I'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 young people earn through work. My effective tax rate is more than 50% (including mandatory pension payments that are more than 10% of my pre-tax pay). A good part of that goes to pay the pensions of existing retirees. A third of my remaining pay goes into paying rent for the apartments owned by the older generation. In the end, I get around 1.5k euro out of the 7k I cost my company (employers also have to pay additional social and pension payments).
Looking at the current luxurious lifestyle of the older generations, and the rapidly ageing population, and increasing youth unemployment — I want out.
Wait, you've got it backwards. At the risk of stating the obvious: the wealthy older generation are the ones who want the tax cuts for the wealthy. In a progressive taxation scheme the young and poor get more benefits from the government than they pay in via taxes, so what you're arguing for would hurt you and help them.
The real problem is that assets are taxed (sometimes significantly) less than income. We're in a world where assets are becoming much more valuable than labour, but have a taxation and pension scheme that is built for the opposite (post-WWII).
The older generation has assets like houses and stocks. Youth have the ability to work. Here in Canada, the capital gains tax is literally half of what the income tax is. So when old people make their money (house prices go up, investment portfolios increase) while literally not lifting a finger, they get to shift half of their tax burden onto the people that get up every morning and work for a living. /That's/ unfair.
This is all happening in a time when we've got so much cash floating around that interest rates might go negative, which means the usual "oh, but if we tax assets then it will reduce the available investment pool and it will hurt the economy" is complete self-serving horseshit.
Taxes are one of your biggest tools for redressing the screwing over that the younger generation has got. You'd be crazy to consider them the problem. Furthermore, with pensions the older generation basically wrote themselves a blank cheque that the younger generation had to pay. I don't think we should feel obligated to follow it to the letter - and that doesn't have anything to do with tax rates, that's just a contract re-negotiation.
The intergenerational inequality is an increasingly serious problem, and as you suggest might kill the welfare state if it's no longer percieved to be fair. The flashpoints are more likely to be in the south of Europe, such as Greece.
In other countries, taxes are complicated (no citation needed). There's income tax, but there are also social security payments, industry-specific taxes, etc. And you have to pay for your own education and healthcare!
Danish tax is simple and all inclusive. It is around 50%, which is about the same as in US if all hidden obligatory payments are taken into account. But it is all inclusive: all education and healthcare is free in Denmark, and social security grid is immense.
I am a pro-free-market person and Ayn Rand admirer. But even I think that Danish system is not that bad: you just pay 50% of your income to the government immediately, and they do not bother you until the next time. On the other hand, in the US, the IRS will pursuit you relentlessly, there are insane friction multipliers like healthcare insurance rising costs spiral, and everything is so complicated that only lawyers are happy about it.
Free markets only work if the government is separated from the economy. If they are entangled, you are getting the worst of both worlds.
No, it isn't. The total tax wedge under OECD definitions, which includes employer payroll taxes, the Danish income tax burden is on average around 38%. Excluding employers payroll taxes it's around 36%.
For comparison, the "all in" number for the US is around 31%.
The OECD average is 36%.
The only OECD country that crosses the 50% mark is Belgium, which consistently is one of the highest tax countries in the world.
You can find this data here [1], and while the publisher isn't exactly neutral, the source for all the data is an OECD publication which is also freely available (I don't have the link handy). The OECD report has far more detail
Taxes are very complicated in Denmark. I don't know anybody who can calculate their own tax without computer systems, and I say that as a lawyer who talks to accountants and tax advisors regularly.
Nobody just pays 50 percent. The tax is progressive and there are numerous deductions and special cases. The actual percentage of income paid is closer to 40 for most people. And then there is the mess of indirect taxes. And the details of the tax rules change significantly all the time.
But most of the majority of Danes, which are on some kind of welfare/pension/public education grants (2.2 million out of 4 million voters) and the half of the 1.8 million employed that work for the government, like the current system.
British system: tax and social security deducted by employer. Council sends you an annual bill vaguely related to the value of your home, paid over 10 months. Healthcare free at the point of use, apart from the £7 prescription charge in England.
