>>Tax on investments are averagely taxed compared to other countries.
That is only if you haven't accumulated wealth yet.
The combination of quite high capital gain tax with sky high wealth tax, pretty high income tax isn't very attractive if your plan is to accumulate some wealth.
If you just want to make enough every year to live there I guess it's reasonable though.
I future-proofed myself by moving to a region with a €3M exception. So that I have a long way to go before paying wealth tax.
CGT is progressive and around 20%, compared to other European countries that is fairly average. Some Eastern European countries are at 15%, Belgian is going to 10%, Switzerland differs per canton.
Also, no CGT for fresh immigrants if you are able to use the Beckham law.
The problem with academia is that it's often more about politics and reputation than seeking the truth. There are multiple examples of researchers making a career out flawed papers and never retracking or even admitting a mistake.
All the talks they were invited to give, all the followers they had, all the courses they sold and impact factor they have built. They are not going to came forward and say "I misinterpreted the data and made long reaching conclusions that are nonsense, sorry for misleading you and thousands of others".
The process protects them as well. Someone can publish another paper, make different conclusions. There is 0 effort get to the truth, to tell people what is and what isn't current consensus and what is reasonable to believe. Even if it's clear for anyone who digs a bit deeper it will not be communicated to the audience the academia is supposed to serve. The consensus will just quietly shift while the heavily quoted paper is still there. The talks are still out there, the false information is still propagated while the author enjoys all the benefits and suffers non of the negative consequences.
If it functions like that I don't think it's fair that tax payer funds it. It's there to serve the population not to exist in its own world and play its own politics and power games.
I would pay at least 300$/month just for hobby projects. The tools are absolutely amazing at things I am the worst at: getting a good overview on a new field/library/docs, writing boilerplate and first working examples, dealing with dependencies and configurations etc. I would pay that even if they never improve and never help to write any actual business logic or algorithms.
Simple queries like: "Find a good compression library that meets the following requirements: ..." and then "write a working example that takes this data, compresses it and writes it to output buffer" are worth multiple hours I would otherwise need to spend on it.
If I wanted to ship commercial software again I would pay much more.
>>Having a startup in the US is a huge mess due to all the states and taxes,
In EU you will need to deal with VAT basically from day one (10k EUR of revenue). In US you will not deal with it until you can afford it as thresholds are very generous.
If dealing with VAT is a large problem for your business today, running a business might just not be for you, it's very trivial today to get it right and there are even platforms who basically does all the "hard" work for you. But even without those 3rd party solutions, I think the complexity is vastly oversold, it's relatively easy to get right compared to other regulations. Maybe I'm just EU-damaged already though, YMMV.
>>If dealing with VAT is a large problem for your business today
It's not a problem for me today. It was a big problem when I had no revenue, needed to do all the paperwork, meet ridiculous local accounting requirements connected to selling software in a different currency than my local one, write code, setup licensing, shipping the software to the clients etc.
It was a major source of stress and sleepless nights for me.
>>But even without those 3rd party solutions, I think the complexity is vastly oversold, it's relatively easy to get right compared to other regulations. Maybe I'm just EU-damaged already though, YMMV.
It's easy when you have done it once and know the process.
It's not so easy when you need to understand if your product meets a definition of an electronic service or something else, when accountants you are meeting don't know how to setup VAT-MOSS thing because it's still rare or when you need to add your tax authority about something and their reply is that they don't know so you need to write an official inquire (that requires a lawyer) so you can get your answer in a few months.
When I was setting a new company in another country it was easier for me because I already knew how the process work and I could hire a competent accountant before the new company had any revenue. It wasn't so simple when I had 0 capital and just wanted to ship software to see if people want to buy it.
> It's not a problem for me today. It was a big problem when I had no revenue, needed to do all the paperwork, meet ridiculous local accounting requirements connected to selling software in a different currency than my local one, write code, setup licensing, shipping the software to the clients etc.
Since this depends mostly on what country you are in/you are setting up the country in, what specific country was this? Because it's not the same everywhere, and by the sounds of it, is a lot more complicated than most other EU countries. Germany is famously bureaucratic, as just one example, and differs wildly from the type of experience you'll have in Sweden.
> It wasn't so simple when I had 0 capital and just wanted to ship software to see if people want to buy it.
Most people, accountants or not, won't tell you this, but you're usually fine starting to charge people and running a business "unofficially" for a couple of months without having to pay any fines or anything when you finally "regularize" your situation. Many accountants have dealt with this sort of setup countless of times too. But again, people won't advice you to take this route, but it is one option if you just wanna ship software and see if people want to buy it. If no one buys it, just don't tell anyone :) Unless you're doing five figures or more in revenue, no one will mind.
