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Telegram Isn't for Sale

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Re: Telegram Isn't for Sale

#91

Post by germanier »

OoooooooO wrote: post #83
Tomte wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tax burden in Germany for middleclass is at around 70% Even under a charitable interpretation this is simply wrong. I suppose you have no first-hand experience, but have read that on social media?

If you're self-employed the tax rate is ~70%, at least for lawyers in germany. Source: My self-employed gf. And no, she does not earn 5 figures, 4-6k gross per month with 1 part-time employee for the bureaucracy stuff (bills, phone service, faxing, scanning etc.). With a 60 hour week.

Your girlfriend does not pay 70% tax. This is mathematically impossible if you actually look at all tax rates.

Re: Telegram Isn't for Sale

#92

Post by twhb »

K0nserv wrote: post #84
em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the locations of his servers are merely a secret, isn't that just security through obscurity? Isn't that a serious weakness? Or is there a more advanced way his servers are kept secret than merely being a secret?

A common misconception with "Security by Obscurity" is that it's always a bad thing. It's only a bad thing if the obscurity is critical to the security of what you are protecting. For example if you make your API completely open, but obscure it inside an app and make the domain hard to discover e.g a random string that's obviously not good. However if you use obscurity as an extra layer in a system that is secured by…

I’d counter that the security benefit may be so small as to underweigh the hassle and bug potential of those obscurities.

... and counter myself by reminding that all computer security is obscurity, just varying levels.

I think, in the end, we do need to measure things :)

Re: Telegram Isn't for Sale

#93

Post by olau »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #54
TrickyRick wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you didn't get healthcare, free education for 20+ years, subsidised student loans, retirement money, police, fire department etc. from the state? You really should stop and think what you get from the state before you criticise what the state takes from you.

> You really should stop and think what you get from the state before you criticise what the state takes from you. And when you're done doing so, and decide that it's not a good deal for the money, then you're told to do it again, and again, until you get the "right" answer the person patronizingly telling you to do so expects. It's reasonable to have a discussion about the most reasonable, efficient, and appropriate…

Taxes is traditionally a heated subject.

I think it's unreasonable to express a simple (one-sided) argument within this subject and not expect a one-sided answer from someone.

It is truly a complex subject.

Now, I expect someone to disagree with that statement. :)

Re: Telegram Isn't for Sale

#94

Post by _s »

SyneRyder wrote: post #72
germanier wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's 8-9% of your income tax – so in reality maybe 2% of your income or less. This tax is levied by the churches. You may be against the fact that they get this right because you support a more strict separation of church and state (which is not in the spirit of the German constitution) but this is hardly something the state is to blame for.

Ahh, I didn't realize it was a percentage of income tax. It was explained to me by Germans as tithing, according to the idea of donating 10% of your annual income to the church. I'm not necessarily for or against it, and it does seem pragmatic for the government to automatically collect it on the church's behalf. The part that does seem strange to me is that you have to renounce your religion to opt out of the automa…

You don’t have to “renounce” your religion or anything to that affect, it’s a checkbox on your income tax / wage form where you choose whether you wish to pay it or not. From what I remember it amount to taking ~1% or so off your salary.

Re: Telegram Isn't for Sale

#95

Post by Xylakant »

zaarn wrote: post #50
GeneralTspoon wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine that he/she is also including VAT in that 70% figure (which I believe is currently 23% in Germany). In Munich my taxes on my pay check were around 45% as a software dev (including pension & insurance). So 70% total tax might not be far off the mark (assuming that you spend most of your income on VAT goods & services). Although you have to remember it's not 23% of your totoal income, but 23% of the remaining…

It's 19% for most stuff and 7% for some other stuff, on average it's closer to 16 o 17% on everything you buy and pay. Once you account for the 17% being part of your remaining money, you get an effective incoming VAT tax rate of 8.5% (assuming you keep around 50%, if you keep more, this goes up) I believe the highest amount of income tax you pay is around 60%, plus 8.5% you get close to 70%. However, most people wil…

