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France is destroying its future wealth and its destroying it fast. It's already one of the country with the most obstacles when you want to create a business:

France is destroying its future wealth and its destroying it fast. It's already one of the country with the most obstacles when you want to create a business: there are laws at basically every "level of power" and because it's one of the most socialist country of the planet (despite them always saying neo-liberal are supposedly in power) there are a great many level of powers. It's mad. Consider yourself lucky if you want to start a technology startup: it's relatively "easy" compared to, say, wanting to create a factory. Why are there no french Google, FaceBook, Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, Amazon, eBay, etc.? And the people defending these socialists are intellectually dishonest: we're assisting at the utter failure of the nanny-state (think socialist Greece and socialist Spain that skyrocketed the debt and drove the country into the wall) and yet the socialist manage (by propaganda, being basically in control of both written and televisualized press) to make believe it's all the fault of the liberals. This is sick. Just sick. Now I'm fighting teeth and nails to get my point across: if you're a french entrepreneur, do like me: leave your country. We're in a world where, thankfully, people are still free to move. So move while you can. Incorporate your startup in Luxembourg (like Skype did). Incorporate in Switzerland. Flee France. That country doesn't deserves you nor the future wealth you're going to create.

davidw 14y ago
Don't the Nordic countries have a lot of taxes? They seem to do ok in the startup scene. My wild guess - I don't know how things are 'on the ground' in either France or the Nordic countries - is that France tends to have more bureaucracy like here in Italy. So that it's not just a matter of "make some money, pay X in taxes" which is pretty easy to reason about, and somewhat "fair" (even if we all have different opinions) if you're paying taxes on profits, but rather feeling like the system is full of obstacles and people who are either indifferent or actively hostile towards the idea of someone opening a business.
- VSerge 14y ago
  Ha! On the ground in France, it's not really hostility, it's more indifference and rigidity. Some are hostile indeed, but some are helpful as well so it balances out. It's still a general pain in the backside though, and boy do they know about not communicating between services, losing papers you sent, and asking you 5 times for the same stuff... But to our problem it is the actual tax rate increase. From 30 to 60% overnight on investors' exits. Not neutral for business.
- yummyfajitas 14y ago
  Don't the Nordic countries have a lot of taxes? Not on corporations. They do tend to have rather high taxes on middle class individuals, however. http://blogs-images.forbes.com/kenrapoza/files/2011/09/CorporateIncomeTaxRates.jpg http://blogs-images.forbes.com/kenrapoza/files/2011/09/Corpo... http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2011/09/09/a-cross-country-comparison-of-corporate-income-taxes/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2011/09/09/a-cross-cou...
  - xyzzyz 14y ago
    Ah, I live in one of these countries with low corporate income tax (it's 19% here), and yet right wing here wants to make it even lower to increase entrepreneurship, and everybody complains how hard it is to do business here, because taxes and insurance contribute additional ~13-15% cost to base salary, so that they have to use law loopholes to escape that (which is very widespread, and recent attempts by government to fixed it resulted in an public outcry). Hearing all that, one could imagine that in countries like France, with >30% corporate tax and high employment cost, no business can take place at all, and it must have fallen in a deep economic depression a long time ago.
    - yummyfajitas 14y ago
      Hearing all that, one could imagine that in countries like France, with >30% corporate tax and high employment cost, no business can take place at all, and it must have fallen in a deep economic depression a long time ago. That is generally the case. Unemployment rates in the 8-12 neighborhood are considered a disaster in the US. In France they are normal. France is as poor as Arkansas and Idaho, two of the poorest US states. If the US in general fell to this level, we'd definitely be calling it a deep depression. http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2010/01/paul-krugman-extols-europes-economic.html http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2010/01/paul-krugman-extols-euro... The only reason France isn't described as being in a recession is because it's always been this way, so they are used to it.
