. Germany cannot function without a very high degree of bureaucracy. It's like asking fish to breathe out of water.

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

#530

Post by ExoticPearTree »

exe34 wrote: post #516
nlitened wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All people are greedy, not only rich ones, that’s human nature. However high taxes ensure that it’s becoming more difficult to become rich, and only rich can get richer. Personally I think it’s better when more people can become rich, not fewer.

> All people are greedy, not only rich ones, that’s human nature. An yet in the current discussion, only the rich get to profit from it. > However high taxes ensure that it’s becoming more difficult to become rich, and only rich can get richer. > Personally I think it’s better when more people can become rich, not fewer. They won't get rich without food, education and housing. They're barely surviving because the ric…

> They won't get rich without food, education and housing. They're barely surviving because the rich keep sucking any chance of building wealth out of them. When inequality is low, more people become rich. When it is as high as it is currently, more people remain poor.

Actually you can. Nothing motivates you more than the lack of basic necessities. When you're poor, you have only one option: do whatever it takes to not be poor.

The reason many poor people stay poor is because they lack discipline and grit. They would rather stay poor than grind for 8-12-16h a day to get out.

Rich people don't go robbing less rich people at night and that's how they get to be even richer. Stop blaming all the world's problems on "the rich who want to be even richer".

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