this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2023
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Don't want to brag, but I took my compulsory 2-week vacation in July. I'm having another week of vacation in the middle of August and I'm taking a whole month off in the middle of October when my second child is born (dad-vacation, in addition to the 18 months that the mom has as paid maternity leave). Oh and all of this is fully paid.
That sounds really good, where do you work?
I'm guessing Norway, Finland, or Sweden.
Czechia and Slovakia have very similar paternity and maternity leaves.
Or France
Or Germany.
France is great, but you won't have the same materny leaves as in the more northern countries.
Dads now get 1 month of paternity leave in France \o/ (actually for a few years now)
I've had about 6 or 7 weeks of paid vacation this year already. A week long winter vacation and 4 week summer vacation and random days off in the middle of the week every now and then. The good thing about christian culture even though almost no-one is religious here is that we still get a day off for their holidays.
Which European country do you live in?
I don't know which country he lives in but it could be Germany since I know that it's like this in Germany.
Sounds very much like it. Paid leave for dads is what a few of my co-workers did.
I had a few days off in spring, recently had my 2 weeks and another coming in october.
Not much but it's sufficient to me (but more is always better).
*Fully paid by your higher taxes.
Yup! And all we get for it is healthcare, childcare, college tuition, pensions, sick leave, maternity leave...
Don't forget reliable and comfortable public transport and properly maintained roads and public infrastructure.
lol
* dependent by country
Laughs as he drives across the border into Belgium and has a filling shaken out
yeah, in a few well-marketed cities you usually find on postcards. "Europe has great public transportation, I was in Munich last week...", right, because whole continent = one city.
In majority of the cities and countryside it's either get a car or get fucked.
I try explaining this to fellow Americans that you end up paying much less in the end and never have the stress of how you're going to afford this stuff (or possibly even lose everything to a sudden health problem) but it falls on deaf ears if they've already been brainwashed. They refuse to hear that other countries have things figured out to make the lives of their citizens much more enjoyable.
But imagine I'll never get sick or have kids, then I'm losing money!!
Right?
*Fully paid by higher progressive taxes on wealthy people.
Wealthy people in Europe don't pay shit. It's much easier than in the US, where only ultra-wealthy don't pay shit.
Yeah just go to Monaco. It's infuriating.
^This is what the law and order crowed says when the law is for wealthy and powerful people.
Honestly, I was being a bit facetious by responding to an overly simplistic comment in an overly simplistic way. Personally, I think we should fund universal welfare programs by cutting out the ultra-wealthy middle man with a sovereign wealth fund like they do in Norway. No need to tax the ultra-wealthy if they don’t exist because they can’t extract the wealth from the people in the first place.
this "overly simplistic comment" has everything you need and more, but I'll bite.
Wealthy people own companies. Companies are perfect tool for accumulating wealth, since you can reinvest profits forever and pay income tax (corporate rate) only on stuff you intend to extract to your own name, which is usually not much compared to total amount of generated income. Private person, on the other hand, is taxed on whole income and may qualify for usually laughable deductions. Got huge bonus from your job at the end of the year and plan to get few months off work to "invest in yourself" and learn a new trade? Tough luck, buddy, you are "rich" now - welcome to higher tax bracket, government will take their cut first and let's see what you'll be able to afford with what's left.
VAT is a scam to fuck people who have to spend their income for actual living. If you live paycheck to paycheck you'll end up paying VAT on your whole income.
Wealthy people don't get their income in salary, salary is for working class. Dividends, capital gains, royalties - in any jurisdiction it's possible to find something which will be less severe than income tax, which is also often not progressive or capped at something like 20%. Social security contributions are easily bypassed by employing yourself as CEO for minimal salary. Boom - now you have same healthcare as people who have to pay great chunk of their whole paycheck for it.
If we restrict ourselves to EU citizens and your particular country is really anal or maybe 20% or something tax is too much for you anyway - you are free to move to Cyprus, Malta or Switzerland, which will have 0% capital gains if you meet not too tough conditions. Or "move", you just have to get a residence there to declare as your primary one and be present at least sometimes - there's no border control, it's really hard to track if you spent there more than half a year for tax residency purposes, this is usually a matter of long legal battles and you won't even get into that territory if you're not doing anything too bizarre.
