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They're higher in France but not meaningfully higher, hence my comment "not that different". In fact if you take into account the cost of typical private employ
by zapita 9y ago
They're higher in France but not meaningfully higher, hence my comment "not that different". In fact if you take into account the cost of typical private employer-paid healthcare, the cost might actually be higher in California.
And I maintain that taxes are just not high enough to be a major obstacle to entrepreneurship in France - and yes I am aware of the dreaded "charges sociales". The reason we hear so much about them is because complaining about high taxes is easy and not controversial. Unlike the topic of employee protection, which is deeply polarizing.
- nicolas_t 9y agoLooking at the numbers, you do indeed have a point. It would be interesting to look at the taxes and charge sociales for different ranges of income but, for software startups who hire highly qualified people, taxes wouldn't be an obstacle compared to Malaysia. And I very much doubt that availability of qualified hires is the obstacle either since the level of engineering Grandes Ecoles is quite good (I might be biased there) So, I guess factors for why France is not doing that well re startups would be Employee Protection, Kafkaesque bureaucracy when dealing with creating the company and paying the said Charges Sociales and lack of capital.
- kgwgk 9y agoI guess it depends on what do you consider meaningfully higher. And we didn't mention VAT: from your "post-tax" income, 20% of it will be paid as tax anyway when you buy products of services. A reduced rate is applied for some products/services but it should be kept in mind that France collects more money from VAT than from all the other taxes combined.