As a European I want mistral and EU to do well. But at the same time, I wouldn’t actually give up my well paid engineering job outside of EU to even entertain working for them in EU. Too low salaries and too high taxes.
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This is a pervasive misconception in the industry, and a very dull trope on HN. Your income tax makes it possible to create a livable society in the EU. You get much more free time and are protected from a lot of random life events, even if you work in a McDonalds counter and not as a software engineer. You have rent, healthcare, protection from landlords. Not perfect, but at least the direction is there.
Solely profit-optimizing free market thinking destroys society and the planet.
Plus, even if you do prefer the American way (and I could see why), it seems fanatic for people to not recognize the clear benefits of the European model.
> ...it seems fanatic...
More like brainwashed. The propaganda for the American Way of Life™ is relentless.
The main brunt of the taxes in percentage terms still falls on the regular employees. Companies and wealthy individuals find ways to avoid them same as everywhere else, hence the feeling of injustice.
How do you divorce being a European principally from being willing to pay taxes? What part of being uniquely European do you value that does not fundamentally require taxes?
The problem with taxes in Europe are that the ultra-wealthy don't pay them. That burden is particularly focused on those who are high wage earners. If I look at my own country, as a high earner I'm paying close to a 50% effective tax rate (a little less with mortgage interest deductions). However the billionaire families who own the beer brewers, shipping companies and agraculture companies are paying well under 0.5% effective. They pay less than in the US. Due to this reason we're one of the most infamous tax dodge countries in Europe, apparently the Swedish and German billionaires have tax residency to avoid paying it.
Effective tax rates for European ultra rich seem to be ~50x that from my googling. Is there a source for the “well under 0.5% effective”?
Perhaps you’re thinking of wealth taxes rather than effective tax rates? https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/effectivetaxrate.asp
He is, the rich pay normal tax and in Sweden (~52-55% effective), includes extra tax on high income. Even dividend tax is 30%
Ikea use my country - The Netherland - to avoid paying tax. Same thing that Google and go co with Ireland. They have literal custom agreements with our tax office.
Rich don’t have income, they have wealth.
And the oligarchs in Sweden pay very little taxes.
> Rich don't have income
Wouldn't rich people still have dividends, interest, and possibly executive compensation and capital gains? And if, for example, their money is in a business, that business would be paying all taxes as well, both resulting in tax revenue, and less for the investor? Or is there a source that they don’t have income?
> oligarchs in Sweden pay very little taxes
How are you quantifying that claim? From what I can find, the top 1% pay 10-15% of Sweden’s total tax revenue, presumably a far larger share than any other similarly sized group? Or what's the quantification you're using?
The obscenely rich in Sweden are for the most part so because they own companies that grew a lot in value, when their stock was issued its value was low so they paid very little taxes on it. If they sell stock they pay 30% on profit from it, which is not a lot of tax on possibly billions.
They may also avoid selling by taking out loans instead, and just pay interest rather than any taxes.
This doesn't mean that the rich are not paying taxes or are not paying for a larger % of taxes in total, but they're far from paying their fair share because most of their wealth didn't come from income. Regular employees have higher effective tax rates, even more so if they're issued RSUs.
I have to say, I visited Zurich once, and everything was clean, organized, civilized, and pretty. Friends told me taxes are high but you get great education, great healthcare, decent disposable income, and good transportation. If you get laid off, the state continues paying your previous salary for one (two?) years.
If everything is taken care of me from taxes, why do I need money? Take it all.
Switzerland is the closest you can get to USA without leaving Europe. Taxes in Zurich are lower than in the Bay Area, at will employment, healthcare that is primarily funded by flat fees rather than income tax, etc. Even the constitution was originally inspired by the American one.
FWIW Zurich feels like that to me too, and I'm from the Netherlands :)
Well, Zurich is everything but representative of Europe. Switzerland has much lower taxes and higher salaries than the rest of Europe.
Switzerland has about the same taxes as most of Europe, but the taxes are spread between federal, cantonal, and municipal taxes. The combined marginal rate in Switzerland can reach 45%.
Switzerland also has a wealth tax.
TLDR: Switzerland is not the low-tax fantasy wonderland many people believe it to be.
Switzerland can reach 45% with huge salaries. Spain, for example, reaches 45% from 60k€ a year. Switzerland is much more progressive and salaries are definitely much higher than in most of Europe.
Ok, but then why are Scandinavian billionaires emigrating to Switzerland?
Personal wealth above ca. $215000 (with primary residence counted at 25% of its market value, and debt subtracted) is taxed at 1% in Norway, rising to 1.1% above $2.2 million. Presumably whatever wealth tax Switzerland has is lower than that?