This is a biggest difference with US citizens, they can't benefit from tax havens because of their passport, IRS doesn't care and is good equipped with lots of info, so US guys are left with real shady stuff with nominees and cash or traditional buy-borrow-die, which is sustainable only for ultra-rich.
I'm living and doing business in EU and it took me quite a lot of time to get from nothing into the position where I can utilize at least some of the benefits of the above - but you have to be completely fucking blind to not see that it's rigged and tax burden on people who don't try to game the system is completely disproportional.
Right… to get at that wealth through taxes you would need a wealth tax or a tax on corporate profits along with outlawing stock buy backs.
That’s not how a progressive taxes work. Under progressive tax you get taxed at a higher rate as you make more money, but only the amount above a certain threshold is taxed higher, you’re not going to receive less money because you make above a certain amount as you seem to be implying. It’s explained more fully in this short video. https://youtu.be/VJhsjUPDulw
In terms of reinvesting in yourself, yes there should be universal access to education. If you’re capable and desire to improve yourself through education that should be free and you should be paid to pursue that self improvement. A society made up of smarter people benefits us all, we should make that investment.
Agreed VAT is a regressive tax that taxes the poor more. We see 100% eye to eye here.
Well, yes which is why I said I support sovereign wealth funds. That is the state owns portions of companies directly in the same way other shareholders do. This cuts out the wealthy people entirely. The State can then use dividends of that fund to invest in social services. It can also use it’s position as a shareholder to give working people better labor contracts.
So you support lowering incoming taxes and raising taxes on dividends, capital gains, royalties? Sound like a decent policy to me. Well this is something else to consider; its almost like its more complicated than my original sarcastic comment implied.
Uhh… yeah we should close that loopholes, right? Even if we didn’t close that loophole I still think its a much better system for healthcare than in the US.
Not all that familiar with these kinds of tax dodging schemes within in the EU. But US corporations do similar things with the Cayman Islands. We could probably close these loopholes with enough political will. But again the easier and cleaner solution is a sovereign wealth fund which I mentioned in my first comment responding to you and you have not yet acknowledged as a way of raising funds.
Perhaps that is how things are but how should things be?
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No, you just need to prohibit forming 1-man holding companies. Want to have shares? Write them to your own name, not to a shell company's name. That's a first step to get this income at least tied to individual. Or get a hedge fund license, which ultra-rich will do, but they will find a way in any system other than full commie madness.
I know perfectly well how progressive taxes work. In majority of cases bonus from employer will be taxed at source at higher tax rate regardless what you plan to spend it to. Even if your plans for these money would be fully deductible, you will still need to have spare cash to cover planned expenses until you get a refund. In case of wealthy person, there's a privilege to optimize your spending first and report/pay taxes later simply because there's no taxation at source involved.
No, it doesn't unless you propose nationalization. Even if shares in publicly-listed companies will be bought in some way said fund it's still possible to have billions in privately-held company. You can't get something that is not for sale unless you decide to rob.
What I'm proposing is irrelevant, the topic was who is paying for European social security. And my point is that it's paid by poor and middle class, since they have no freedom in optimizing and planning their income. You can have tax brackets up to 99%, it's absolutely irrelevant before a discussion what is subject to this tax. However, works well for populism reasons.
It's not a loophole, it's perfectly normal to have a paying job along with your other income sources. If these other income sources would've been subject for same tax brackets as job income, there wouldn't be a problem.
US healthcare is a scam which siphons insane amount of money simultaneously from government and people, I don't think there's any valid argument in favor of it.
Corporations could be established everywhere, corporate tax rate is another topic. In EU it's possible to dodge taxes on your personal income, not corporate, which is not the case for US citizens.
Again, how things should be is another topic, my original point is that high income taxes and tax brackets with what currently considered as income is cheap populism to shaft middle class. When applied to wealthy people this will catch a few exceptional individual performers like sports players which have no case in declaring their individual ability as company activity (ironically, only on "salary" part of their income - brand deals and royalties will be optimized into oblivion).
