taxes, funding, incorporation, europe, franceBoth countries are neighbours, speak the same language and you do not require specific visas to go from one country to another.
Therefore, if you had to choose a country where to create your company, which one would it be ?
It seems that :
On the other hand :
Incorporate the company where you live for reasons covered in this other question. The TR;DR version is that it’s not worth risking the cavity-search grade tax audits that you’ll get down the road for incorporating a company out of the country you reside in. (If you choose to ignore the advice then Luxembourg usually is a good choice - but then so are the usual suspects e.g. Estonia, Malta, Cyprus, Ireland, or for that matter places like Lichtenstein and many more outside of Europe.)
Now, assuming you actually live or intend to move in either of these countries, I’m rather suspicious about your assertion that it’ll be that easier for you to raise funds in Luxembourg. It might easier to find money for e.g. mezzanine financing or an MBO - i.e. there are bankers and VCs that pour money into mature companies - but there are plenty of options for this in France as well and you’d have incorporated long before. For early stage startups methinks double check.
Also, dig a bit deeper on the taxes, because the raw corporate tax only partially captures the costs. Other things that count include personal income taxes (note that brackets put forward often are the maximum ones, where you presumably won’t fit), whether you’re taxed differently depending on it being a salary or a dividend, what you’re allowed to dump into company expenses, social security and retirement, how much capital you’ll need to incorporate, whether or not an expensive yearly audit done by an accountant is mandatory (which might be the case in Lux), etc.
As to France, life is mostly cheaper outside of Paris indeed. A slew of aid programs also exists, but they often come with some kind of strings attached so double-check that too.
Last but not least, don’t forget quality of life. In case you’ve never spent any time in Lux, it’s a small city with a lot of grey weather that goes to sleep at 10pm for all practical purposes. Which is fine and all if that’s your thing or when you’re middle aged and settled with a spouse; it might not be that great if you’re twenty-something and single.
I’ll thus answer with this tip: incorporate where you want to live.
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