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

christianpetroske.com

71–80 of 209 posts

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

#71
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> €157,806+: 45% That's the problem you see?

reality check, 120k€/year already puts you in the top 1% of income earner in France. Past this point you should be satisfied with how much you've already earned and maybe starts caring more about the impact your job/company should have...

>reality check

After taxes it's 80k which is NOT allot outside France (not even paris) and you are in the high-income class, you see when you want good people you have to pay them the right amount of money so they can pay everywhere for a good life. It's like saying, but 20$ a day is a perfect income for Morocco, why don't we have the best tech peoples around??

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

#72

From what a few of my colleagues told me: France is very racist. Apparently this is true in most of Europe. Everything looks okay on the surface but they are deep racial undertones. They tell me that believe it or not America is the one of the least racist countries. It does not mean there’s no racism in America just that it’s lesser. It’s easy for immigrants to assimilate into society in America than most places in…

I lived in France for 10+ years, I graduated at a French University and worked as software engineer, from what I have seen, France is not racist, but to assimilate into the society is not easy, I totally agree. I am fluent in French, so it is not about the language. Racism on streets of Paris does not exist at all, but racism exists at work, that is more worrying in France. Articles like this portray a welcoming image of France, because I could say I have been treated disrespectfully at the visa offices in France.

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

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an immigrant who has been living in France (Paris) for 7 years, I didn't personally experience any racism, on the contrary, my collegues, neighbours and strangers, all treat me respectfully as I would treat them. On the other hand, my wife, being a Hijabi, did experience it in subtle ways (if we can call it racism): sometimes not-so-friendly gazes from strangers, she can not go to the public swimpool because burki…

> (the reason was not always disclosed, but some recruiters did explicitly tell her that it was because of her Hijab). Which is different from the UK and other European countries from what I have been told. That's because the French culture does not work on the same basis as the UK and northern european countries. The french society strongly goes towards integration and not multiculturalism. It has a lot of deep cons…

> That's because the French culture does not work on the same basis as the UK and northern european countries.

That's really interesting to know. I wish such labels (strong integration vs multiculturalism) were more explicit, like part of an "identity card" for countries.

Do you know what the root of this cultural difference is? Historically, has it always been present?

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

#74

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…

Yeah, as a French I can only completely agree. The amount of paperwork is just absurd. For instance, when you create a company, you have to pay a separate fee (~200eur) to a private "official journal" to publish the fact that you're creating a company. That's just plain racket, and that kind of things is everywhere. France is dying, because France can't have a private sector because of its regulations. The fun part i…

>France is dying, because France can't have a private sector because of its regulations.

>France is dying to me. As an 18-yo, I'm seriously concerned on what to do for my future. The country has a super good education system (I would easily say the best in the world, by far) (just check out the ENS's Nobel prize / admissions ratio) but has no companies where people do any work. Most of the brilliant French minds go to work in other countries where it's possible to create and operate a company.

You're young, and you are, quite honestly, fully misinformed as to how things work in France. I know it, I live here, I was born here, I work here.

France is at the forefront of airplanes, rockets, AI, has hundreds of startups and old companies. The only places where the private sector cannot exist directly because of regulation are fully justified. Take the upcoming dismantlement of EDF in multiple companies, leaving 35% to the private sector. Handing off electricity distribution to private entities is quite possible the worst thing a country can do. This is an essential service. And so are all the other ones that limit the private sector. Everything else is absolutely fair game, and evidenced day after day. Things like visa applications ? Handled by private companies. URSAFF & Pole Emploi ? Mostly handled by private companies.

So, yes, we have a sizeable public sector. Yes, we have laws that prevent employers from abusing employees. Nothing that prevents you from starting your company, in any sector. It does prevent you from treating employees like shit. Hell, you can become a micro-entrepreneur today if you want.

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

#75

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…

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 (lodging accounting documents yearly) + an accountant because you won’t understand how to lodge the paperwork. In total, if you had only mandatory charges + VAT + CET (city tax assuming you have no office) + IS + CSG + Income tax, for 100k revenue distributed 100% as dividends, you’ll have 51,325€;

If you distribute 100% as your own salary, you’ll get 39.285€.

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

#76
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The amount of taxes a company has to pay and the amount of paperwork to do (or money to delegate it) is just absurd. How much are taxes if you live in SF again? Or NY? > is having all employees as associates... otherwise literally more than half of the salary is gone in taxes The income tax rates in France in 2020 are as follows: Up to €10,064: 0% €10,064–€25,659: 11% €25,659–€73,369: 30% €73,369–€157,806: 41% €157…

> €157,806+: 45% That's the problem you see?

I don't think such calculations are particularly useful, maybe about as much as Paul Graham's wealth tax "model". The reason is that tax codes are way more complicated than just nominal tax rates.

Did you know, for instance, that you taxable income is 90% of your real income [0]? So the 45% rate kicks in at a 175,340€ wage, not actually 157,806€.

Anyway, it does not matter because of the unusually large income splitting [1]. If both adults have a 157,806€ wage and say, two kids, the total income would be 315,612 with three fiscal shares, and thus would pay 3 times the amount of taxes owed for a 315,612/3 income (i.e. 105204€), where the marginal tax rate is 30%, not 45% [2].

Anyway, it does not matter either because the main income tax in France is not the "income tax", but the "generalized social contribution" (flat rate).

My point is not to write an essay on French taxation, but to show that simply comparing tax brackets and rates is useless, since the definition of "taxable income" is not the same between different countries, how brackets, rates and taxable income are used to actually compute the tax amount is not straightforward, there are many others taxes, and so forth.

[0] https://www.impots.gouv.fr/portail/particulier/questions/com...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_splitting

[2] Amount of tax is number of n T(i/n), where i is income, T is the function which maps income to taxes owed and n is the number of fiscal shares. Because T is convex, n T(i/n) is less than T(i).

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

#77

We often hear stories on how hard it is to start a business in France. As a French, I'd like to hear how easy it is in other countries (UK, US?). For example, what are the costs, the amount of paperwork...

Denmark Nr1 ATM:

https://startupdenmark.info/

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

#78
post #17

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…

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 situation. (30k left if you're single living alone).

Tip: Generally speaking I strongly advise to avoid discussing taxes with French citizens, fact is absolutely nobody understands where money goes to or how much. The usual payslip only shows the "charges sociales" itemized as 10 to 20 lines of things.

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

#79

We often hear stories on how hard it is to start a business in France. As a French, I'd like to hear how easy it is in other countries (UK, US?). For example, what are the costs, the amount of paperwork...

Starting a private limited company in the UK is amazingly easy, it's £12 and a web-form that takes about 10 minutes.

https://www.gov.uk/limited-company-formation/register-your-c...

Obviously things get more complicated once you start hiring other people but the government does a good job of trying to streamline things compared to France.

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

#80

From what a few of my colleagues told me: France is very racist. Apparently this is true in most of Europe. Everything looks okay on the surface but they are deep racial undertones. They tell me that believe it or not America is the one of the least racist countries. It does not mean there’s no racism in America just that it’s lesser. It’s easy for immigrants to assimilate into society in America than most places in…

My experience in Lille, France would concur with that. Never had I seen such blatant racism as I did when I went out for the night with another white (swede) and a black friend. The black friend was not allowed in a club that we were and had two instances I saw in different bars of overt racial comments from strangers in the short time we were drinking together. It was weird. He came back to the next day with a beat…

Lille is... it's northern france.

I'm not going to pretend we're perfect. You'll find racist people everywhere. Just, the farther up north you go, the more likely you are.

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