I was in my mid-30s before I had to file a tax return, and that's only because I'd set up a limited company. The Inland Revenue (HMRC) can be nasty, but nowhere near as nasty as the benefits accountants. HMRC website is also rather good and you can calculate and file online.
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 that pays your insurance premium, a family can probably pull in close to six figures and pay under 25% all-in if they own a house.
Had the same feeling about Australia vs France. In Australia I'd pay $120 for a tax agent (~1% of my income tax), it would be over and I'd be happy about it. In France I feel like I'm being chased, because it's such a socialist country: I earn €2000 per month after tax, I feel like I'm being told by the tax administration that I'm a thieve because I'm rich, even though they're the ones who attempted to double-tax me between Australia and France. I don't mind the 63%[1] that goes to the government between what my customers pay my company and what I receive as a net salary, it's just, they could at least make it respectful and simple.
[1] VAT 20%, employer tax 50%, income tax 14% on the remainder, plus an accountant to understand the law and that makes 63%. Yes, I get I'm supposed to receive benefits from the mandatory insurances, except:
- by design they never apply to the situations I might fall into (unemployment when you're between 2 countries, medical insurance when you travel, retirement going under the poverty levels by the time I'm 60, paraplegic benefit being under 800€ per month for the rest of your life - how are you supposed to live on that?).
- and those taxes don't even succeed at keeping France afloat, because we have a socialist president who's hiring for about $6bn of policemen whose work is just to bust into Muslims' houses. Yeah, unemployment reduced, socialist goal fulfilled. Doesn't sound more social that giving a job to everyone undepending on their race, however.
I'd be ok with 63% retention if it were simple and useful.
Let's be serious here. I'm French, all for high taxes and all but please let's not delude ourselves thinking that American people pay "around 50%" taxes. As soon as you have enough money to afford it, you'll pay a tax lawyer to get that down to about 15% or something, thanks to a bajillion hidden tax system loopholes allowing the rich to get an advantage on the less fortunate.
And even if you take into account the price of college, health care and everything, you'll get to about the same amount but the whole point in the US system is that you do NOT have to pay for other people, cause who needs solidarity in a society.
Another thing to consider is the size of Denmark compared to the US. It's a much smaller political unit which tends to translate into more responsive politicians. Danes have about half the number of representatives we have in the US but less than 5% of our population.
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).
As for tax returns, it's as simple as going online, adding up your interest earned during the year (most banks will do this for you and send it to you) and adding your dividends earned. It's a bit more work if you do any contracting or freelancing, but it's still simple enough that the vast majority of people can do it while drinking a beer or two on a Sunday afternoon.
> In other countries, taxes are complicated (no citation needed).
Lots of citations needed actually, from what I know of it the Belgian tax system sounds pretty similar to the Danish one for employees (most taxes are held directly on salary, there's a year-end tally for deductions and the like if necessary), tax rate is ~40% of income.
Having lived a big chunk of my life in both the US and a Scandinavian country, I would say that taxes are a lot more complicated in the US. There is no way you can do your taxes in the US without the help of special computer software (e.g. turbotax) or help from professional accountants.
More accurately, Danes value their welfare state and high-equality society and are smart enough to accept that it has to be paid for. Therefore any campaign on cutting taxes immediately attracts the suspicion: what services are going to be cut?
This is simply not true. In Denmark we have a welfare and tax scheme that benefits the majority at the expense of the productive few and the poor (Director's law?). I have never met a danish entrepreneur who didn't complain about taxes, never ever... http://taxfoundation.org/sites/taxfoundation.org/files/docs/...
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 working particularly against entrepreneurs.
1) When you're an entrepreneur you keep your salary low and you re-invest the profit in your company. This will limit the amount of taxes you pay personally and in the company.
2) As an entrepreneur you likely have a dream about huge growth in the company and making a lot of money in the end. Why would you worry about having marginally less "lot of money" in the end?
DHH would beg to differ with you. He's stated a few times that he's a successful entrepreneur because of the Danish social safety net (and the taxes that pay for it).