      - rayiner 14y ago
        France, like Arkansas and Idaho, has a high percentage of the country engaged in agriculture. A sensible comparison would be PPP GDP per capita growth rate.
- caretu 14y ago
  The Nordic countries do have a lot of taxes, and Norway most of all. And that means Norway is not the easiest country to do business in, unless you're into oil, gas or fish. The one big killer in Norway, is taxation of working capital. Which is why a Norwegian Facebook or Twitter would be impossible at this moment. If you have a company valued at say $100 million, but you're losing money at a rate of $200k per year, you'd think you just need to raise those $200k somehow, which shouldn't be too hard. But guess what, since you're valued at $100 million, you'd have to somehow raise another $2 million each and every year, just to pay your taxes.
  - shasta 14y ago
    Rather than trying to tax companies based on some valuation, why doesn't the government just collect a small percentage of stock each year?
    - caretu 14y ago
      I might have been a bit unclear, but the tax I mentioned applies to the owners of the company, not the company itself. Which means that it's very hard for entrepreneurs to maintain control of their company, since they have to sell stock just to pay the taxes on their stock. A report from The Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (NHO) published this spring, showed that over 20.000 Norwegian business owners paid more in taxes, based on the company's valuation, than the entire revenue of said company.
  - subsystem 14y ago
    "And that means Norway is not the easiest country to do business in [...]" Well, the ease of doing business index says otherwise. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ease_of_doing_business_index http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ease_of_doing_business_index
anonymouz 14y ago
Are you proposing that the socialist nanny-state in Spain has caused the Spanish financial crisis? or its crazy real estate boom?
Rexxar 14y ago
Please stop this political propaganda on HN. There are valid reason to criticize this law without trying to damage France ("Flee France" as you say ...) Don't call everything you don't like "socialist". It's as ridiculous as when French left-wing socialists call everything they don't like "libéral". And don't mix Spain and Greece : - Greece has a completely corrupt government for years (and not only socialist governments) - Spain had budget surplus for years before the crises and was reducing its debt more than other EU countries (cf http://imgur.com/s1jVu http://imgur.com/s1jVu , you can have more stats on http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/graph.do?tab=graph&plugin=1&pcode=tsdde410&language=fr http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/graph.do?tab=graph&...)
- sterling 14y ago
  It's not "damaging" to France to say that the country is run by dishonest incompetents. France is a wonderful, beautiful country - any visitor can see that it in a few hours. But if a government is lowering people's incomes and increasing unemployment, we have a right as rational people to say as much as we can about it.
  - Rexxar 14y ago
    'martinced' doesn't say that the country is "runned by dishonest incompetents". He says : - "leave your country" - "Flee France. That country doesn't deserves you" - "it's one of the most socialist country of the planet" He use the word 'socialist' everywhere and in a meaningless ways. We can perfectly have a rational talk about the problem with this law without all this nonsense.
    - sterling 14y ago
      Are you here Rexxar (in France)?
      - Rexxar 14y ago
        Yes
    - 14y ago
mc32 14y ago
I recall a friend of a friend opening a hair salon, and from what I recall, it was a near-nightmare. Rules for illumination, taxes for how many lights you had outside the establishment. It's hard starting a business anywhere (the risk) but in France you have the added bonus of needing everything, permits, premises, etc to be ship shape before you open --even if it's not food, or drink. It seemed daunting.
sterling 14y ago
I agree with martinced completely. I've spent 12 years in Paris working on the web. Before that I spent 9 years in Russia - I know propaganda and lies. The French government is incompetent and dishonest. Why do I write this? Because it's in all of our interest here in France that the rest of world know. These buffoons want to be taken seriously on the world stage, like Chernenko and Brezhnev. No reason to allow that to happen.