For me it's very stressful to not comply with the regulation on purpose hoping I am too small to not get punished by the authority. It would be easier to just ignore the regulation.
I get this makes me not well predisposed to do business in EU. Thank you for your advice.
> It would be easier to just ignore the regulation.
Well, in your case, completely ignoring something rather than doing it later sounds like it would be more stressful for you, if the problem is not complying? I'm don't think wanting to comply with regulation makes you "not well predisposed to do business in EU" and I'm not sure where you get that from.
Hence most countries has a threshold for when you need to charge the country-specific VAT and let you use the local one until you reach there. It differs by the country as far as I know.
But there is no threshold for cross-border selling in the EU.
Fine if you're selling widgets at a market in Germany - but if you sell software abroad, make sure you're following [each] one of the 27 VAT codes correctly.
(From what I understand - would love this to be wrong)
Following US sales tax has way more complexity. In my county alone there are many different rates depending on the city in which the sale is made. Even just finding out authoritatively which jurisdiction to pay taxes to is nontrivial, practically impossible to solve without dedicated software.
> Fine if you're selling widgets at a market in Germany - but if you sell software abroad, make sure you're following [each] one of the 27 VAT codes correctly.
Yes.
> But there is no threshold for cross-border selling in the EU.
Kinda, but misinterprets the VAT itself.
Basically, VAT is paid at the point of sale and local thresholds apply.
>>Basically, VAT is paid at the point of sale and local thresholds apply.
The threshold is 10k EUR (total sales to EU). The point of sale in case of software/electronic services is the country of residence of your customer.
You need to collect two pieces evidence of that location, usually billing address and IP. If those don't match (your customer has used a VPN for example) you need a 3rd piece.
One Stop Shop helps with it (when I was starting my company it didn't exist and predecessor VAT MOSS was just being introduced and no one knew how to comply with it) but you still need to charge local VAT rates and report quarterly.
You can just use a service for that if you find that too much work to do yourself. There are MoR services that do that for you for EU, AU, US states where it is required etc. It is more that most people outside the EU find it bullshit and just don't do it and complain about it anyway.
EU like making new regulation.
There are simpler steps to make doing business here easier:
-force banks to respect EU free trade union and stop them from discriminating EU citizens and companies who are not citizens
-stop abuse when it comes to currency conversion rates
-raise VAT-free threshold to something that doesn't catch very small companies, 200k EUR in sales to EU would be a good start (currently it's 10k)
-force EU countries to move all the bureaucracy online; it's very realistic, Poland has done it (it's not 100% yet but close to it)
-enforce English as 2nd official language for business related paperwork
Instead I am pretty sure we will get more paperwork, requirements and way for bureaucrats to prolong every process and request more documents on the way.
>>At least in gambling they don't let the sports referees and players gamble.
Oh c'mon now. This is completely impossible to police. Players and referees are not under constant supervision. They have families, friends, partners. Some of them got caught but you can be certain most weren't because it's just very difficult to catch.
There are always multiple people who know about key players' injuries, illness, other factors. The game is negative sum and additionally insiders take a a chunk for themselves. It's worse then roulette which at least doesn't pretend to be fair.
It isn't impossible to police. Players and referees are under supervision...I am not sure why you think this isn't the case. Regulated gambling companies i.e. not Polymarket, maintain lists of people who are connected to sports inc. through family. And they maintain systems that monitor unusual betting activity that is shared across the industry, it is quite easy to detect this activity because most of the flow that bookmakers see is uninformed. So if you see a customer that doesn't bet regularly put down $10k, line moves in their favour...that is obviously extremely suspicious because that won't happen with 95% of the volume you take.
As an example, there was a football player in England who had a friend that bet on a transfer market (a market that is extremely prone to inside information). It was detected immediately (despite being a relatively small bet of $10k, I have heard anecdotally that insiders have been detected in this market down to $500 bets), the player was banned, fined $500k, etc.
Btw, the reason these systems exist is because there are certain sports that are too lucrative not to make a market in but the economics/nature of the game mean that matches are easily fixed: 99.99% of this activity is low-ranked professional tennis, and surveillance has been very effective (all of this is funded, not by professional tennis, but by gambling companies). Generally, this isn't as prevalent with US sports because none of those preconditions exist for the major sports.
Isn't Polymarket very low stakes?
For example "Will Trump acquire Greenland before 2027" market (the main one for this issue) has only 14m USD volume.
This is like 2 orders of magnitude less money than is bet on El Classico 2 times a year.
There are risks connected when prediction markets run wild but Polymarket ain't it.
There is also utility. It has high predictive value (it beats polls for elections from a little sample I've looked at) and allows you to make better decisions.
It beats polls for elections ONLY until someone notices it is being used as the basis of news stories and figures out it will be four orders of magnitude cheaper to manipulate that small market and make the news idiots broadcast that opinions have changed than to actually deploy all the adverts needed to change the opinions.
