Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a metric that evidently appeals to you. So be it. It's a relative measure and my preference, possibly shared by others, is for an absolute one. Human nature and entrepreneurship being what it is, as general wealth increases thus does inequality increase. We have seen this happening on a grand scale across the world during the last 20 years or more. One other point: what suits the Danes wouldn't necessarily sui…
> One other point: what suits the Danes wouldn't necessarily suit the Brits or others. National characteristics are certainly different even we try sometimes to ignore this probably because it's tacitly interpreted as some hint of mild racism. Quite right... see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante
Most Danish voters oppose government plans to cut the top rate of income tax
141–150 of 160 posts
Re: Most Danish voters oppose government plans to cut the top rate of income tax
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
Americans do not pay anywhere near 50% in taxes. A high income American that makes money as ordinary income (rather than capital gains) and does not own a house and lives in a high tax city will pay almost 50% if you factor in federal, state, healthcare, and sales tax. Everyone else pays a lot less. Typical including health insurance premium is probably around 30-35%. In a state like Georgia with a generous employer…
> A high income American that makes money as ordinary income (rather than capital gains) and does not own a house and lives in a high tax city will pay almost 50% if you factor in federal, state, healthcare, and sales tax. You have just described a typical Hacker News reader, who lives in, say, San Francisco, has relatively high income, and pays rent.
Not when you compute actual tax rate as opposed to marginal. For example a single person in SF making $250,000 a year will pay 35-40% of her income to taxes, depending on how much sales tax she pays. [1]
That's assuming she does not contribute to a 401k, make charitable donations, or take advantage of any other tax incentives.
Re: Most Danish voters oppose government plans to cut the top rate of income tax
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A high income American that makes money as ordinary income (rather than capital gains) and does not own a house and lives in a high tax city will pay almost 50% if you factor in federal, state, healthcare, and sales tax. You have just described a typical Hacker News reader, who lives in, say, San Francisco, has relatively high income, and pays rent.
Not when you compute actual tax rate as opposed to marginal. For example a single person in SF making $250,000 a year will pay 35-40% of her income to taxes, depending on how much sales tax she pays. [1] That's assuming she does not contribute to a 401k, make charitable donations, or take advantage of any other tax incentives. [1] https://smartasset.com/taxes/income-taxes#N6FTwRB1KN
Right. You have to be making about $700k as a single person (almost a million as a married couple) in ordinary income in San Francisco before you exceed 45% total tax burden. Many people who make that much money will not pay that much in taxes because their compensation will come from capital gains (e.g. VCs earning carried interest capital gains).
Re: Most Danish voters oppose government plans to cut the top rate of income tax
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think New Zealand probably has one of the most streamlined tax systems in the world, at least for the average person. GST (essentially sales tax) is levied at 15% on all goods and services except for domestic rent and financial services (and one or two rare exceptions that don't apply to the vast majority of cases). Your income tax rate is figured from a flowchart, it's really simple: https://www.ird.govt.nz/resour…
In Norway, the tax authority will send you a summary telling you what you owe or what they owe, and if you don't have corrections you don't need to do anything. (all bank accounts in Norway are keyed to a national ID number assigned at birth, and the banks report all interest income and loss (as interest on debt can be subtracted from your taxable income), and your employer(s) reports your income) There are some exce…
I'm not sure why they don't do that in New Zealand, the numbers are all provided, you just have to type them in.
Perhaps it's a privacy thing?
One of the advantages is that you can check if you're owing money before filing a Personal Tax Summary (they have a tool to check if you'd owe money or be paid money), and you don't have to file for one if you owe money, and as long as it's less than a certain amount ($500?) then they don't care.
Re: Most Danish voters oppose government plans to cut the top rate of income tax
#145I'm not in Denmark but in a very similar European country. I don't want the high taxes. The current taxes and mandatory payments feel unfair. The generations before us worked during the greatest economic boom in history, were mostly employed in safe and high paying government jobs (still are), bought houses before their values tripled, and are now receiving monthly pension payments that are almost twice what most you…
Your problem is not the high taxes themselves, but the way they are used. If young people are taxed in order to provide pensions for old people that are higher than the salaries of working young people, then there's something wrong, and I can totally understand the resentment.
