Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nationalized health insurance, which is a little different.
Isn't that the case in Germany as well?
Health insurance is not payed with collected taxes in Germany. You are paying for it seperately.
“I’m in the US – what if I just ignore the EU VAT changes?”
81–90 of 182 posts
Re: “I’m in the US – what if I just ignore the EU VAT changes?”
#82Would it be easier if there was a single EU wide VAT rate?
Re: “I’m in the US – what if I just ignore the EU VAT changes?”
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're comparing income tax with sales tax. In the UK, on a salary of £40k (i.e. professional mid-career engineer), before you touch the money, the government takes about 25% for income tax and national insurance. Then, they take 20% of everything else that you spend unless it's non-luxurious foodstuffs, children's clothes or paper books. And, of course, if what you're buying is fuel, they actually take 85% of the pr…
> The last three have some form of nationalised healthcare though, which the US does not. Plus a much better retirement plan. In the US you can wake up in a hospital after someone rear-ended you, to find you are bankrupt and going to become homeless, even when you had the best insurance. And unless the stock market returns 8% most people are going to have a rough retirement. In the US you're lucky to get 3 weeks vaca…
How does the tax rate influence the amount of time you may take off work?
Re: “I’m in the US – what if I just ignore the EU VAT changes?”
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it's an astronomical 24% That's lower than the income tax rate for a middle class American. Why is this rate astronomical? Are there also high property and income taxes? EDIT: It's an honest question. I know what a VAT is, but I have no frame of reference for how the overall tax scheme is especially egregious for the individual taxpayer. Some other tax rates (income, property, etc.) are surely relevant. A 24% VAT w…
You're comparing income tax with sales tax. In the UK, on a salary of £40k (i.e. professional mid-career engineer), before you touch the money, the government takes about 25% for income tax and national insurance. Then, they take 20% of everything else that you spend unless it's non-luxurious foodstuffs, children's clothes or paper books. And, of course, if what you're buying is fuel, they actually take 85% of the pr…
> You're comparing income tax with sales tax.
For the purposes of personal budgeting, I don't see why the comparison is unfair. I'm trying to discuss taxation levels, not tax schemes as such.
> US has a 30% tax burden
That's more on point. That's also low. It doesn't include state and local income taxes. It also ignores other kinds of taxes like property and sales taxes. The U.S. has state-level taxes, which complicate things but they definitely affect the individual taxpayer.
Re: “I’m in the US – what if I just ignore the EU VAT changes?”
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's more like 80% of the population, when considering expenses not covered by insurance. A hospital can charge you for anything and you're legally obligated to pay it.
> A hospital can charge you for anything and you're legally obligated to pay it. Categorically, unequivocally wrong. Hospitals cannot just make up charges. They cannot bill you for procedures/tests/services you did not receive (and if they do, you are not "legally obligated to pay it"). I know the anti-US healthcare circle jerk is pretty strong here, but we don't need to just make things up in order to prove a point.
> Categorically, unequivocally wrong
Hyperbole much?
They can charge you for services / products rendered and which aren't covered by insurance, and they can charge any price they want and you're legally obligated to pay it. Of 3 times I helped my parents with processing their hospital bills, it was over $10K in non-covered expenses each time.
Re: “I’m in the US – what if I just ignore the EU VAT changes?”
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're comparing income tax with sales tax. In the UK, on a salary of £40k (i.e. professional mid-career engineer), before you touch the money, the government takes about 25% for income tax and national insurance. Then, they take 20% of everything else that you spend unless it's non-luxurious foodstuffs, children's clothes or paper books. And, of course, if what you're buying is fuel, they actually take 85% of the pr…
> The last three have some form of nationalised healthcare though, which the US does not. Plus a much better retirement plan. In the US you can wake up in a hospital after someone rear-ended you, to find you are bankrupt and going to become homeless, even when you had the best insurance. And unless the stock market returns 8% most people are going to have a rough retirement. In the US you're lucky to get 3 weeks vaca…
Things which aren't true:
>In the US you can wake up in a hospital after someone rear-ended you, to find you are bankrupt and going to become homeless, even when you had the best insurance.
