Something I've noticed with German business law is that it is very much structured in such a way that if you aren't an incumbent player, you are essentially incentivized to be absorbed by them.
In the US we do have issues with businesses, but it's not like the Bosch, Thyssen, or Tschira family are any less unethical.
The level of hierarchy I've noticed in German firms and founders is insane to say the least. I'd love to do some quantitative research into this, but I haven't been in academia or policy for years now.
German here. I fully agree that German companies tend to be crazy hierarchical.
It’s because of a fundamental difference between how capital gains tax and income tax are collected.
Capital gains are deferred - so as years pass you’re working up a tax liability but most countries recognize that forcing collection every year is not practical given the often illiquid nature of capital gains and the difficulty around valuation.
I’m from a country which has no exit tax on capital gains and notoriously a certain wealthy telecoms magnet - having been resident all his life - moved to Portugal just before realizing billions of capital gain. Thus despite earning multiple billions through businesses activities in his native country, he effectively paid zero tax.
I myself have benefited from this lack of capital gain exit tax as I moved to a country with very low capital gains tax. So despite the fact that my modest equity portfolio earned most of its growth while I was living in Ireland, when I sell, the Irish government will get nothing.
The problem, it seems to me is the method of valuation for the deemed disposal and/or the fact that it can cause a “liquidity squeeze“ for the tax payer.
I don’t see a simple solution - maybe other than getting rid of capital gains taxes completely and collecting more consumption taxes, for example, but I’m sure this would just open up a range of other tax evading loopholes.