The very low stakes you point out make this even easier to put a thumb on the scales.
Goodhart's law: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure"
The point of the article is that as soon as the "news" started reporting on prediction markets or corporatized gambling as if it was a measure of sentiment, it ceased to become a good measurement. That point has long passed.
News already broadcast tons of nonsense. Political commentary is just brain rot. Economic commentary might be just as well generated by one of those Markov chain string generators - it would make as much sense.
>>out it will be four orders of magnitude cheaper to manipulate that small market and make the news idiots broadcast that opinions have changed than to actually deploy all the adverts needed to change the opinions.
It will then become more expensive.
Out of all the manipulation news and journalists do every day I am not sure why "people bet money at 1 to 4 odds that Trump takes Greenland before 2027" is particularly problematic. It's true people bet money on it at those odds. How is that more problematic that news running pro or anti Trump segments or broadcasting some random crystal ball readings to justify stock price fluctuations of the day?
You can see how much money is bet on the market as well. It's not like you can spend 5 figures and suddenly shape the narrative.
Right, we agree on just about everything. Political and economic commentary is generally brain rot, and Polymarket, etc. is not an accurate predictive tool
And yes, if it starts to be seen as one of the levers to manipulate in manipulating public opinion, it will become more expensive. That does not improve it's predictive value, since we never really know how expensive it is on either side relative to the bankrolls and motivations of those who might want to manipulate it.
But for anyone who wants to use it as a crystal ball, go right on ahead — good luck with that!
If you think Polyrmarket is not an accurat predictive tool you can easily exploit and make a fortune. If you think some politician is paying to manipulate the market just take their money by taking the other side.
It's not perfect but it's the best thing we get. Certainly beats analysts, government officials and about anyone else.
>>If you think some politician is paying to manipulate the market just take their money by taking the other side.
Yes, that is True -- IFF (and that is a big If and Only If) we can suss out in real time what is happening.
The other risk is the Polymarket (or other betting market) managers' calls on what gets meet or don't meet the criteria. Like that punter who made big bets on the Venezuela Maduro kidnapping operation, betting tens-of-thousands$$ on the "Invasion" proposition and initially looking like he made almost a half-million dollars, only to have Polymarket decide it was not an "invasion".
So there is both risk of "did I actually detect a ploy?" and counterparty payout risk. But if we can get past those two, we can definitely make bank!
EDIT: Another risk, and probably the key risk, is even after noticing and identifying a large market-moving bet, whether that is from a player who is trying to skew the market (and doesn't care if they win/lose as they are playing a different game) or a player with inside information who knows something we do not.
There is a certain kind of person who thinks that all the news they disagree with is being faked by people who will spend multiple millions on Polymarket just to get a news story on CNN.
This person does not realise that most people do not pay attention to the news, that people in power are not glued to the news waiting for journalists to tell them what to say, or that the news is generally not very important...except to people like them who play out these fantasies about wealthy people mind-controlling them through CNN.
>>It is a clear mandate on those companies that whatever used to be C or C++, should be written in Rust for green field development.
>>Any hobby language author would like to have 1% of the said modest Rust's success, I really don't get the continuous downplay of such achievement.
This is a political achievement, not technical one. People are bitter about it as it doesn't feel organic and feel pushed onto them.
> Anyone deploying serverless code into Amazon instances is running of top of Firecracker, my phone has Rust code running on it, and whatever Windows 11 draws something into the screen, it goes through Rust rewrite of the GDI regions logic, all the Azure networking traffic going through Azure Boost cards does so via Rust firmware.
Ignoring it doesn't make those achievements political rather than technical.
I was referring to mandate to use it at big companies. This is a political achievement.
Teams/contributors making their own choice and then shipping good software counts as technical one but that wasn't the main point of the post I replied to.
> I was referring to mandate to use it at big companies.
I've worked in almost all of big tech, and these companies don't create mandate just because "Trust me bro" or to gain some "political achievements". Their are teams who champion new technology/languages, they create proof of what new technology will bring to the table which cannot be filled with existing ones.
I left amazon 7 years ago so don't know about recent development. However at Meta/Google teams are encouraged to choose from the mandate languages and if they can't they need to request for exemption and justify the exception.
Idk, I find it easier to press control on a Thinkpad because it's closer. It being in a corner would be farer away.
Anyway, control should be (and traditionally was) where CapsLock is. Just remap it - everything is suddenly easy and ergonomic.
That is only if you haven't accumulated wealth yet. The combination of quite high capital gain tax with sky high wealth tax, pretty high income tax isn't very attractive if your plan is to accumulate some wealth. If you just want to make enough every year to live there I guess it's reasonable though.
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