I live in Seattle, I pay no state tax. My property tax is $5k/year which is and additional 5% at 100k income, but I elected into that and we don't have property tax in the discussion, lets just assuming rental in both locations. Social security caps out iirc. There's still a 20% difference between the effective tax rates.
Washington State and local government has a sales tax of close to 10%. So say you make 100k per year, your effective tax rate is 25% add 5% property tax and ten percent sales tax that's 40%.
You aren’t paying sales tax on your full salary unless taking on tremendous debt.
That may be the case for most or all land in the U.S., but it at least doesn't apply to musical instruments, couches, computers, and cars (except in some jurisdictions). If the best I can do is pay the wealth tax only on real property, then that's what I would prefer.
The IRS will happily impound your valueable instruments if you fail to pay taxes. Looks like the government still owns everything you call your own.
Sure, but owning a cello doesn't increase my real property taxes.
Taxes are not rent. Taxes are the share of expenses you pay for the services and security the state provides. In European countries, especially in the Scandinavian ones it’s commonly understood and agreed upon that the stronger ones carry more of that burden. That may sound like communism to people from a country with a stronger “each for his own good” mindset, but pretty much all statistics point in the direction th…
A wealth tax is exactly equivalent to a rent. There is a genuine owner (the state) which has control of the property in a default, there is an unlimited recurring fee set by the owner (the state), and access to the property is predicated on paying that fee.
Only compared to a system with extremely strong renter rights. The state can only terminate your ownership on the basis of non-payment. Even San Francisco allows leases to be terminated for more reasons than that.
> "The choices Nordic countries have made have little to do with altruism or kinship," Partanen wrote for The Atlantic in 2016. "This is what Americans fail to understand: My taxes in Finland were used to pay for top-notch services for me." This is an odd statement to me. Any wealth redistribution system has both "givers" and "receivers". What do the "givers" in Nordic countries actually think? Do the the "givers" sh…
As a Nordic citizen, I'm torn between believing that everyone, citizen or not, should have the same rights to healthcare, an education, transport, telecommunication and so on and that by enforcing this system we have effectively cut off the possibility of private services within those fields that some may need or prefer, specifically healthcare to get appointments at their own leisure rather than being assigned one that you're practically force to abide by or the ability to privately tutor kids rather than sending them to a public school that doesn't necessarily fulfil their needs or potential.
That said, I much prefer the system of everyone having the same basic rights at a very affordable rate than potentially having to struggle to live a decent life at the expense of getting a better service if you happen to be able to afford it.
It would be interesting to see income distribution as opposed to per capita. I think, it will throw up even more contrasts between USA and Nordics.
Yes. Arguing for a Nordic system is effectively proposing massive middle class tax increases. Citizens in those countries typically are paying for their own services, not having them provided by the rich.
Let's not forget that childcare and healthcare costs would be removed from the equation. Would these costs be lower in a country with higher taxes? Well pretty much any progressive tax system will ensure that unless you majorly screw up the planning.
That's a good angle. We deify the military and then question whether the government can be trusted to build roads.
Whatever stupid military decisions the US has made, you are being quite flippant and ignoring one very important difference between the US and Finland and that is that the US is a superpower that maintains the geopolitical order with the help of its military. This includes the securing of maritime trade routes. Don't take that for granted. The US is heir to the British Empire and as such it is not a small Scandinavia…
I disagree, the “stability” the US provides is more than offset by the instability it causes. Vietnam, Afganistan, Iraq, Iran has all been pushed in unstable directions by the US. US global order is a total hit and miss. And this excludes all the instability the US has caused in South America with overthrowing governments and war on drugs.
Btw kind of ironic to lecturing a finn about security provided by the US as they were left on their own to fight the enormous red army. They still managed to kick ass though.
It is what we have seen in Iraq, Vietnam and Afganistan as well superpowers are not nearly as effective militarily as people think.
I live in Seattle, I pay no state tax. My property tax is $5k/year which is and additional 5% at 100k income, but I elected into that and we don't have property tax in the discussion, lets just assuming rental in both locations. Social security caps out iirc. There's still a 20% difference between the effective tax rates.
Washington State and local government has a sales tax of close to 10%. So say you make 100k per year, your effective tax rate is 25% add 5% property tax and ten percent sales tax that's 40%.
As sibling said, the 10% is just on what you buy, which hopefully isn't 100% of your salary. Also 40% is still a lot less than 50% but is also not a OOM like I said above.
Effective tax rate in finland is around 50% https://tradingeconomics.com/finland/personal-income-tax-rat... and seems to come from a income tax rate that is similar to the US 25-31% but also includes retierment / social monies around 18+3%, so ends up effectively being 50-51. Also capitol gains is taxed at 30% for anything over 30k euros. I found this info with one google request, first 2 answers. So the tax rate is…
I think you are forgetting that in the US we also pay state and local income tax, state and local property tax, and State and local sales tax. Even if you rent you are paying property tax indirectly. There is also Social Security and Medicare taxes so pile on 12.6% for that as well. Once you figure in all those things the effective US tax rate is a lot higher than the federal income tax rates.
From the same source, US effective tax rate is ~40%
> "The choices Nordic countries have made have little to do with altruism or kinship," Partanen wrote for The Atlantic in 2016. "This is what Americans fail to understand: My taxes in Finland were used to pay for top-notch services for me." This is an odd statement to me. Any wealth redistribution system has both "givers" and "receivers". What do the "givers" in Nordic countries actually think? Do the the "givers" sh…
The point was that a lot of the redistribution is in principle just moving money from the the working age self to the young and older self.
I pay taxes which funds students today but I get that back later when other fund my kids to go to university.
The point is that the bulk of the money is paid by the middle class for services used by the middle class. You pay more in some stages of your life than you receive but you get more back in other stages.
That was the finnish point of looking at this hollistically.
Yeah yeah yeah I have heard it all. When nordic corporations stop spreading corruption outside of their countries they can talk shit about other countries. Besides not everyone would want social democracy. Believe me not everyone in Europe is happy about that either. Just because it can work in Finland it does not mean it can work anywhere else.
Except it is always people who have never even tried it who claims it wont work elsewhere. Why not try proven ideas than some wacky idea you feel good about but which has never proven itself anywhere?
The nordic model is not based on companies being angeles who do good by their own accord. You need government, press, unions etc holding them accountable.
You can’t have frer for all capitalism and wait for private enterprise to start being nice and take social responsibility.