Theoretically, Switzerland allows for foreigners immigrating to the country a one-time opportunity to negotiate long-term favorable tax deals to lower their tax rates. This is only available to non-Swiss foreigners with significant assets moving to Switzerland, because their assets become subject to the Swiss wealth tax.
But despite what they said to the media, they weren't moving because of the wealth taxes. If they were moving because of the Scandinavian wealth taxes, they would have moved to the U.K. or the U.S., which don't have wealth taxes at all. Instead, they moved to another country with a wealth tax and a relatively high income tax.
So clearly it was never about the taxes. It was either politics, or they just liked Switzerland better. When you're super rich, Switzerland is a much nicer place to live than Norway or Sweden.
I believe that there are some Swiss regional authorities (called cantons, I believe) that have lower taxes. This may be where people are moving to.
Yeah, as an American, I think the thing that breaks the American brain is that you can have taxes that don’t just line the pockets of billionaires—that you can pay taxes and get high quality services as a result. There are so many conservative and libertarian Americans who think that taxes are necessarily squandered while they simultaneously elect politicians who insist on squandering taxes so they can prove that taxes will be squandered.
Not OP but to respond to your question, like everything, there is a scale to this question. Would you give to the state 30% of your income to pay for public services? Most people would say yes.
What about 40%? 50%?
Most people agree that taxes need to be paid for the common good of society. However, many people disagree about the correct amount and increasingly about the usage of said taxes.
That is the real problem in my opinion.
> Would you give to the state 30% of your income to pay for public services? Most people would say yes. What about 40%? 50%?
I pay about 6% for public services, around 8% for health insurance, and around 25% for the public pension insurance. The issue isn't taxes, it's almost entirely demographics.
Not every EU country has a high tax burden. Rates are generally much fairer in Eastern Europe and the Baltics.
So I wouldn’t say high taxes are fundamentally European.
So just because someone is born in Europe they should automatically believe that the taxation system is flawless and salaries sufficient?
No
No but to come to Europa, you get less differences in wealth (essentially) universal healthcare at low/reasonable cost (ie, I can get cancer and not feel it financially), and a lot of state support when you're out of a job. Etc. Thos things cost tax money.
>you get less differences in wealth
Yes so if you were in the higher percentiles of wealth, like many engineers in the US, you'd end up with less wealth in Europe, while if you were in the lower percentiles then in Europe you'd end up with more wealth. That's how redistribution works, the top 10% of income earners end up with less (even after accounting for healthcare and education; they get back less then they put in), and US software engineers are in the top 10% of income earners.
Could these software engineers be bankrupt if they are hit by a serious illness? Say progressive MS or a cancer, which will require extensive sick days? It is there protection?
(this is an actual question, not an ironic one)
Getting less benefit than a lower bracket isn't the same as getting less than you put in and conflating them is misleading or, if intentional, deceitful.
I wonder why googles biggest European office is in the low tax high salary country of Switzerland
That's the biggest engineering office, but not the biggest overall European Google office, right? That would be in low tax low salary Ireland.
> low tax low salary Ireland.
Ireland is neither of those, fwiw. I get pretty decent money here, and pay a marginal rate of 52% on everything over 80k.
Zurich is third behind Dublin (definitely for tax reasons) and London.
I'm very happy to pay high taxes in Europe, and enjoy everything that they bring.
But working in UE gives you much stronger job protection.
So, in a way, you get what you pay for.
But that is a the problem though. You get stronger job protection because its very hard to find a job. If you could find a new job quickly and if the job market was more fluid, you would only rarely need this sort of job protection.
Compared to what I have heard about the US, I'd say it is actually easier to find jobs in (at least Western) Europe. Plenty of jobs, and a way easier interview process. Not 8 rounds of interviews and months of waiting (that I've heard of). But maybe two rounds in the same week and start the next month (if you want).
I have never struggled to find a new job quickly in Europe.
This is a fair point to be honest. But I about 4x’d my take-home salary and get to work on more cutting edge tech, with more impact than in EU.
I did work on some cool medical device and ML tech back in EU, associated with a university and later a start up. But regulation became a PITA.
I would become a patriotic European too, but only after our leaders at the national and EU level stop being transatlanticist sellouts... which won't happen any time soon.
What's a "transatlanticist sellout"?
Move to Luxembourg then.
you get much more for your taxes than in the US though
True, I agree. But it does suck working in tech on a “medium” salary when your overseas colleagues do the same work and earn much more.
What I probably miss the most about EU (apart from family) is good food.
I had the opposite food experience in the EU, but I'll admit my experience is mostly Spain.
In the US there's usually a good variety of food from all different cultures available. When I spent two months in Spain, I got really, really tired of the same three seasonings the Spanish put on everything. I craved Mexican food like crazy the whole time.
Spanish food is great, don't get me wrong - I wish we had it here in the sticks where I live - but I'm used to a bit more variety.
earning more is relative to your COL