That is a very simplistic attitude. First of all, I have met countless entrepreneurs who support this "scheme", just to counter your anecdotal evidence. Second, shouldn't a "welfare scheme" benefit the poor, not exist at the expense of them? Are you arguing that the danish welfare system failed in what could be considered it's most essential undertaking? Third, "benefits the majority at the expense of the productive few" doesn't ring true to me. You make it sound like the "productive few" do not receive the same benefits as everyone else, and that the fact that everyone else receives benefits is inconsequential. It's not. Time and again (financial) equality in society has proven to be immeasurably beneficial, in so many regards.
Having been to Copenhagen a few times in my life (partner used to live there) I came to realise there might be two extremes in terms of the way you look at tax rates.
Some people might move to Dubai because its income tax is low or even nil - that attracts people who are more interested in their own well being than their communities'.
Now some people - I would include myself here (rightly or wrongly, it doesn't really matter) - look at countries with high taxes and low inequality and enjoy the idea of a country where the well being of the community might came before than yourself getting rich.
It's all a bit utopical (and, knowing Copenhagen, it really feels a bit off reality) but I can't help not thinking about it.
All people who are net receivers from the system do so literally for their own well being.
Which is logical. And ok, because obviously there are lots of truly helpless cases in any given country.
But over the decades, it accumulates fraud. Or even worse, a kind of learned helplessness which keeps people in their place. Maybe Denmark is different. But my guess is that many living in Belgium and France will be able to point out multiple cases of fraud or at least debatable cases in their immediate surroundings.
Finally, a lot of the available money never leaves the hands of the vast bureaucratic caste that manages the system.
I guess what I want to say: people will be people, regardless of the system. Social democracy involves a lot of cynicism and greed too. And probably in a less constructive way than systems that don't rely exclusively on "anonymous" Big State-enforced redistribution.
Even people who desire lower taxes and less services love their communities, they just operate from a strong sense or right and wrong. Right being that you work if you can and even if you cannot you do not impose on others unless necessary.
The generations who came up in the early 1900s, twenties, thirties, and even forties, have a vastly different outlook than those that followed. You were entitled to do right, you were not entitled to take.
Inequality is a large driver of crime. So keeping a low inequality means you don't have to spend as much on incarceration, police, courts etc., as you would have otherwise. That in turn means you can spend money on things that tax payers care about (schools, etc.) which increases equality, and so on.
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 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.
The fallacy here is to aggregate the people. Democracy has been compared to two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner. Proposals to cut government will fail when more than 50℅ figure they are net beneficiaries. This does not mean the system is just or that the lambs approve of their exploitation.
Same here in Belgium. Both the situation and the propaganda about it.
Total tax pressure is extremely high. Government services in Belgium are mediocre at best.
Imagine every public institute disease possible (rent seeking, no skin in the game, resistance to reform, employees not giving a shit, impossible size, …). Then multiply it by the fragmentation between Belgium’s many governments and departments and regions and bureaucracies. Then there's the EU.
But in the end it all depends on whom you ask.
The ever growing group of net receivers of the system are very happy. Multinationals and the very rich don’t care.
Even people who are employed in the private sector don’t care. They have a significant portion of their taxes paid for by their employer. So for them it remains an abstract thing as long as they don’t get fired.
The ones who sweat extremely high taxes the most are self employed people and SMEs. Basically most people who are personally involved with a business and are willing to work very hard to get ahead with something.
But hey, it’s social democracy so the majority is what matters! And boy let me tell you, the majority is very happy with socialism. I bet a lot of them would rather get rid of refugees and immigrants than abort socialism.
And since the majority has got it all figured out, I’m looking to emigrate, away from Utopia.
It’ll have to be Australia or NZ because Canada and the US have closed down. Anything Western outside the EU that’s just slightly behind on the curve is fine.
Yes, of course your anecdote is true and the poll the headline is based on must be lying. My own personal anecdote is that everyone around me thinks the tax level is appropriate and that they are sad whenever the government wants to lower taxes.
I think it's a little bit of both (It's the same in Sweden). It depends on who you ask obviously, but also how you ask.
