I went through the Elster "Frageboden zur Steuerlichen Erfassung" for a GmbH yesterday and can confirm that it's a nightmare. I can find no way to register a co

I went through the Elster "Frageboden zur Steuerlichen Erfassung" for a GmbH yesterday and can confirm that it's a nightmare. I can find no way to register a company successfully that will not generate Umsatzsteuer (VAT Taxes) due to developing software for non-EU/US customers. It seems that there is a difference between Steuerbare (revenues that can be VAT-taxed) and Steuerfreie (revenues that could be taxed, but per law aren't) Umsätze, as well as Steuerermässigte (reduced tax rate) revenues, but as far as I can tell the form only covers the latter two cases and not the first one. If you try to register a company with revenues but no VAT tax expected you get this wonderfully German sentence: "Der auf einen Jahresgesamtumsatz hochgerechnete voraussichtliche Umsatz im Gründungsjahr übersteigt die Grenze des § 19 Absatz 1 UStG und der Fragebogen zur steuerlichen Erfassung enthält keine Angaben zu gegebenenfalls darin enthaltenen steuerfreien Umsätzen.. Die Kleinunternehmerregelung kann daher weder in Anspruch genommen werden noch kann darauf ein Verzicht erklärt werden.". Translation: Your expected revenue is higher than the amount for the small-enterpreneuer taxation scheme but you did not list tax-freed revenues, for this reason you can neither avail yourself nor disavail yourself of the tax scheme for small entrepreneuers". LOL. I love my country but it urgently needs to liberalize its labor and capital markets - with corporate tax rates amongst the highest in the world and bureaucracy like this, it is unnecessarily slowing economic growth and opportunities for ordinary citizens.