Which European countries have the best salaries after taxes? • Hacker News Board

Re: Which European countries have the best salaries after taxes?

#81

Post by MITSardine » Fri, Apr 03, 2026, 1:57 PM UTC

johanneskanybal wrote: post #58

lifestyleguru wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So a path to wealth for a normal person is being invested in capital markets but only through a "special" account and assuming that real estate rental or purchase will not eat every leftover from highly taxed monthly salary. This "special" account gives access to all major capital markets?

It's pretty universal in the developed world to have some type of long term savings tax-scheme. In us it's 401k/roth. In canada it's tfsa. in uk it's isa. isa/401k/roth has pretty low caps. tfsa and isk has no cap. But yea, considering I pay close to 50% tax it's remarkable at the same time I can speculate in the market, make 500% and pay 1% tax on it. Or that people with actual money pay so little.

But 1% is on the total held, not on the capital gains, right?

If that's the case, it affects earnings quite a bit. Say your investments beat inflation by 3 percentage points, you're effectively down to 2 percentage points after tax, so a 33% reduction in income.

Re: Which European countries have the best salaries after taxes?

#82

Post by MITSardine » Fri, Apr 03, 2026, 2:36 PM UTC

atoav wrote: post #42

xiphias2 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it wouldn't look good for the EU

Ah yes you choose Switzerland. The country that is famously so affordable to live in. Last time I have been there food has costed literally double than in my home country which is also in the Alps, also has that standard of living, etc. But hey, you moderately save on taxes if you finally manage to settle there, which csn be a bit of a challenge since switzerland isn't the most easy country to get permanent residence…

If your country is Italy that might be the case, but groceries are at most 30% more expensive than France, and some are nearly the same price (vegetables). Meat and fish do cost an arm and a leg (100% tax on border crossing).

Meanwhile, median net salary in CH is 5'000-5'500 per month, double to triple its neighbors. So food is actually very affordable.

The food that costs more is the one someone cooked for you, which is logical considering the cook is likely paid more than your engineer (assuming that's your case) salary. But then again, minimum wage Italians are not eating out at the restaurant with any frequency. If you were an engineer in Switzerland instead, you could afford eating out there. The restaurants and terraces are never empty, anyways.

Now, if you want to enjoy a beer in the sun, you can get a 2CHF can at the supermarket and go fire up a barbecue at the lake of Zurich, I see people doing that all the time.

Re: Which European countries have the best salaries after taxes?

#83

Post by johanneskanybal » Sat, Apr 04, 2026, 11:53 PM UTC

MITSardine wrote: post #81

johanneskanybal wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty universal in the developed world to have some type of long term savings tax-scheme. In us it's 401k/roth. In canada it's tfsa. in uk it's isa. isa/401k/roth has pretty low caps. tfsa and isk has no cap. But yea, considering I pay close to 50% tax it's remarkable at the same time I can speculate in the market, make 500% and pay 1% tax on it. Or that people with actual money pay so little.

But 1% is on the total held, not on the capital gains, right? If that's the case, it affects earnings quite a bit. Say your investments beat inflation by 3 percentage points, you're effectively down to 2 percentage points after tax, so a 33% reduction in income.

Yea it was better in the years of extremely low rates. 2020-2022 it was 0.375% of total. Now it's up to 0.888% last year. There's some cases where it might be benefitial to use the "normal" account but for average Joe, not having to track every transaction has generally been very benefitial. And as a result 80-90% of adults own some type of stock either directly or through funds/retirement accounts vs the free market utopia us of 62%.