Shutting it down will also take something like 1-2 years (gotta give any creditors time to file claims, is the official reason, I think), in which you again hav

Shutting it down will also take something like 1-2 years (gotta give any creditors time to file claims, is the official reason, I think), in which you again have to file the tax paperwork, paying a tax advisor to do it for you if you don't also want to become an expert on tax law aside from whatever your actual expertise is that you wanted to run a company for. The Transparenzregister was new to me, but at least it only seems to consume an hour or so of your time and no additional money. Basically, you can't afford to start a company if you just want to try something out, because the bureaucracy costs will outstrip your actual operating costs in the first year (which, for many IT people, are a domain and a laptop) and be a significant burden. Unless you go into it with "here's my capital, and here is my plan to turn this into the next unicorn", you're more likely to just give up before you even seriously think about the idea.