[908B64B197]

The French model of high taxes that can potentially be offset by subsidies and grants is an interesting one. I've heard stories of companies getting an employee early on who's sole purpose was applying for these grants and subsidies.

Now, I think the one issue the French (and really European) tech sphere should tackle is low salaries for engineers. France has stellar engineering schools but lose so much talent because local companies are simply unwilling to match the international offers their graduates are getting. That brain drain erodes the talent pool and make the tech scene less attractive in the long run.

[jobigoud]

I can confirm. At my previous job we were about 20 employees and we had one person dedicated to this. Grants for R&D, so her work was to make the paperwork explaining and documenting why it was R&D. Also there was another gov help to pay half the salary of employees for which it was the first job after their thesis or something along these lines.

[908B64B197]

Wow. The inefficiency of having to dedicate an employees to that paperwork (and probably the same manpower on the government side to receive it and take action) make it sounds like a welfare/job program.

Would be way more efficient to simply drop the tax rate and make these 2 positions redundant, freeing more money for actual R&D.

The post-thesis bit is interesting: How is it the taxpayer's job to finance that? I get funding the thesis themselves but why should a company get funding for hiring someone who completed one? Shouldn't the thesis make the employee more valuable thus negating the need for this welfare?

[jobigoud]

Also she was conducting "interviews" with us to assess better what was and what wasn't R&D in our tasks, so once in a while we would spend an hour not doing any productive work.

Yes post-thesis are more valuable, including to other countries. I think it is an incentive to the employer so they can increase the compensation in order to limit brain drain.