Hacker News: tomschwiha

New comment by tomschwiha in "Founding a company in Germany: €9600, 152 days and I still can't send an invoice"

tomschwiha — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 15:06:15 +0000

The difference is shareholder (=Gesellschafter) and ceo (=Geschäftführer). They may be the same person. So paying wages for the work as Geschäftsführer is fine (reasonable amount, taxes, etc), paying out money for being a Gesellschafter is not.

New comment by tomschwiha in "Founding a company in Germany: €9600, 152 days and I still can't send an invoice"

tomschwiha — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 14:04:22 +0000

Founder wage is a company purpose, else it wouldn't be allowed. Its not your personal money anymore once deposited into the companies account.

New comment by tomschwiha in "Hetzner Price Adjustment"

tomschwiha — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 00:22:36 +0000

What do you mean with if the server goes down? As far as I know Hetzner will replace tje hardware for free: "Support services include the free replacement of defective hardware."

New comment by tomschwiha in "A HN post with negative points – how?"

tomschwiha — Tue, 12 May 2026 13:53:52 +0000

Here is a self referencing HN post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33130986

New comment by tomschwiha in "Dutch central bank ditches AWS and chooses Lidl for European Cloud"

tomschwiha — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 16:49:04 +0000

The title is heavy clickbait. To say I just bought a Porsche when it was actually a Volkswagen is also wrong. Just because they belong to the same owner doesn't make it the same brand.

New comment by tomschwiha in "Extra usage credit for Pro, Max, and Team plans"

tomschwiha — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 00:29:45 +0000

At least for european consumers the 12 month limit is probably illegal, as it is equivalent to cash and probably also needs to be refundable (similar to prepaid phone cards).

New comment by tomschwiha in "Extra usage credit for Claude to celebrate usage bundles launch (Pro, Max, Team)"

tomschwiha — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 00:23:00 +0000

That free credits have some kind of short expiry date seems to be normal for me.

New comment by tomschwiha in "Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn"

tomschwiha — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 12:54:10 +0000

U-Bahn is a closed circle so not much happens (except accidents). The issue is with shared rails and there is too much traffic. On the road there is also a lot of delay but it's more accepted because oneself is in charge. Using the train gives up control so you've got easier someone to blame.

New comment by tomschwiha in "The Cloudflare outage might be a good thing"

tomschwiha — Mon, 24 Nov 2025 07:27:12 +0000

For me personally I didn't notice the downtime in the first hour or so. When using some website assets were not loading, but that's it. Turnstile outage maybe impacted me most. Could be because I'm EU based and Cloudflare is not "so" widespread here as in other parts of the world.

New comment by tomschwiha in "Daniel Kahneman opted for assisted suicide in Switzerland"

tomschwiha — Sat, 11 Oct 2025 11:15:24 +0000

That sounds a bit harsh - probably more simplification than manipulation.

New comment by tomschwiha in "Telegram's Durov says France asked to remove some Moldovan channels from app"

tomschwiha — Mon, 29 Sep 2025 05:19:47 +0000

Free speech ends when it conflicts with the law or the rights of others - for example, the right to make a free voting decision. Spreading fake news or knowingly lying is not free speech, but rather an abuse of the term.

New comment by tomschwiha in "How to stop Google from AI-summarising your website"

tomschwiha — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 23:26:22 +0000

Is this blog article AI generated? The last sentence asks to leave a comment in the comments section. I didn't find a comment section.

New comment by tomschwiha in "A failure of security systems at PayPal is causing concern for German banks"

tomschwiha — Thu, 28 Aug 2025 02:12:31 +0000

I think the bank of the consumer is also completely automatically getting the money back. The risk is on the initiator if the payment (=PayPal).

New comment by tomschwiha in "A failure of security systems at PayPal is causing concern for German banks"

tomschwiha — Thu, 28 Aug 2025 02:04:17 +0000

You are not required to accept the tracking. You can pay to remove tracking with their "Pur-Abo".

New comment by tomschwiha in "Exit Tax: Leave Germany before your business gets big"

tomschwiha — Fri, 08 Aug 2025 20:04:14 +0000

This tax is a simplification for very small businesses. With 2k revenue a month you are not even close being a small business. Not profit but revenue.

New comment by tomschwiha in "Exit Tax: Leave Germany before your business gets big"

tomschwiha — Fri, 08 Aug 2025 15:01:39 +0000

Keep in mind there are two methods for taxation: the simplified earnings value method (13.75 factor) or the actual unrealized profit of the business. If you believe your company will not be profitable in the future because you’re moving away, you could wind it down — but you’d still end up paying the same taxes on the unrealized gain.

New comment by tomschwiha in "Exit Tax: Leave Germany before your business gets big"

tomschwiha — Fri, 08 Aug 2025 14:25:56 +0000

That is actually the intention: to tax as if you sold the business. But with a payment in 7 yearly rates. The tax intends to tax the value of the company that is not yet taxed (on a personal tax level). It does account for already paid businesses level taxes.

New comment by tomschwiha in "Exit Tax: Leave Germany before your business gets big"

tomschwiha — Fri, 08 Aug 2025 12:01:02 +0000

It also depends on how the company is valued: If based on balance sheet (retained profits + share capital) e.g. 5×100k retained = 500k value, the exit tax is 18k/year for 7 years. If simplified earnings method with factor 13.75 is used it much higher valuation, the exit tax is at the 42k/year.

New comment by tomschwiha in "Exit Tax: Leave Germany before your business gets big"

tomschwiha — Fri, 08 Aug 2025 11:50:18 +0000

I think the numbers in the article are mixed up. Earnings 200k. Wage 120k. So the profit is 80k for the calculation. 80×13,75=1.100k. 60% of it = 660k. Personal tax at 120k income = 45%. More likely less as for health insurance, etc. 660k×45% = 297k exit tax. Which can be paid in 7 yearly rates. So 42k per year. You still have a company that has earnings of 200k.

New comment by tomschwiha in "GPT-5"

tomschwiha — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 18:22:06 +0000

Gave me also a better feeling. GPT-5 is not immediately changing the world but I still feel from the demo alone its a progress. Lets see how it behaves for the daily use.