5 ms·

This is a great read and I can extend this argument really to any small business. Tax filing, VAT, bookkeeping, privacy, consumer, workplace and sectoral requir

by armcat 23d ago

This is a great read and I can extend this argument really to any small business. Tax filing, VAT, bookkeeping, privacy, consumer, workplace and sectoral requirements frequently impose a disproportionately large cost on microbusinesses. EU is more and more split along the enterprise and VC backed line, and everyone in between has disproportionate costs. My barber in Stockholm often complains about this - the amount of money they would need to earn to overcome all these costs is staggering. So they often do lots of gigs on the side.

varispeed 23d ago
General view of EU politicians is that working class should be working for big corporations. Running own business is a sin. The big corporations also don't want people to run small business, because they remove themselves from the job market and cannot be hired / exploited. So they lobby EU FOR regulations that ensure people cannot run business.
- merek 23d ago
  > Running own business is a sin Shouldn't any wealth creation viewed positively due to tax, not to mention value to consumers/society? Or is the view that people on average produce more value when employed by a large corporation?
  - lnsru 23d ago
    A self employed person can deduct many things used personally from the taxes in Germany as a business expense. An employed person pays shit ton of taxes and the value added tax. So from pre-tax salary you get only 30% for spending. Lol. It’s slavery.
    - varispeed 23d ago
      Corporations also deduct things as expenses. Small business or self-employed person don't have any special privileges - au contraire - in many jurisdictions big corporations are not audited at all and have special tax arrangements where they agree with the tax man to pay certain amount of tax. The idea that small business somehow avoids tax is a myth. If you have limited company, your personal spending wont fly past accountant.
- WarmWash 23d ago
  >General view of EU politicians is that working class should be working for big corporations The politicians are protecting the working class from corporations destroying society for profit. Lets not kid ourselves that the EU isn't endlessly praised for "having a backbone". Universal chargers, removable batteries, open app stores, AI data protections... The thing is that people generally don't understand that everything in the world is tradeoffs rather than the media/internet portrayal of the world being good vs evil.
  - drnick1 23d ago
    > Universal chargers, removable batteries, open app stores, AI data protections... The same "protections" also means that the E.U. has no major AI player at all. It seems like all the E.U. can do is tax and regulate what is invented and produced elsewhere.
    - flaunf221 23d ago
      > has no major AI player at all So? Will major AI players introduce universal healthcare in US? Or is it coming along with AGI which is why it should be the most important to every citizen? Or maybe EU citizens should all band together and stop being lazy and go to having 0 mandatory vacation days? Reminds of me very old USSR joke which was basically "we have rockets in space, and don't have sausages in stores".
      - drnick1 23d ago
        > So? Will major AI players introduce universal healthcare in US? We don't want universal healthcare, 6-month to one-year waits for routine operations, having to beg doctors for prescriptions, massive tax hikes to pay for all of that while disincentivizing people from working and keeping jobs.
        dmix 23d ago
        If you want to talk about terrible regulation, the US health insurance system is a great example. A single payer insurance system would be more rational vs choosing the worst of both worlds, which the US built through layers and layers of political compromise. The private alternative is a no-go politically in the western world so why not just commit to doing it properly? Although of course that would require US states (more so than federal) to be more fiscally conservative, so the tax increase wouldn't be as burdensome... which might also be a no-go.
alerighi 23d ago
My barber in Italy just doesn't make me a receipt in exchange for a discount if I pay him cash so he doesn't have to pay taxes. Come on... the cost to operating a small business are usually low/there are tax exceptions, and they most of the time are even not payed at all. Of course if you are a person that ships 20 packages you don't register a company to do so, nobody will, you just sell them privately (and the exception to sell things privately is quite high, in my country you can do it up to 5000 euros AT YEAR, after that you need to declare the income in your tax declaration but still you don't need to register a company if it's not your main income).
- veeti 23d ago
  The barber in Stockholm probably wouldn't take cash if you tried ;) Single union, different rules.
  - watt 23d ago
    In Berlin you can have same quality haircut for 15 euros, for 25 euros or 50 euros, your choice.
elric 23d ago
Oh come on. Tax evasion by barbers is a classical example of why taxes are so high for the rest of us. The cost of bookkeeping for a very small business is essentially zero. Everywhere that I know of exempts small business from double entry bookkeeping. VAT exemptions exist if revenue is low enough, too. Privacy requirements are even easier: don't ask for, store, or process any personal information you don't absolutely need. Your barber is being dramatic.
- watt 23d ago
  I am not sure what you are driving at. My understanding of double entry bookkeeping is it's simpler and easier than the so called "single entry" bookkeeping which adds a lot of complexity because of all the special cases.
  - elric 22d ago
    A simple spreadsheet of income & expense is all that's required for most small businesses. Larger companies require full fledged double entry bookkeeping with requirements about charts of accounts -- which usually necessitates paying an accountant, unless you enjoy that particular kind of pain.