Do people think they pay a lot of taxes? Yes. Too much? That depends on how you ask. If you ask "would you like to pay less taxes" the answer is generally no. The reason for that isn't that people feel they would rather pay less, only that they would like to get more for it. They are unhappy about waiting for surgery for 6 months (for example) - which they think shouldn't happen because they pay so much in taxes. But when asked whether that meant they'd like to pay less in taxes, the answer is usually "no, I'd like to have a shorter wait for the surgery"...
>The government's plan involves cutting the top rate of income tax by 5 percentage points
>The main idea behind the change, which is now being discussed by parliament, is to make salaried work more attractive and woo some 40,000 people off welfare in the process. Not a bad plan for a country that faces labor shortages and growing pressure on its costly social safety net from an aging population.
This is a sales pitch for tax cuts on the rich, not an idea.
Somebody, somewhere made a campaign contribution and this is their reward.
"Equality is deeply ingrained in a society that resents individuality and success", therefore they would oppose smaller taxes for the poor (same taxes for more affluent).
"Danes treasure their welfare state", therefore they would oppose measures to decrease load on said welfare state while giving unemployed a job.
The sad thing is the US has a focus on taxes not spending. SS, Medicare, State, Local, Federal spending add up to 41% GDP yet taxes are no where near that. But, unlike say Japan at 42% GDP spending we don't get free healthcare etc.
[+] [-] hedgew|9 years ago|reply
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 young people earn through work. My effective tax rate is more than 50% (including mandatory pension payments that are more than 10% of my pre-tax pay). A good part of that goes to pay the pensions of existing retirees. A third of my remaining pay goes into paying rent for the apartments owned by the older generation. In the end, I get around 1.5k euro out of the 7k I cost my company (employers also have to pay additional social and pension payments).
Looking at the current luxurious lifestyle of the older generations, and the rapidly ageing population, and increasing youth unemployment — I want out.
[+] [-] badsock|9 years ago|reply
The real problem is that assets are taxed (sometimes significantly) less than income. We're in a world where assets are becoming much more valuable than labour, but have a taxation and pension scheme that is built for the opposite (post-WWII).
The older generation has assets like houses and stocks. Youth have the ability to work. Here in Canada, the capital gains tax is literally half of what the income tax is. So when old people make their money (house prices go up, investment portfolios increase) while literally not lifting a finger, they get to shift half of their tax burden onto the people that get up every morning and work for a living. /That's/ unfair.
This is all happening in a time when we've got so much cash floating around that interest rates might go negative, which means the usual "oh, but if we tax assets then it will reduce the available investment pool and it will hurt the economy" is complete self-serving horseshit.
Taxes are one of your biggest tools for redressing the screwing over that the younger generation has got. You'd be crazy to consider them the problem. Furthermore, with pensions the older generation basically wrote themselves a blank cheque that the younger generation had to pay. I don't think we should feel obligated to follow it to the letter - and that doesn't have anything to do with tax rates, that's just a contract re-negotiation.
[+] [-] pjc50|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] atemerev|9 years ago|reply
Danish tax is simple and all inclusive. It is around 50%, which is about the same as in US if all hidden obligatory payments are taken into account. But it is all inclusive: all education and healthcare is free in Denmark, and social security grid is immense.
I am a pro-free-market person and Ayn Rand admirer. But even I think that Danish system is not that bad: you just pay 50% of your income to the government immediately, and they do not bother you until the next time. On the other hand, in the US, the IRS will pursuit you relentlessly, there are insane friction multipliers like healthcare insurance rising costs spiral, and everything is so complicated that only lawyers are happy about it.
Free markets only work if the government is separated from the economy. If they are entangled, you are getting the worst of both worlds.
[+] [-] vidarh|9 years ago|reply
No, it isn't. The total tax wedge under OECD definitions, which includes employer payroll taxes, the Danish income tax burden is on average around 38%. Excluding employers payroll taxes it's around 36%.
For comparison, the "all in" number for the US is around 31%.
The OECD average is 36%.
The only OECD country that crosses the 50% mark is Belgium, which consistently is one of the highest tax countries in the world.
