{"id":1332,"date":"2022-05-24T09:31:25","date_gmt":"2022-05-24T09:31:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/futureangst.com\/2022\/05\/24\/wenn-das-finanzamt-gruenderinnen-droht\/"},"modified":"2022-05-24T09:36:01","modified_gmt":"2022-05-24T09:36:01","slug":"when-the-german-irs-threatens-founders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/futureangst.com\/en\/2022\/05\/24\/when-the-german-irs-threatens-founders\/","title":{"rendered":"When the German IRS Threatens Founders"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The statistics on Germany’s entrepreneurship could not be more sobering. According to Statista<\/a>, there were still more than one and a half million founders in Germany in 2001, but this figure fell to just over half a million in 2019. A drop of no less than two-thirds in just two decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One can speculate about the reasons. Too little venture capital, too high taxes, a hostile startup climate, shifting priorities and ambitions of young people, and so on. In a survey<\/a> in Austria, startups were ranked among the least attractive employers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the Corona crisis, freelancers and the self-employed were considered the big losers. No wonder that the result of the Young Professionals Barometer 2020<\/a> from the market research institute Trendence showed both the willingness of young academics to change jobs or to become self-employed at all dropped rapidly, and this despite a simultaneous increase in dissatisfaction with their own employer. In view of such survey results, the daily newspaper ‘Die Welt’ sees Germany on the way to breeding a generation of civil servants<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In times like these, something like self-employment seems downright dangerous to them. Our potential innovation hopefuls are currently studying or still going to school. And if things go badly, we’re breeding a generation of risk-averse employees and civil servants with whom it’s impossible to win the global competition.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Now Antonia Cox<\/a>, co-founder of the startup POTTBURRI<\/a>, which makes sustainable plant pots, posted a letter from the German Federal Central Tax Office regarding the advance VAT return. Note the choice of words here: “threat” (“Androhung”).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Threat from the Federal Central Tax Office<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Not a “request for post-filing” or “request for correction,” no, the state comes into the house with the full force of its power. Cox only commented with a sigh:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ah Germany\u2026
How much love there is in our language, especially in connection with bureaucratic letters.
No wonder no sock wants to start a business here, when you always feel like you’ve got one foot in jail.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The statistics on Germany’s entrepreneurship could not be more sobering. According to Statista, there were still more than one and a half million founders in Germany in 2001, but this figure fell to just over half a million in 2019. … Continue reading When the German IRS Threatens Founders<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8770504,"featured_media":1329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[35954,35953],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1332","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-economy","8":"category-law","10":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/futureangst.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/Androhung-1.jpg?fit=2000%2C1372&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pblxuj-lu","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureangst.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureangst.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureangst.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureangst.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8770504"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureangst.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1332"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/futureangst.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1336,"href":"https:\/\/futureangst.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1332\/revisions\/1336"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureangst.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureangst.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureangst.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureangst.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}