61–70 of 183 posts
> American parents on both sides of the political spectrum know this and are increasingly frustrated by how little they have been offered in this country—particularly in exchange for the high taxes they pay. How much taxes do Americans think we Europeans pay? Those dutch parents are paying close to 60-70% taxes once you account also for VAT
> American parents on both sides of the political spectrum know this and are increasingly frustrated by how little they have been offered in this country—particularly in exchange for the high taxes they pay. How much taxes do Americans think we Europeans pay? Those dutch parents are paying close to 60-70% taxes once you account also for VAT
> 60-70% taxes The highest Dutch tax bracket is 50%, but that only applies to income over 75K EUR. Also, VAT doesn't apply to rent, and it's reduced for food. Housing and food are most household's largest expenses. So the 21% sales tax can be deceptive. Taxation as a % of the Dutch GDP is 38%. That is to say, taxes take 38% of all the wealth produced in the Netherlands. For some comparison purposes, the number in the…
Oof. In a modern society, with modern technology, why does the government demand ownership of 30-50% of the value that people generate? That's an enormous amount of free labor.
> American parents on both sides of the political spectrum know this and are increasingly frustrated by how little they have been offered in this country—particularly in exchange for the high taxes they pay. How much taxes do Americans think we Europeans pay? Those dutch parents are paying close to 60-70% taxes once you account also for VAT
The OECD puts it at around 35% for a single worker, and 30% for a one-earner married couple with two children. Even if they spend their entire income on taxable goods and services — which is very unlikely, as rent/mortgage doesn't have VAT — that would mean 21% of the remaining amount were taxed, so 55-50%. https://www.oecd.org/tax/tax-policy/taxing-wages-netherlands...
I also wasn't making the case for the average worker. Was assuming higher earners then the norm since that's the whole vibe of the article
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I read a blog post a while back that had the idea that the reason so many American's remember their college years so fondly is because for many of them it was the only time in their lives where they lived somewhere walkable.
Not only walkable, but with a lot of third spaces and those get actually used because your peer group cannot afford lots of private space. You likely even live in a dorm or with roommates. Anecdotally I spent 2 years of my undergraduate living by myself a 10 minute drive away from University in a little village outside of town. I then moved in with roommates to live walking distance between University and downtown. I…
I have read that one consequence of the Japanese practice of tearing down buildings and buying new is that you tend to get colocated with many people of the same socioeconomic class and age. We have similar forces going on in the Western world (families may prefer suburbs which also tend to sort by SES, yuppies prefer nice urban areas, etc) but I think in Japan it is a bit more deliberate.
> "Dutch parenting" allowing kids to bike in the rain... That's how I grew up IN America. So what is parenting in America now?
> American parents on both sides of the political spectrum know this and are increasingly frustrated by how little they have been offered in this country—particularly in exchange for the high taxes they pay. How much taxes do Americans think we Europeans pay? Those dutch parents are paying close to 60-70% taxes once you account also for VAT
NL has comparatively low taxes for what they get. Their entire economy is based on scamming the other EU countries out of their company taxes, by letting companies open there, and then do transfer pricing. edit: downvoting me won't change how NL is ran.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In the US they'd risk either being killed by a driver, or stopped by an overzealous neighbor or police officer. It may depends on where in the US you're talking about, but in my area none of this is actually true. Although lots of people believe it is.
Overzealous neighbors in the US will have someone's house sold out from under them when the grass is too high and they don't pay the fines to the HOA for mowing it. The idea that they'll be ok with children wandering around unsupervised is preposterous on its face. The cops might not care either way, but only until the busybodies start nagging. Especially the sort of busybodies that live in the places where any sane…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In the US they'd risk either being killed by a driver, or stopped by an overzealous neighbor or police officer. It may depends on where in the US you're talking about, but in my area none of this is actually true. Although lots of people believe it is.
Sounds nice. I've personally spoken on the phone with a police officer who told me he'd involve CPS if he saw my daughter walking (two blocks!) to school again.
> American parents on both sides of the political spectrum know this and are increasingly frustrated by how little they have been offered in this country—particularly in exchange for the high taxes they pay. How much taxes do Americans think we Europeans pay? Those dutch parents are paying close to 60-70% taxes once you account also for VAT
> 60-70% taxes The highest Dutch tax bracket is 50%, but that only applies to income over 75K EUR. Also, VAT doesn't apply to rent, and it's reduced for food. Housing and food are most household's largest expenses. So the 21% sales tax can be deceptive. Taxation as a % of the Dutch GDP is 38%. That is to say, taxes take 38% of all the wealth produced in the Netherlands. For some comparison purposes, the number in the…
To make it even clearer, it only applies to the part of income that is over 75K. So if you are earning 76K, the highest tax bracket only applies to that last thousand.