by armcat 23d ago

varispeed 23d ago

General view of EU politicians is that working class should be working for big corporations. Running own business is a sin. The big corporations also don't want people to run small business, because they remove themselves from the job market and cannot be hired / exploited. So they lobby EU FOR regulations that ensure people cannot run business.

merek 23d ago
> Running own business is a sin Shouldn't any wealth creation viewed positively due to tax, not to mention value to consumers/society? Or is the view that people on average produce more value when employed by a large corporation?
- lnsru 23d ago
  A self employed person can deduct many things used personally from the taxes in Germany as a business expense. An employed person pays shit ton of taxes and the value added tax. So from pre-tax salary you get only 30% for spending. Lol. It’s slavery.
  - varispeed 23d ago
    Corporations also deduct things as expenses. Small business or self-employed person don't have any special privileges - au contraire - in many jurisdictions big corporations are not audited at all and have special tax arrangements where they agree with the tax man to pay certain amount of tax. The idea that small business somehow avoids tax is a myth. If you have limited company, your personal spending wont fly past accountant.
WarmWash 23d ago
>General view of EU politicians is that working class should be working for big corporations The politicians are protecting the working class from corporations destroying society for profit. Lets not kid ourselves that the EU isn't endlessly praised for "having a backbone". Universal chargers, removable batteries, open app stores, AI data protections... The thing is that people generally don't understand that everything in the world is tradeoffs rather than the media/internet portrayal of the world being good vs evil.
- drnick1 23d ago
  > Universal chargers, removable batteries, open app stores, AI data protections... The same "protections" also means that the E.U. has no major AI player at all. It seems like all the E.U. can do is tax and regulate what is invented and produced elsewhere.
  - flaunf221 23d ago
    > has no major AI player at all So? Will major AI players introduce universal healthcare in US? Or is it coming along with AGI which is why it should be the most important to every citizen? Or maybe EU citizens should all band together and stop being lazy and go to having 0 mandatory vacation days? Reminds of me very old USSR joke which was basically "we have rockets in space, and don't have sausages in stores".
    - drnick1 23d ago
      > So? Will major AI players introduce universal healthcare in US? We don't want universal healthcare, 6-month to one-year waits for routine operations, having to beg doctors for prescriptions, massive tax hikes to pay for all of that while disincentivizing people from working and keeping jobs.
      - dmix 23d ago
        If you want to talk about terrible regulation, the US health insurance system is a great example. A single payer insurance system would be more rational vs choosing the worst of both worlds, which the US built through layers and layers of political compromise. The private alternative is a no-go politically in the western world so why not just commit to doing it properly? Although of course that would require US states (more so than federal) to be more fiscally conservative, so the tax increase wouldn't be as burdensome... which might also be a no-go.

alerighi 23d ago

My barber in Italy just doesn't make me a receipt in exchange for a discount if I pay him cash so he doesn't have to pay taxes. Come on... the cost to operating a small business are usually low/there are tax exceptions, and they most of the time are even not payed at all. Of course if you are a person that ships 20 packages you don't register a company to do so, nobody will, you just sell them privately (and the exception to sell things privately is quite high, in my country you can do it up to 5000 euros AT YEAR, after that you need to declare the income in your tax declaration but still you don't need to register a company if it's not your main income).

veeti 23d ago
The barber in Stockholm probably wouldn't take cash if you tried ;) Single union, different rules.
- watt 23d ago
  In Berlin you can have same quality haircut for 15 euros, for 25 euros or 50 euros, your choice.

elric 23d ago

Oh come on. Tax evasion by barbers is a classical example of why taxes are so high for the rest of us. The cost of bookkeeping for a very small business is essentially zero. Everywhere that I know of exempts small business from double entry bookkeeping. VAT exemptions exist if revenue is low enough, too. Privacy requirements are even easier: don't ask for, store, or process any personal information you don't absolutely need. Your barber is being dramatic.

watt 23d ago
I am not sure what you are driving at. My understanding of double entry bookkeeping is it's simpler and easier than the so called "single entry" bookkeeping which adds a lot of complexity because of all the special cases.
- elric 22d ago
  A simple spreadsheet of income & expense is all that's required for most small businesses. Larger companies require full fledged double entry bookkeeping with requirements about charts of accounts -- which usually necessitates paying an accountant, unless you enjoy that particular kind of pain.