I do? I don't remember saying that.

I don't really want to get into this debate, but I've been running Balsamiq from Italy since 2008, and it's been just fine. Then again, YMMV...we're just a little mom-and-pop software shop, not a "startup" in the paulg sense of the word.

I think it was related to Italy prematurely collecting the coming years' taxes.

I've watched and read so much of your stuff I can't even find which one it was in.

"Italy tax collectors took millions for parties, yachts" http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2012/10/03/20255286.html

I don't recall the specific, but could be the fact that basically there are taxes even if you don't make a profit, which for newly founded companies would be a relatively bigger issue than for established ones.

(I think there is a dispensation for that as of a couple years ago if the founders are below 35 years)

You're referring to the IRAP tax that used to have this weird effect in some cases, but that's mostly fixed since FY15 with the new laws. There have been an outstanding number of changes in labor and fiscal laws in 2014; they don't fully fix 50 years of anti-entrepreneur culture of course, but they are good steps in the right directions.