Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Leaving Germany – where to find quality of life as experienced engineer?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 269 posts

Re: Ask HN: Leaving Germany – where to find quality of life as experienced engineer?

#101

Post by ThePhysicist »

bartminton wrote: post #100
ThePhysicist wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does that work? I mean the tax rate is progressive and as a freelancer you only pay the normal income tax. If the tax authority insists you're a Gewerbe you'll have to pay Gewerbesteuer as well, but most of that can be deduced from your income tax already. Just wondering how you get at this number, calculating with 240 T€ and tax class 1 I only arrive around 40 % income tax.

You're right on progression and Gewerbesteuer deduction. Nevertheless I pay tax rate "Höchststeuersatz" at 45%. Add "Solidarzuschlag" and you end up very close to 50%.

But the 45 % is only paid for income above 277 T€ (or twice that much if you're married)? I mean, it's a lot but if you alone are in that tax bracket you should be able to afford housing in Germany and Berlin, that puts you somewhere in the top 0.5 % of all families, not even accounting for your partners income.

Re: Ask HN: Leaving Germany – where to find quality of life as experienced engineer?

#102

Post by bartminton »

jobegrabber wrote: post #89
bartminton wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Income tax + business tax pile up to 50% already. I don't pay social taxes by choice, hence I do not benefit from the social net. If I add up all other taxes then, I end up pretty close at 70%. Meaning mostly VAT, taxes on gas and oil, alcohol, tobacco, final withholding tax on stock and crypto investments and speculation, vehicle tax, electricity tax. All in all there are close to 40 different types of tax, but we d…

>Income tax + business tax pile up to 50% already Is that for all your income or "just" over a certain threshold? >Even if you make some good money, that does not leave you with a lot to live. You said you travelled to different countries in Europe, Africa and Asia. Do you consider that not leaving you with a lot to live? >with virtually no deductible costs you pay taxes first, and then have to take care about health…

>Is that for all your income or "just" over a certain threshold?

Regarding income tax, there is a tax free allowance of 9.984.

>You said you travelled to different countries in Europe, Africa and Asia. Do you consider that not leaving you with a lot to live?

We travel for more than 15 years and we mostly leverage so called PEP offers, which reduce your travel cost to a fraction of the real cost. Otherwise we'd not be able to afford that.

>Those are all, up to a certain degree, deductible from your taxes, right?

That's the point. They are NOT! The only deductible position would be an official pension insurance. If you invest on your own (which we do) you can not deduct a dime. Everything else we have to pay AFTER taxation.

Re: Ask HN: Leaving Germany – where to find quality of life as experienced engineer?

#103

Post by bartminton »

jacquesm wrote: post #40

As a multiple-times-emigrant I can tell you this one thing: no matter where you go, it will be plusses and minuses compared to where you are originally from. Some things will be better, others will be worse. Sometimes much better and sometimes much worse. And there is no way to know this up front you just need to go there and live there for a while before your own personal scorebook can be updated, other people will…

> you just need to go there and live there for a while before your own personal scorebook can be updated

That seems to be a fact. Nevertheless really interesting to hear other peoples thoughts. Thanks for yours.

Re: Ask HN: Leaving Germany – where to find quality of life as experienced engineer?

#104

Post by bartminton »

numlock86 wrote: post #57

Sounds like you should/want just move out of Berlin, not necessarily Germany. Sure, the tax situation and climate is basically the same everywhere, but if you want quality of live I'd recommend somewhere near or between Oldenburg and Emden in Lower Saxony. Once you settled in basically everything east of Bremen and south of Osnabrück will feel like a different country. I basically had the same situation for decades a…

We still consider a place outside Berlin / Brandenburg. Still that does not change the fact, that the current state of affairs here is hard to digest. We also and especially look for a "warmer" and "brighter" region. German winters tend to be hard, not because of the temperatures, but because of the hours of sunlight. However, thank you for the suggestion, we'll definitely check them.

Re: Ask HN: Leaving Germany – where to find quality of life as experienced engineer?

