> That's not to say that Germany is not a huge PITA when it comes to managing all these constructions, dealing with the bureaucracy, and the maze of silly government agencies that refuse to share even the most basic information with each other so you are stuck in ground hog day providing the same information over and over again (who are you, where do you live, what is your company registration, etc.).

That's where you hire a professional accountant. Which you should be doing anyway at the point where you raise any sort of external funding that's not family members.

I don't get why people are always complaining about German taxes. As long as you're small, you can just wing it. And when you pass the threshold, professionals are cheap.

I'm not complaining about the taxes but the bureaucracy. And the taxes definitely require an accountant here because of the complexity of the tax law and all the intentional loopholes in there for people that can afford an accountant. Accountant lobbies are fierce in this country and they like being necessary. So a lot of sane things that other countries are doing to keep things simple haven't really happened here. I never lived in the US but from what I know of it, it's actually one of the countries that is worse on this front. So, if you move here from there, it might be an upgrade.

Anyway, I call the German attitude to this topic Stockholm syndrome. The thing is, I've lived in four countries in the EU so I know how things can be different, more efficient, etc. When I say Germany is a PITA, that is relative to the Netherlands, Sweden, and Finland and based on my experience with those countries. Which isn't even that recent. Those countries were miles ahead of how things are in Germany today decades ago. And I wouldn't exactly refer to Finland and Sweden as tax havens.

Taxes are quite high here. Fun fact: when I moved to Germany from Finland, it was an internal transfer for Nokia. My salary was compensated up because of the higher tax and insurance cost in Germany. From Finland! Of course, the cost of living is quite a bit lower here. So this was a nice thing for me. But it's not a cheap country.