Employment law also makes it harder to hire employees. Every employee hire in places like Germany and such are huge risks to small corps, since it's very hard

Employment law also makes it harder to hire employees. Every employee hire in places like Germany and such are huge risks to small corps, since it's very hard to fire bad employees who are net negatives, and they know it and abuse it. That is ironically probably the biggest barrier to starting a corp in Europe for me. Health care insurance costs although should be tax deductible, and there are things like FSAs and HSAs that help make health costs even more tax deductible. Are you talking about the costs for paying other things in health care costs, like the $XXs per doctor visit and so on? ----- America is ironically a high tax nation, but these things usually reduce tax and COL: 1. The mortgage interest tax deduction. That is easily a +$20k/yr tax deduction right there. There are other small tax deductions that can remove a few thousands here and there. 2. States like Washington or Nevada that have no state income tax. 3. Almost everything is significantly cheaper to buy in the USA 4. Sales tax / VAT is %0-%10 vs the common ~%20 that is common in the EU. Because the US is a mismanged mess governmentally, buying something online from another state is a common sales tax dodge. 5. Pay is significantly higher in the USA for software professionals. I once read it doesn't matter how much you spend, but really how much you make and that can make up for the tax rates.