I co-owned one company and presently a board member on another.

Noone said that accounting needs not be done, just that you don't have to employ anyone you listed in a startup. You do as with any other non-essential work like cleaning, catering and so on: buy external services on the need to have basis.

This is also not something in any way unique to Europe. American start-ups also need to file taxes, incorporate and so on.

did I say employ? no I said needs. everyone here so fast at replying but have you tried reading what's written? and however you want to spin it is a cost, and that is a barrier to entry which is actually quite tall if you trying to bootstrap something outside the angel/vc scene which is pretty dull anyway in Europe.

and Europe tax return are far more convoluted than the average Delaware company, especially because of bullshit like vatmoss schemes that are a specific result of the European market fragmentation, which was the main point to begin with

If you call yourself not an accountant despite doing the bookkeeping I’m pretty sure other accountants wouldn’t bat an eye at that language. It happens all the time in startups. Yes the work isn’t “free” but everyone wears many hats in a startup and often works for free.

Sure, the time cost it's not free, but it's not large enough to be a meaningful barrier of entry. For me, filing basic company taxes took like a couple hours per year.

Right. It's exactly the same barrier to entry a kebab restaurant or a bike repair shop has. If that's enough to detract one from starting a company, perhaps it's for the better.

Or, as with everything these days, pay another company to deal with it. I've been seeing ad's for Pilot.com all over recently which claims to do this work for you, in exchange for a fee, naturally.