[john567]

No it's not. I'm currently contemplating leaving my country of residence because absurd tax rates. I'm a productive member of society and high earner but I'm starting to loose faith in my institutions. If you keep on taxing, and fail your responsibilities, people get fed up and leave, that's what they do. Only the people that don't have the means to leave stay creating a particular nasty downward spiral of people without jobs and home ownership dependent on government subsidies.

[nicoburns]

> If you keep on taxing, and fail your responsibilities, people get fed up and leave,

Well sure. But that's probably true of "fail your responsibilities" regardless of tax rate. Nobody wants to live in a state without a well-functioning government.

[ForHackernews]

> No it's not. I'm currently contemplating leaving my country

Cool, your N=1 anecdote completely invalidates all the statistical research in that area.

[Aeolun]

Since the article is about state taxes, and the OP is talking about national taxes, I don’t think they’re mutually exclusive.

[john567]

N=1 isn't an argument either. I'm simply saying what a lot of people in my situation also thinks. It's just sensible that you don't stay because you like paying taxes. You stay where you are because of family and friends. To say that it doesn't influence people decision is deceiving.

> all the statistical research in that area.

Calling BS on that right there

[throwaway2037]

Where is your country of residence? What is your effective tax rate? (Please don't tell me about your top marginal rate -- that is nonsense unless you have a enormous taxable income.) What do you think is the "correct" tax rate for your income level?

[john567]

Sweden, the way I think we should look at it is the discrepancy between what my employer is paying me and what I receive in my bank account.

That's 51.8% of what I make. That is the government is taking just slightly more than half of everything I earn.

In order to answer what I think is reasonable to pay in tax, we need to look at what the Swedish government spends it's money on. Core infrastructure, health care, school, police etc. This is about 30% of the current government spending. That is frightening to me. I'd be happy to pay less in tax, frankly I want to pay as little as possible but Sweden has this huge government apparatus and it's growing by the day with all kinds of more or less non-essential government arms. I could go into details but I won't right now. I just don't want to finance a lot of this with my money.

It won't be possible any time soon but I'd love to see my tax rate cut in half and given the spending of our governments it should be possible but only if we make it a priority.