#105

Post by Sweetio »

dang wrote: post #98
Sweetio wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Hey, could you please review and stick to the rules when posting here? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html - you broke them badly with this post. Also, could you please stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is also in the site guidelines. You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users t…

It's actually more if a mechanism to spend less time commenting on hn.

Unfortunately this depiction of Germany triggered me ;)

Re: Ask HN: Leaving Germany – where to find quality of life as experienced engineer?

#106

Post by bartminton »

janekg wrote: post #28

> that allows us to buy / rent a quality house (which is close to impossible in Berlin even making 200k/year [due to neck breaking tax and cost of living]). This is more likely to be due to the tight situation on the housing market with several monopolists than to excessively high taxes.

You might be right. It just feels somehow "off". As I said in another sub thread: I don't really mind the height of the taxes. That would be fine, if infra, public services and the overall outlook were ok. But they are not. At least not in my opinion. And buying a house today meant a loan for roundabout the next 40 years. No option.

Re: Ask HN: Leaving Germany – where to find quality of life as experienced engineer?

#107

Post by bartminton »

akmarinov wrote: post #75

Come to Bulgaria - in the south there are mild winters, in the summer - there's a great beachside. You get some of the fastest internet in Europe for cheap, taxes stand at 10% flat rate, 20% VAT. Houses in the vicinity of major cities are dirt cheap, compared to your standards (you can probably start off renting for something like 400-500 euro/month). There're a lot of IT companies, but of course you can't expect the…

Interesting suggestion. I've been to Sofia once in 2006. The city did not make a very good impression back then, but I am sure, the situation changed a lot. Hopefully to the better. I will definitely look into it, since we do not exclude eastern Europe from our list. Thanks for the suggestion.

Re: Ask HN: Leaving Germany – where to find quality of life as experienced engineer?

#108

Post by bartminton »

thebeastie wrote: post #77

Interesting thread, many insights on a topic where wisdom is hard won. That said, I read OPs complaints about polarization and taxes, and I wonder if Latin America might address some of these issues? (Slightly tongue in cheek) Your status as a foreigner will make people more forgiving of your ignorance of local political issues, and also interested when you make comparisons to foreign perspectives (especially coming…

> That said, I read OPs complaints about polarization and taxes, and I wonder if Latin America might address some of these issues

Thank you, that somehow nails it. Some countries on our to-be-checked-list are in Latin America. A personal minus is, that both of us don't speak spanish or portugese.

Nevertheless we will dig deeper. Thanks for your opinion.

Re: Ask HN: Leaving Germany – where to find quality of life as experienced engineer?

#109

Post by ricardobeat »

matus_congrady wrote: post #66

I would definitely suggest Prague, Czech Republic. The city is beautiful. Climate is great. Low taxation (especially if you're self-employed). Cost of living is way better than in Germany. Quality of food, healthcare and public services is also very good. Also, if you don't like the leftist policies, you'll love Czech Republic.

I assume you are Czech. I'm curious to hear what makes you happy about the new right-wing government?

It seems to have started following the same modus operandi that made a huge mess in Brazil: sectarian politics, removing 'leftists' from every inch of government institutions and instrumenting them with friends, reverting climate policies, etc. But this is only looking from afar.

Re: Ask HN: Leaving Germany – where to find quality of life as experienced engineer?

#110

Post by bartminton »

jacquesm wrote: post #43
clintonwoo wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just providing a cautious view: living on an island sounds like a fantasy but in practice it's very isolating, many supply chain issues and it can be hard/expensive to get a hold of items produced off the island

I've lived on an Island for nearly five years, hardly ever left for the mainland. Depending on your personality Island life may be 'just the ticket' or indeed 'isolating'. For me it provided the lack of through traffic and quiet that I was very much longing for.

Lack of traffic, yes. No need for a car. Local products and food. Small community. Relaxed and laid back people. Sounds like a dream, right? I doubt, we'll find that, but I am grateful for the point you made.
Post reply on HN