The highest amount of income tax you pay (Reichensteuer) is 47,48% (45% plus Soli). This number is a bit misleading though since the tax rate is a curve that starts at 14% for incomes above 8656 EUR and reaches a plateau of 42% at a yearly income of roundabout 53000 EUR. The highest tax rate only applies to the part of the income that exceeds about 250000 EUR. So the first 8k are tax free, for every EUR above that you pay a tax rate according to the curve and only the part of the income that exceed 250000 EUR pays the full 45%. So if you have a yearly income of 250001 EUR, the 45% get only levied on 1 EUR. It's obvious that the effective tax rate is far lower than 45% for any income that does not massively exceed 250k.

The blue curve in that graph is the nominal tax rate (Grenzsteuersatz) and the green curve the effective rate: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einkommensteuer_(Deutschland)#...

Re: Telegram Isn't for Sale

#96

Post by a-saleh »

CodesInChaos wrote: post #79
a-saleh wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so .. 59% tax then?

You can't just add the percentages for income tax and VAT. If you were to combine a 40% income tax and a 19% VAT, you'd end up with 49.6% effective tax. (1-(1-0.40)/1.19) (I'm not arguing that this naive computation makes sense, you pay different VAT rates or no VAT at all, depending on what you buy. I don't think you have to pay VAT on rent, which is a significant part of the income for many people and reduced VAT o…

Thanks! My brain kinda failed me there :)

Re: Telegram Isn't for Sale

#97

Post by pavlov »

nickpp wrote: post #69
pavlov wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know where the author grew up, but didn’t he get anything in return for his taxes? I’ve had free healthcare, free college education, free libraries, police and fire departments protecting me, occasional grants, a social security network in case I lost my ability to work... I would never say that “taxes limit my options” because the personal record shows the opposite. Besides, it’s not about just me: the whole…

But wouldn't you have liked to shop around for those free-but-paid-from-your-taxes services? And benefit from competition between providers which drives prices down and quality up? Government are ultimate monopolies: always getting worse and more expensive. Maybe you are thinking about a handful of functioning, high quality governments (US, Germany, Nordic States) but I am thinking about the great majority of the gov…

...competition between providers which drives prices down and quality up?

Does it necessarily? Corporations are looking for profit growth, and the customer will pay for that.

Imagine a service where a public provider is replaced with three private corporations. Superficially there's competition and freedom of choice... But what if the three companies all operate at 80% margin, are constantly squeezing on quality to drive the margin even higher, and they are owned by multinationals that spend enormous amounts on lobbying to prevent new entrants in the market? It's easy to see how both price and quality can be worse in this case than it was with the single public provider.

Re: Telegram Isn't for Sale

#98

Post by samat »

rkachowski wrote: post #87

I haven't used telegram for a while, but the last time I used it e2e encryption was only an optional feature (secret conversation) instead of the default option. How does this compare to Signal or Whatsapp which both have e2e enabled by default?

They have opted for user convinience on this matter. Fully searchable history of all communication synced on all your devices. A nightmare for a dissident attacked by state, but convinience 90% of the population should not be stripped of.

Re: Telegram Isn't for Sale

#99

Post by germanier »

_s wrote: post #94
SyneRyder wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahh, I didn't realize it was a percentage of income tax. It was explained to me by Germans as tithing, according to the idea of donating 10% of your annual income to the church. I'm not necessarily for or against it, and it does seem pragmatic for the government to automatically collect it on the church's behalf. The part that does seem strange to me is that you have to renounce your religion to opt out of the automa…

You don’t have to “renounce” your religion or anything to that affect, it’s a checkbox on your income tax / wage form where you choose whether you wish to pay it or not. From what I remember it amount to taking ~1% or so off your salary.

You actually have go through a formal renunciation process (which is done at a state authority but your church will get notified and will not be pleased). That checkbox doesn't actually do anything, it is just your declaration of the official religion status. Lying on tax forms is, well, not the best idea.
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