[Chrono]

Dividend is generally taxed at 30% in Sweden so a fair bit of that will be paid in taxes. Depending on how Notch decides to pay out the money to the employees they may have to pay even more.

If it is paid out evenly and as wages it will be about 66k SEK/month per employee, that puts them well into the top tax bracket. Assuming the tax authority counts it as normal income they will be force to pat ~56% income tax a fair bit of social securities and employer tax. Assuming this they might get about (as a guesstimate) 20-25k SEK/m or 240-300k SEK total, after taxes. Not shabby at all, that is close to what an average worker in Sweden earns per year. And that is bonus alone.

None the less; Cheers Notch for thinking about your employees! : )

Edit: Gifts are no longer taxed in Sweden, luckily! but it is likely that the tax authority will regard it as income or bonus rather than a gift.

[orjan]

I don't see how it can be payed out as wages. The dividend is payed out to Notch. Thereafter, it is his private money, to spend as he see fit. When he hands out the money, it is coming from him, not from Mojang. I can see how the tax office could disagree with this, though... Not sure how it's going to work out in the end, but I'd like a followup to this.

[zerostar07]

It would make sense if he decided not to distribute dividend but instead bonuses. It seems like he 's going to get taxed twice now.

[AJ007]

Notch has tweeted complaints about taxes before. Unfortunately with 16,000+ tweets I can't reference them.

[driverdan]

56% income tax? That. is. insane.

[hessenwolf]

I must be around that here in Germany, but my life quality is so insanely high that I can't complain. And if I become unemployed, go back to education, or become sick, it'll make zero difference to my living quality.

[Volpe]

Sure if you believe in inequality/social injustice...

I believe most first-world economies have some form of wealth redistribution[1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redistribution_of_wealth

[tjogin]

Paying for health care and high education is insane.

[ontIgnoreRealit]

56% is a sane top tax rate if you feel that you make enough money and you feel that you want to contribute to the infrastructure and services that the government provides.

56% is a low top marginal tax rate. The United States had a top marginal income tax rate that was higher than 56% between 1932 and 1980. It was 90% between 1950 and 1963.

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Doc...

[rmc]

What you're don't want the place to wind up like America, do you?

(This is how some places view USA, as an example of what to avoid)

[orjan]

I found this list of marginal taxes: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/tax_hig_mar_tax_rat_ind_ra...

While Sweden is high on the list, they're actually not in the number one spot -- that's Denmark. USA is in 37th place with a marginal tax of 35%.

[zerostar07]

I haven't seen it discussed much, but i actually find it odd that tax brackets have an upper end. The tax rate should be a formula that keeps increasing with wealth.