alt Hacker News> ... and a business plan?
Why would the government need a business plan?
It's none of their business what you want to do with your company besides a general description as "software development" or "consulting services" or whatever.
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Actually I think I might be mistaken that you are even required to make a business plan. It's listed as one of the steps on the states portal about founding. But it goes on to say that it's not technically required, just highlights its importance.
https://www.existenzgruendungsportal.de/Navigation/DE/So-geh...
Several sectors of economic activities have the potential for atrocious externalities and it's absolutely the government's business to know about these and make sure that you're following regulation to minimize these externalities. When you make your employees the neighbours sick (or straight up kill them) it's an enormous failure on the part of government. It's easy to be oblivious to that when you only think about software.
Exhibit A: https://www.ctvnews.ca/montreal/article/battery-facility-acc...
> It's none of their business what you want to do with your company
There are plenty of European member states that want the ability to control very precisely what you do with "your company". You want to call yourself "a software engineer"? Ooops...
In the EU it seems particularly the German-speaking countries are borderline obsessed with a) titles, and b) whom may use those titles. See, for instance, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34096464