I think the main reason why people object to taxes, is when those taxes are wasted on stupid things. But if taxes are efficiently used to provide a better society, then I think most people would support even fairly high taxes. Like in Denmark. Or in many European countries and the US just after WW2. Taxes were insane back then, but they were used to build up the country.
Re: Most Danish voters oppose government plans to cut the top rate of income tax
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Obviously parties can be indebted to donors just like individual politicians Obviously. AND given that the proposal is obviously a hand out to the wealthy and it came at a political cost to the prime minister (in decreased popularity)... I mean, you can put two and two together yourself right?
Strange on unpopular policies from large parties in our multi-party governing collisions are usually concessions to the smaller parties in exchange for parliamentary support. Not sure what's going on here though.
>Not sure what's going on here though.
That's cute.
Re: Most Danish voters oppose government plans to cut the top rate of income tax
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
Strange on unpopular policies from large parties in our multi-party governing collisions are usually concessions to the smaller parties in exchange for parliamentary support. Not sure what's going on here though.
>Not sure what's going on here though. That's cute.
Do politicians solicit campaign money in the UK? I thought it was a uniquely American issue. The cuteness usually lies in when Americans assume local problems are universal.
Re: Most Danish voters oppose government plans to cut the top rate of income tax
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
And I have never met one who did complain about taxes (I haven't asked about it either). The danish successful entrepreneur Morten Strunge recently entered the tax discussion saying that he did not think much about taxes and that current proposed tax reliefs would not make much difference to him. I see myself as an entrepreneur and I am not complaining about taxes. In fact I have a hard time seeing taxes as something…
How do you define "marginally less"? Open your eyes and look at the graph I posted. Let me name the obvious few: Christensen and Fornais (Saxo Bank), Jesper Buch (Just Eat), Mads Peter Veiby (M1), Lars Tvede, Toke Kruse (billys), Martin Thorborg (Jubii/Amino/Dinero/Agera). They are all members of Liberal Alliance and all of them frequently advocate lower taxes. Janus Friis (Skype) fled the country to avoid taxes (nuf…
Using the numbers in the graph, if you make 1 billion you would have 580 mio. after taxes in Denmark and 720 mio. in UK. The difference is huge in absolute numbers but relatively it is not. I doubt that entrepreneurs would have any less drive or motivation to succeed because of this difference.
> Christensen and Fornais (Saxo Bank), Jesper Buch (Just Eat), Mads Peter Veiby (M1), Lars Tvede, Toke Kruse (billys), Martin Thorborg (Jubii/Amino/Dinero/Agera)
Most of these are liberalists who happens to be entrepreneurs. They also all belong to the commercial/business type of entrepreneurs.
Re: Most Danish voters oppose government plans to cut the top rate of income tax
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a more probable reason. The only people I know who are against tax and public sector cut downs are the people who are actually employed by the state.
This would suggest that 70% of danish people would welcome tax and public sector cut downs, which is a false assumption.
To be fair, we should probably also take into account the a much higher percentage of the population have a family member or a close friend that works in the public sector.
Re: Most Danish voters oppose government plans to cut the top rate of income tax
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
No silver bullets + Baumol Cost Disease + greater expectations = very unlikely that services will become cheaper. Someone promising to make public services much cheaper should be treated like someone offering to sell you a $10 Rolex. It's either fraud or theft. God help you if someone tries to sell you a computer system to improve public services, that needs very careful management (18F, GDS, not Capita and friends)…
> Someone promising to make public services much cheaper should be treated like someone offering to sell you a $10 Rolex. That's what we do in the private industry the whole time. We try to improve processes, reduce wasteful behaviors, improve our efficiency and ultimately try to offer better services and products, while competing on value vs other competitors. I don't see any reason why such a way of thinking would…
I agree that a lot of processes could be improved and simplified to augment the productivity.
But we shouldn't expect a huge productivity gain either. Most of public servant are professors, police officers, nurses and doctors a least in France. They won't gain in productivity as the parent said.
I think that the public sector is really bad at marketing itself... When we think about public servant, we think about administrative clerks, whereas in reality they're a small part of the public sector.