As of what would be fair... Removing VAT, eliminating 1-man holding companies to get assets to individual's name then doing same tax rate and get any income to be subject for same tax brackets and social security contributions as everyday man's salary. Regarding taxation at source and deductions for individuals... well, that would be also fair, but it is operational nightmare.
It’s very obviously that you do not.
The point of my original post was that most people making average wages will not necessarily pay more taxes if social services increase. If the taxes are progressive taxes that is definitionally true.
A progressive tax is a tax where the greatest tax burden falls on those with the greatest ability to pay the tax. That is typically on those making more than average.
A regressive tax is a tax where the greatest tax burden falls on those with the least ability to pay the tax. That is typically on those making less than average
You keep bringing up (often false or tenuous) examples of regressive taxes. There are examples of regressive taxes in Europe and elsewhere, I don’t dispute this. This does not undermine my point.
There are also examples in Europe and elsewhere where progressive taxes have been successfully implemented. My original post was pointing this fact out.
There is no point in moving on to any of my more complex points until you demonstrate that you comprehend this.
Do you understand why giving examples of regressive taxes in Europe does not undermine my position that taxes to pay for social services should be progressive?
I'd rather my country raise my tax to 50% than live in a country like America.
Ironically, the average total taxation (after you add local, regional, national, etc. taxes) is either lower or at a similar approx. 35% of income.
Americans just get stiffed by where that money goes afterwards.
I wonder how it ends if they add all the insurances, benefits etc. they would need to pay to get the same benefits as us.
Having lived and worked in both the UK and US, yes I pay roughly 4% less "tax" in the US.
but, as I didn't have to pay for Healthcare, and my student loans payments were a percentage of my earnings — vs the amount I've had to pay for Healthcare, copay, scripts, etc here. If we actually compare like for like and assume that Healthcare payments are only not called a tax out of a semantic convention for political reasons despite being practically a tax by nearly any definition - I've pay way more in """"tax"""" in the US.
Assuming the average person earns roughly $65k, would you pay an extra $200 for 100% fully covered, fully comprehensive, $0 co-pay, you walk in (to your nearest hospital, no need to check if they're in network) get an x-ray, a blood test, your appendix removed, stay over night, go back the next day for kidney dialysis or chemotherapy and pay nothing more than that monthly extra $200/rate in perpetuity? Especially as the average cost is $456 (+ co pay) for Healthcare and that usually isn't a "good" let alone the "best" package.
God I wish I lived in a country with that kind of medical system.
I'm sick of being afraid of getting hurt (enough to need to visit a doctor at a hospital) not because of the injury to my body but the unknowable-ahead-of-time-and-might-also-bankrupt-you bill.
Fuck the selfish people in this country who are ruining it for everyone because they don't want "undeserving" people getting free healthcare! Drives me bonkers!!!
I'll add that I also wish I could go to the doctor anytime for any reason even if it's just for a big particular pimple or a wart, and not have to think about the bill.
Not have to think is this worth spending $100+ on when it may go away on its own, or that I should just Google it instead of going to an actual doctor so I can save that money instead. This is WITH insurance btw. This is 10 fold worse with no insurance.
Germany is currently in the process of changing the healthcare system because it can’t be paid anymore. People paying no tax but going to the hospital and to the doctors for every little issue actually did destroy the system. Similar is happening with other “benefits”. People do not understand that these things aren’t actually free.
We are supporting each other in hard times and fun times. Whats the problem? Should we rather shoot, hate and make fun of each other instead?
Works good overseas, right? Imagine fearing an ER visit because of crippling debt or the ride with a fucking van to the ER itself.
Who'd have thought that prioritizing mental wellbeing, family, and health over corporate gains would be a good idea!? Surely this backwards commie system is doomed to fail!
Lol, we'll see how that works out with your immigration policies.
How does that work exactly? Why would the government pay my vages during my summer holiday when I work for a private company? I'm afraid you have no idea what you're talking about..
I will gladly pay for those.
But as far as I am aware those higher taxes fuel other things paid leave. I believe paternity leave is subsidized by it.