davidw 14y ago

Don't the Nordic countries have a lot of taxes? They seem to do ok in the startup scene. My wild guess - I don't know how things are 'on the ground' in either France or the Nordic countries - is that France tends to have more bureaucracy like here in Italy. So that it's not just a matter of "make some money, pay X in taxes" which is pretty easy to reason about, and somewhat "fair" (even if we all have different opinions) if you're paying taxes on profits, but rather feeling like the system is full of obstacles and people who are either indifferent or actively hostile towards the idea of someone opening a business.

VSerge 14y ago
Ha! On the ground in France, it's not really hostility, it's more indifference and rigidity. Some are hostile indeed, but some are helpful as well so it balances out. It's still a general pain in the backside though, and boy do they know about not communicating between services, losing papers you sent, and asking you 5 times for the same stuff... But to our problem it is the actual tax rate increase. From 30 to 60% overnight on investors' exits. Not neutral for business.
yummyfajitas 14y ago
Don't the Nordic countries have a lot of taxes? Not on corporations. They do tend to have rather high taxes on middle class individuals, however. http://blogs-images.forbes.com/kenrapoza/files/2011/09/CorporateIncomeTaxRates.jpg http://blogs-images.forbes.com/kenrapoza/files/2011/09/Corpo... http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2011/09/09/a-cross-country-comparison-of-corporate-income-taxes/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2011/09/09/a-cross-cou...
- xyzzyz 14y ago
  Ah, I live in one of these countries with low corporate income tax (it's 19% here), and yet right wing here wants to make it even lower to increase entrepreneurship, and everybody complains how hard it is to do business here, because taxes and insurance contribute additional ~13-15% cost to base salary, so that they have to use law loopholes to escape that (which is very widespread, and recent attempts by government to fixed it resulted in an public outcry). Hearing all that, one could imagine that in countries like France, with >30% corporate tax and high employment cost, no business can take place at all, and it must have fallen in a deep economic depression a long time ago.
  - yummyfajitas 14y ago
    Hearing all that, one could imagine that in countries like France, with >30% corporate tax and high employment cost, no business can take place at all, and it must have fallen in a deep economic depression a long time ago. That is generally the case. Unemployment rates in the 8-12 neighborhood are considered a disaster in the US. In France they are normal. France is as poor as Arkansas and Idaho, two of the poorest US states. If the US in general fell to this level, we'd definitely be calling it a deep depression. http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2010/01/paul-krugman-extols-europes-economic.html http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2010/01/paul-krugman-extols-euro... The only reason France isn't described as being in a recession is because it's always been this way, so they are used to it.
    - rayiner 14y ago
      France, like Arkansas and Idaho, has a high percentage of the country engaged in agriculture. A sensible comparison would be PPP GDP per capita growth rate.
caretu 14y ago
The Nordic countries do have a lot of taxes, and Norway most of all. And that means Norway is not the easiest country to do business in, unless you're into oil, gas or fish. The one big killer in Norway, is taxation of working capital. Which is why a Norwegian Facebook or Twitter would be impossible at this moment. If you have a company valued at say $100 million, but you're losing money at a rate of $200k per year, you'd think you just need to raise those $200k somehow, which shouldn't be too hard. But guess what, since you're valued at $100 million, you'd have to somehow raise another $2 million each and every year, just to pay your taxes.
- shasta 14y ago
  Rather than trying to tax companies based on some valuation, why doesn't the government just collect a small percentage of stock each year?
  - caretu 14y ago
    I might have been a bit unclear, but the tax I mentioned applies to the owners of the company, not the company itself. Which means that it's very hard for entrepreneurs to maintain control of their company, since they have to sell stock just to pay the taxes on their stock. A report from The Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (NHO) published this spring, showed that over 20.000 Norwegian business owners paid more in taxes, based on the company's valuation, than the entire revenue of said company.
- subsystem 14y ago
  "And that means Norway is not the easiest country to do business in [...]" Well, the ease of doing business index says otherwise. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ease_of_doing_business_index http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ease_of_doing_business_index

anonymouz 14y ago

Are you proposing that the socialist nanny-state in Spain has caused the Spanish financial crisis? or its crazy real estate boom?

Rexxar 14y ago

Please stop this political propaganda on HN. There are valid reason to criticize this law without trying to damage France ("Flee France" as you say ...) Don't call everything you don't like "socialist". It's as ridiculous as when French left-wing socialists call everything they don't like "libéral". And don't mix Spain and Greece : - Greece has a completely corrupt government for years (and not only socialist governments) - Spain had budget surplus for years before the crises and was reducing its debt more than other EU countries (cf http://imgur.com/s1jVu http://imgur.com/s1jVu , you can have more stats on http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/graph.do?tab=graph&plugin=1&pcode=tsdde410&language=fr http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/graph.do?tab=graph&...)

sterling 14y ago
It's not "damaging" to France to say that the country is run by dishonest incompetents. France is a wonderful, beautiful country - any visitor can see that it in a few hours. But if a government is lowering people's incomes and increasing unemployment, we have a right as rational people to say as much as we can about it.
- Rexxar 14y ago
  'martinced' doesn't say that the country is "runned by dishonest incompetents". He says : - "leave your country" - "Flee France. That country doesn't deserves you" - "it's one of the most socialist country of the planet" He use the word 'socialist' everywhere and in a meaningless ways. We can perfectly have a rational talk about the problem with this law without all this nonsense.
  - sterling 14y ago
    Are you here Rexxar (in France)?
    - Rexxar 14y ago
      Yes
  - 14y ago

mc32 14y ago

I recall a friend of a friend opening a hair salon, and from what I recall, it was a near-nightmare. Rules for illumination, taxes for how many lights you had outside the establishment. It's hard starting a business anywhere (the risk) but in France you have the added bonus of needing everything, permits, premises, etc to be ship shape before you open --even if it's not food, or drink. It seemed daunting.

sterling 14y ago

I agree with martinced completely. I've spent 12 years in Paris working on the web. Before that I spent 9 years in Russia - I know propaganda and lies. The French government is incompetent and dishonest. Why do I write this? Because it's in all of our interest here in France that the rest of world know. These buffoons want to be taken seriously on the world stage, like Chernenko and Brezhnev. No reason to allow that to happen.