You can find this data here [1], and while the publisher isn't exactly neutral, the source for all the data is an OECD publication which is also freely available (I don't have the link handy). The OECD report has far more detail
[1] http://taxfoundation.org/article/comparison-tax-burden-labor...
[+] [-] flexie|9 years ago|reply
Nobody just pays 50 percent. The tax is progressive and there are numerous deductions and special cases. The actual percentage of income paid is closer to 40 for most people. And then there is the mess of indirect taxes. And the details of the tax rules change significantly all the time.
But most of the majority of Danes, which are on some kind of welfare/pension/public education grants (2.2 million out of 4 million voters) and the half of the 1.8 million employed that work for the government, like the current system.
[+] [-] pjc50|9 years ago|reply
I was in my mid-30s before I had to file a tax return, and that's only because I'd set up a limited company. The Inland Revenue (HMRC) can be nasty, but nowhere near as nasty as the benefits accountants. HMRC website is also rather good and you can calculate and file online.
[+] [-] JensRex|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rayiner|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tajen|9 years ago|reply
[1] VAT 20%, employer tax 50%, income tax 14% on the remainder, plus an accountant to understand the law and that makes 63%. Yes, I get I'm supposed to receive benefits from the mandatory insurances, except:
- by design they never apply to the situations I might fall into (unemployment when you're between 2 countries, medical insurance when you travel, retirement going under the poverty levels by the time I'm 60, paraplegic benefit being under 800€ per month for the rest of your life - how are you supposed to live on that?).
- and those taxes don't even succeed at keeping France afloat, because we have a socialist president who's hiring for about $6bn of policemen whose work is just to bust into Muslims' houses. Yeah, unemployment reduced, socialist goal fulfilled. Doesn't sound more social that giving a job to everyone undepending on their race, however.
I'd be ok with 63% retention if it were simple and useful.
[+] [-] VeejayRampay|9 years ago|reply
And even if you take into account the price of college, health care and everything, you'll get to about the same amount but the whole point in the US system is that you do NOT have to pay for other people, cause who needs solidarity in a society.
[+] [-] sausman|9 years ago|reply
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_...
[+] [-] toomanybeersies|9 years ago|reply
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/resources/b/f/bf9db1804ba3cfc08a6ebf...
As for tax returns, it's as simple as going online, adding up your interest earned during the year (most banks will do this for you and send it to you) and adding your dividends earned. It's a bit more work if you do any contracting or freelancing, but it's still simple enough that the vast majority of people can do it while drinking a beer or two on a Sunday afternoon.
[+] [-] masklinn|9 years ago|reply
Lots of citations needed actually, from what I know of it the Belgian tax system sounds pretty similar to the Danish one for employees (most taxes are held directly on salary, there's a year-end tally for deductions and the like if necessary), tax rate is ~40% of income.
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] _of|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ulrikmoe|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cloudjacker|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pjc50|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lumberjack|9 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_se...
[+] [-] ekianjo|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ulrikmoe|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hanspeter|9 years ago|reply
I see myself as an entrepreneur and I am not complaining about taxes. In fact I have a hard time seeing taxes as something working particularly against entrepreneurs.
1) When you're an entrepreneur you keep your salary low and you re-invest the profit in your company. This will limit the amount of taxes you pay personally and in the company.
2) As an entrepreneur you likely have a dream about huge growth in the company and making a lot of money in the end. Why would you worry about having marginally less "lot of money" in the end?
[+] [-] scurvy|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MrJagil|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scarlac|9 years ago|reply
You should meet me.
[+] [-] wodenokoto|9 years ago|reply
Most freelancers I know want out, not because taxes are too high, but because an accountant is too expensive.
[+] [-] iaskwhy|9 years ago|reply
Some people might move to Dubai because its income tax is low or even nil - that attracts people who are more interested in their own well being than their communities'.
Now some people - I would include myself here (rightly or wrongly, it doesn't really matter) - look at countries with high taxes and low inequality and enjoy the idea of a country where the well being of the community might came before than yourself getting rich.