>unless the stock market returns 8% most people are going to have a rough retirement
Your health and car insurance covers exactly what it says it covers, and retirement plans aren't a mystery. In America you take personal responsibility for things which are done for you in Europe; you can make the wrong choices, but you're allowed to _make_ choices.
Vacation doesn't have much of anything to do with taxes.
Re: “I’m in the US – what if I just ignore the EU VAT changes?”
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're comparing income tax with sales tax. In the UK, on a salary of £40k (i.e. professional mid-career engineer), before you touch the money, the government takes about 25% for income tax and national insurance. Then, they take 20% of everything else that you spend unless it's non-luxurious foodstuffs, children's clothes or paper books. And, of course, if what you're buying is fuel, they actually take 85% of the pr…
> The last three have some form of nationalised healthcare though, which the US does not. Plus a much better retirement plan. In the US you can wake up in a hospital after someone rear-ended you, to find you are bankrupt and going to become homeless, even when you had the best insurance. And unless the stock market returns 8% most people are going to have a rough retirement. In the US you're lucky to get 3 weeks vaca…
No country mandates 6 weeks. The highest is Austria with a total of 38 days between paid vacation and holidays. Most of Europe is around 30 days. See http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/08/13/one-few-count.... Scroll about halfway down for a nice infographic.
Re: “I’m in the US – what if I just ignore the EU VAT changes?”
#88" The change was made because EU wants to get more money from American companies " That is not true - VAT is and has always been a tax for the buyer, not the seller. Of course, having VAT is awful for us - in my country it's an astronomical 24%. But that's besides the point.
The point of the changes is to prevent large non-EU companies from going "VAT-shopping": like a certain well known advertising company claiming to sell all their services from a low VAT country when in fact all the business dealings are done in a tower block in the centre of London. Now they have to charge whatever VAT rate each country within the EU thinks is appropriate for their citizens & there's no "race to the…
This. It was about time they got started.
Re: “I’m in the US – what if I just ignore the EU VAT changes?”
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
That will be in addition to income and property taxes. By way of example, UK taxes look like: * ~40% income tax, first £10k untaxed. * 20% VAT on most goods (food, books, children's clothes are untaxed, heating fuel is taxed at 5%) * Annual property tax of around £1000 on the typical dwelling. * 28% capital gains tax, first £10k untaxed in any 1 year. Dividends are effectively taxed as additional income. In reality U…
> food, books, children's clothes are untaxed Some food is untaxed. For example, cakes are untaxed but biscuits are taxed (or maybe it's the other way round). There was a court case to decide whether Jaffa Cakes were cakes or biscuits for the purposes of VAT: the court ultimately applied the principle that cakes were soft when fresh but hard when stale, while biscuits started off hard and then went soft; hence Jaffa…
This is exactly why the tax should be flat and other programs should counteract regressive effects. Well, it's one of the reasons.
Re: “I’m in the US – what if I just ignore the EU VAT changes?”
#90If you are concerned with this, you may want to investigate if basing your company in Switzerland offers more advantage than in EU : its at the center of Europe but doesn't belong to EU.
If a company does not sell to EU citizens, then yes, being based outside in the EU will let you avoid these rules. But if your goal is to sell to EU consumers, basing the company in Switzerland as your European base doesn't help, because for non-EU sellers (and from 1 January, for all sellers), VAT is charged based on the location of the customer; the location of the company is irrelevant. And Switzerland will generally enforce tax judgments of EU member states, so if you violate German law in your dealings with German citizens, being based in Switzerland isn't going to shelter you. If you sell services to a German, you'll be required to charge German VAT rates, regardless of whether the company is based in Germany or Switzerland.
Some larger Swiss-based companies were actually in favor of this change, because in some cases they have been at a VAT disadvantage relative to some EU-based companies, who were previously allowed to charge "source country" rates rather than "destination country" rates for digital services. Therefore Swiss providers selling to Germans were at a disadvantage to Luxembourg-based providers selling to Germans, because the Swiss provider had to charge German VAT, while the Luxembourg provider could charge the lower Luxembourg VAT. With the new "destination location" rules being applied across the board, including to EU-based companies, Luxembourg will lose its advantage vis-a-vis Switzerland there.
See: http://www.kpmg.com/global/en/issuesandinsights/articlespubl...