261–270 of 384 posts
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Yes, though still not quite as compelling, because you still have to speak Dutch eg at the playground.
It's worth mentioning that I'm Ireland most schools teach in Irish, not English.
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Having lived in the Netherlands (Eindhoven - not even Amsterdam) I can confirm that the English spoken there was superior to the English I was raised in in rural Ontario where my teachers said "warshing" instead of washing. The Dutch have an incredibly faculty for language and I admire it.
I will have to mention that this varies all over, especially the bit older generation (not exclusively though) also has some weird quirks language wise. So while they might speak and understand the English language quite well the are some parts missing. As an example I like to mention the phrasing of Bolkenstein (a Dutch National/EU politician) of economic handouts to people as "Golden showers". So while proficiency…
[0] admittedly she was starting to develop signs of Alzheimer’s at the point she called it that around me, but that was a legitimate use of the phrase when she was young.
I have never understood the whole "tax the rich" idea and I am not rich, don't own a house or car or stocks or anything expensive. When and how will the taxes help you and me? The money just ends up going to a black hole for the government to spent inefficiently. And if you are in the US, the money gets spent on funding the military industrial complex for bombing more countries, regime changes, intelligence agencies,…
The US doesn't have the same history, culture, institutions, structures and views on what society is as Europe.
For having lived in the US and in several EU countries I can tell you it's extremely obvious to see where the money is going
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There are definitely expenses you can incur that result in either a taxable income reduction or a tax deduction - there aren't many of them (most individual expenditures aren't considered expenses in the way that profits are measured) - but there are some. As an example in Canada one newly recognized tax exemption for 2020 was a 400$ flat tax deduction for remote working. You can argue that more tax burden should be…
In the US they’re getting fewer and fewer. Property tax + mortgage interest combined is now capped at $10k. This was no doubt to punish blue state residents where property values are higher
Either way seems a long way from business which gets to remove 100% of the cost of rent, maintenence, and pretty much anything else. If I employ a gardener to mow a lawn because my time is more valuable spent inventing a cure for cancer, I can’t deduct that. It makes far more sense from a personal perspective to work less and do a given job myself (lowering GDP and productivity, a lose/lose situation). Won’t say 35% marginal tax, I’d have to do $1000 overtime to pay $650 to put in a new shower, and the builder would only keep $422. It might take him 2 hours and me 6 hours, but if it takes me 10 hours to earn that $1000 extra it’s worth doing it myself and denying the world the cure for cancer I could have developed in that time.
A business on the other hand will just take the extra $1k revenue and offset the cost of the plumber against the revenue before paying tax.
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> managed at the state and local level Paid for with money raised from ... tax
This article is about international tax agreements which apply at the national level.
What would you say if your local big companies / rich people didn't pay tax in your state but managed to pay in the neighbouring state ? That's exactly what's happening in Europe
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If you're operating a business as an individual (sole proprietor), you deduct expenses and only pay taxes on profits.
Most[0] countries would still make you pay income tax for whatever you earn for your personal services and not class it as part of the business' revenue. I believe in the UK this was addressed with IR35[0] and in Australia it is called as PSI[1] [0] This loophole started being closed in the late 90s/early 00s and continues to be closed in the remaining countries that haven't yet addressed it. [1] https://en.wikipedia…
If you’re an individual and need to pay for a car to go to the office or supermarket, that’s post tax.
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Paris is not really much of English speaking city. (I travel to Paris often)
The French invented the term "Chauvinism" :) A big difference between the larger and smaller EU countries though is unrelated. The smallest countries don't have the budget for dubbing movies and TV series. This really helps with English proficiency in the smaller countries such as the Netherlands.
So while what you're saying is technically true, a lot of shows were only subtitled instead of being dubbed, it is also factually false, that is not the main reason for the proficiency.
My take on this is that Ireland is now willing to come into compliance because post-Brexit, they now have a monopoly on "urban core that could sustain an HQ for multinationals in a natively-English-speaking country in the EU." In other words, they relied on tax advantages as a differentiator for companies to choose Dublin over London for their EU HQ. But now, what would you choose if not Dublin? Obviously Paris and B…
English common law is the basis for the American and Irish systems. Continental European countries, including Malta, are different.
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Why? This comment is not about Berlin or Paris, it is mentioning then as examples of non English speaking cities. Is the author supposed to mention every city in Europe?
The Netherlands has the highest English proficiency in the world [0] (among non-native speaking countries) so I imagine it would be a compelling choice. [0] https://www.ef.com/wwen/epi/
Flemish people might be an even more logical choice for the EU. Similar English, Dutch and basic German fluency, plus with most uni educated people there, pretty decent French.
And if you recruit me, you'll get fluent Latvian on top :-)
My take on this is that Ireland is now willing to come into compliance because post-Brexit, they now have a monopoly on "urban core that could sustain an HQ for multinationals in a natively-English-speaking country in the EU." In other words, they relied on tax advantages as a differentiator for companies to choose Dublin over London for their EU HQ. But now, what would you choose if not Dublin? Obviously Paris and B…
Imagine moving Wall St from NYC to Austin TX.