The exit tax is absolutely insane and they even charge it within the EU.
Say you own a company which has a profit of 10.000 Euros on average the past 3 years. Before you can leave Germany you will have to pay taxes based on 137.500 Euros.
I was glad to boil it down to "it probably doesn't concern you, and if it does, you probably have an expert on call already". The entire topic of taxation is a tarpit.
One important note: this 13.75x valuation is a worse case scenario if you fail to supply your own. There are many ways to reduce or avoid this tax.
It's awfully convenient that someone else went through it and started a website just for that topic. Funnily enough, his website was inspired by mine, and this guide was inspired by his post on exit taxation.
It's a far better resource on the topic: https://wegzugsteuer.info/
"Freelancers and sole proprietors almost never pay an exit tax"
I don't understand the relevance
The poster is the author of the website. So I think it's self-promo mixed with "hey, look how interesting is the amount of 'bureaucracy' involved when one wants to move out of Germany"
Bureaucracy was my takeaway.
As a USAmerican though, I see it as more general—a statement about how modern, "1st-world" civilization has become so god-damned complicated.
I catch myself (especially since I have kids) realizing how difficult it is to navigate some aspect of modern life (for example, various payment methods—credit cards). A kind of mantra that always rises in my thoughts is, "No one would ever have designed the system to work like this."
Somehow, independent actors, independent reasons, likely the ability to make it this complex has indeed made it this complex.
It's no surprise then that just functioning in this modern society induces a level of background anxiety. Pretty much the opposite of "touching grass".
That's about right! It was meant to be a quick guide and it took me about a month to finish it because I kept coming across new issues.
What got me to work on this was a related post on the German exit tax not too long ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44828158
I don't gain anything from promoting my free, hyperlocal content here, but I love to talk about my work and the discussion here is unfailingly interesting.
Do you currently live in Germany?
I don't live in the US, yet US centric news are covered here on the regular. Hold your horses and don't interact with a post if you are not interested.
This is an excellent HOWTO for matters of public relevance. I wish there were guides with similar levels of detail for Americans.
The closest thing I've seen is guides for changing your name in various USA states from the trans community; some of the processes are quite arduous (NJ for example has about 15 steps, most of which are manual separate errands with separate waiting periods...)
I think that the government could do this job really well if they wanted to. I'm just one guy working ~25 hours per week, if that. It really isn't rocket science, just empathy and good writing.
The biggest problem is that the government often describes bureaucracy in terms of what they need from you, not how their services fit in your journey. It feels like we are serving the bureaucracy and not the other way around.