It's all a bit utopical (and, knowing Copenhagen, it really feels a bit off reality) but I can't help not thinking about it.
[+] [-] unknown_apostle|9 years ago|reply
Which is logical. And ok, because obviously there are lots of truly helpless cases in any given country.
But over the decades, it accumulates fraud. Or even worse, a kind of learned helplessness which keeps people in their place. Maybe Denmark is different. But my guess is that many living in Belgium and France will be able to point out multiple cases of fraud or at least debatable cases in their immediate surroundings.
Finally, a lot of the available money never leaves the hands of the vast bureaucratic caste that manages the system.
I guess what I want to say: people will be people, regardless of the system. Social democracy involves a lot of cynicism and greed too. And probably in a less constructive way than systems that don't rely exclusively on "anonymous" Big State-enforced redistribution.
[+] [-] Shivetya|9 years ago|reply
The generations who came up in the early 1900s, twenties, thirties, and even forties, have a vastly different outlook than those that followed. You were entitled to do right, you were not entitled to take.
[+] [-] hanspeter|9 years ago|reply
The word "skat" means treasure. That's why we also use it as a word for our sweethearts.
[+] [-] jonatron|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] egman_ekki|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alkonaut|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vixen99|9 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] dpatru|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rayiner|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] EJTH|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown_apostle|9 years ago|reply
Same here in Belgium. Both the situation and the propaganda about it.
Total tax pressure is extremely high. Government services in Belgium are mediocre at best.
Imagine every public institute disease possible (rent seeking, no skin in the game, resistance to reform, employees not giving a shit, impossible size, …). Then multiply it by the fragmentation between Belgium’s many governments and departments and regions and bureaucracies. Then there's the EU.
But in the end it all depends on whom you ask.
The ever growing group of net receivers of the system are very happy. Multinationals and the very rich don’t care.
Even people who are employed in the private sector don’t care. They have a significant portion of their taxes paid for by their employer. So for them it remains an abstract thing as long as they don’t get fired.
The ones who sweat extremely high taxes the most are self employed people and SMEs. Basically most people who are personally involved with a business and are willing to work very hard to get ahead with something.
But hey, it’s social democracy so the majority is what matters! And boy let me tell you, the majority is very happy with socialism. I bet a lot of them would rather get rid of refugees and immigrants than abort socialism.
And since the majority has got it all figured out, I’m looking to emigrate, away from Utopia.
It’ll have to be Australia or NZ because Canada and the US have closed down. Anything Western outside the EU that’s just slightly behind on the curve is fine.
[+] [-] simongray|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alkonaut|9 years ago|reply
Do people think they pay a lot of taxes? Yes. Too much? That depends on how you ask. If you ask "would you like to pay less taxes" the answer is generally no. The reason for that isn't that people feel they would rather pay less, only that they would like to get more for it. They are unhappy about waiting for surgery for 6 months (for example) - which they think shouldn't happen because they pay so much in taxes. But when asked whether that meant they'd like to pay less in taxes, the answer is usually "no, I'd like to have a shorter wait for the surgery"...
[+] [-] tobltobs|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jwally|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crdoconnor|9 years ago|reply
>The main idea behind the change, which is now being discussed by parliament, is to make salaried work more attractive and woo some 40,000 people off welfare in the process. Not a bad plan for a country that faces labor shortages and growing pressure on its costly social safety net from an aging population.
This is a sales pitch for tax cuts on the rich, not an idea.
Somebody, somewhere made a campaign contribution and this is their reward.
[+] [-] VMG|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] guard-of-terra|9 years ago|reply
"Equality is deeply ingrained in a society that resents individuality and success", therefore they would oppose smaller taxes for the poor (same taxes for more affluent).
"Danes treasure their welfare state", therefore they would oppose measures to decrease load on said welfare state while giving unemployed a job.
Somethig is amiss here.
[+] [-] redthrow|9 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ar0ri9NLArs
[+] [-] perseusprime11|9 years ago|reply
http://www.hoover.org/research/flat-tax-solution
[+] [-] Retric|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ekianjo|9 years ago|reply