11–20 of 83 posts
Even from a pure financial perspective, given one benefit of these countries is you generally actually get useful benefits out of your tax dollars unlike the USA, wouldn't a better way of looking at this be some sort of weighted metric? Imagine there's country A where i get a net salary of X and Y units of value out of my tax money. And country B where my net Salary is (X-M) and I get (Y+N) out of my tax money. Depen…
Even from a pure financial perspective, given one benefit of these countries is you generally actually get useful benefits out of your tax dollars unlike the USA, wouldn't a better way of looking at this be some sort of weighted metric? Imagine there's country A where i get a net salary of X and Y units of value out of my tax money. And country B where my net Salary is (X-M) and I get (Y+N) out of my tax money. Depen…
You could look at disposable income. That’s a more objective measure.
As an example, if I have kids who need daycare and one country provides free daycare and another does not, then we need to account for the cost of daycare in our equation. And that may or may not fall under one's definition of disposable income.
France & Sweden is close in the numbers but France is notably cheaper to eat out and Healthcare quality can't even be compared (to French favor). But if you're wealthy you'd probably prefer Sweden still because of the low taxes around wealth.
I recently compared (by actually going there) Switzerland vs Sweden when I passed a FAANG tech interview in Zurich, but even with 4-5x Salary of what I have now, I would probably end up living poorer if I had kids (if more than 2, it's for certain) in Zurich.
So like, who is this article for.
Even from a pure financial perspective, given one benefit of these countries is you generally actually get useful benefits out of your tax dollars unlike the USA, wouldn't a better way of looking at this be some sort of weighted metric? Imagine there's country A where i get a net salary of X and Y units of value out of my tax money. And country B where my net Salary is (X-M) and I get (Y+N) out of my tax money. Depen…
You could look at disposable income. That’s a more objective measure.
Or phrased differently: what are you going to buy with the extra money that is gonna offset you living in a country you dislike?
Choosing a country in Europe is not like choosing a state in the US. The systems, culture, people, food and so on differ much more wildely. Choosing that over a minor tax difference thst could change with the next government is downright unhinged.
And the second chart titled "Where do taxes weigh the most on employers and employees?" doesn't actually show what it purports to show.
It only shows a small slice of the social security contributions that employers pay. It shows: 100% * (Employer SSC / Total cost to employer), but:
Total tax = Tax + Employer SSC + Employee SSC.
Total cost to employer = Gross salary + Employer SSC + "benefits/costs" (vary by country)
Paid out to employee = Gross salary - Tax - Employee SSC + "benefits/costs"
See Table 3.1 on page 71 for a summarized overview of "total tax wedge vs total employer cost" in various living situations (single, with children, low/average/high wage).
Note that this still doesn't tell the full story because it ignores some benefits and entitlements that depend on your living situation ("Non-standard tax relief").