The logical conclusion is that tax rate directly correlates with happiness.
Because we’ve been lied to so well that we can “Make it!” that we never accept the idea we’ll never make it in the USA.
Ironically, the USA rank only 27th in the Global Social Mobility Index. The 1st is… Denmark, followed by other Northern Europe countries with high tax rates.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Social_Mobility_Index
You have more chance of “making it” in Denmark, providing you accept “making it” means getting a cozy comfortable life and not becoming filthy rich.
Those red boxes aren’t nearly clear enough, here, I improved it!
thanks brother <3
Found a better version i think
Thanks for this, I wasn’t sure where to look.
I am still unsure. What are those long squiggly things in the red boxes?
I got you!
The one asking about taxes and how they ruin your life is always the dum dum
Yeah, I don’t understand why those red boxes were added in the first place.
Americans are also obsessed with the notion their taxes would benefit anyone but themselves.
I don’t understand why no one can grasp the concept. If your taxes benefit you, and the homeless guy on the corner, that means you’re getting more value from your taxes.
I’m wondering if that could have ANY relation with oligarchs controlled medias repeating all day long how bad taxes are and how inefficient public anything is.
Edit: and adding this: conservatives (not MAGA, racists, etc. I mean genuine conservatives) are generally not against the idea of paying to help homeless, poors, etc. They are against the idea to defer that to the government. They want to make donations themselves. That boosts the ego, and that also allows them to cherry pick who deserves their help, and government is inefficient-blablabla. The irony of the logic is non-profit typically spend 20–40% of their budget on fund raising and administration. This is not a very efficient system from an economic standpoint. As for choosing who to help, they end up rewarding marketing skills rather than ranking who needs the most their help.
I think the problem arises when you pay a crapton on taxes, and then comes a billionaire that makes millions of profits and pays zero.
So then the average person gets angry about inequality but instead of demanding that everyone pay their share they think “who knows how many other cheaters are out there. If we can’t hold them accountable, then I want to pay less too!”.
Which of course is the wrong way to go about it but alas
It’s a cultural thing that’s hard to even push back against. Like, I want people to be helped, I want nobody to have to go hungry or have to live on the streets or go broke from medical bills, regardless of how they live, and I know that taxes are the most effective way to do that, but still I find myself instinctively framing it as “taxes are the cheapest way for me to ensure I don’t have to deal with a homeless person begging outside my apartment”
Also I think the idea that we’re each personally entitled to approve of everything the government spends tax money on is a long game from the right to combat things like pushes for universal health care, government assistance of reproductive healthcare (I first saw this about abortion), and really any form of the government actually helping people instead of demanding charity make up the difference
Considering the rising National debt due to the insane “Proclaimed Defence” cost and the US Aid ti israel and starting wars on its behalf
I think they are right!
I argued at length with an American who used to hang out in my friend group for a while. He couldn’t stand the idea that his taxes would pay for anything other than his own problems. He called it “giving free handouts”.
He’d repeatedly use arguments like “but if my taxes pay for healthcare, I’d be wasting my money on morbidly obese people who created their own problems”.
He also loved status and exclusivity.
…and he also fails to note how miserable his life would be if not for taxes from others.
The guy is really well off. Works a desk job pushing finance papers for the American military. He believes his well paid job secures him from relying on anything at all.
america is obsessed with taxes of other countries yet they dont like paying taxes in thier own countries, probably projecting and living vacariously through what high taxes can benefit people.
Thank the Lord in heaven, in Jesus name and the holy Trinity there were two red boxes to show me what to read.
I’d like to thank my parents, my wife, and most importantly my coach. Without them I would be unable to find the red boxes.
US tax rate is only like 5% less too. We wouldn’t even have to pay higher taxes to get most of what other countries get. We’re just dumb fucks who see all our money going to the military and can’t even be bothered to vote once every 4 years. It’s pathetic
It’s also because they pay their workers a living wage, which we don’t in the USA.
Made it more clear for everyone who couldn’t find the info.
Doing the Lord’s work. I missed half of OP due to lack of red outlines.
OOP shoulda just edited the CSS to add
* { border: 1px red solid; }
Ohhhhhh I’m supposed to laugh thank you for the emojis!
Shit, I thought it was a fight to the death what with all the bleeding going on. Or wait, is it a funny fight to the death?
No clue but the emojis mean you legally have to at least exhale through your nose slightly harder than normal once.
now I get it!
I hope you don’t mind, the language of your screen caught my attention and it made me curious. How many languages do you speak or study? I see you’re from Brazil, with a computer apparently using Dutch, while using English on a forum. That’s really cool.
I’ve already added this to user CSS. Without it, the web is just unusable.
lol
Eh? I still don’t get it. Can you make it more clear?
The flag of my new socialist microstate.
The great nation of Taxmania.
If you dig under Texas, the nation of Taxes is on the reverse side.
My Micronation of Tax Tex Mex Sex will never stand for this!
we like our chairs.
Taxmaxia was so close …
Is there a /c/flagsthatgohard?
There should be.
I think I got the important bits there
Much better. People like you are what keeps the world working.
We’re getting close here. Can we add some dick drawings?
i dunno. the air force is still on discipline from the last time
Simple and effective. The same way I read my book. One day I might even finish it.
The same way I
readred my book.ftfy
It is red!
Don’t mention the fact that 40% of premiums go to shareholders and admin fees
But…. Jackasses will tell you, I don’t have kids, why should I pay for education and daycare? Etc. etc.
Shit, if we had the government of Denmark I would have a kid.
Because someone needs to manage your health issues eventually for starters.
Unrelated: love your name
Thanks very much
Point taken
⬆️
we ARE socialists AND we’re better at accounting
Fixed some typos
Socialism is just smart: organizing expensive stuff at really large scale, without greedy shareholders, just makes it more effective.
All it takes is an efficiently organized government and a voting system that works for the people, not the elites
No, Denmark is not socialist. Socialized services under capitalism and literally collectivizing ownership of industry under socialism are very different regimes, even though they stem from a common conceptual foundation and share a linguistic root. Neither are bad ideas! But the former is still literally capitalism.
Nordic counties are social democracies (which is what you explained) not socialist
They still operate within the boundaries of capitalism with a free market except with a strong welfare state. The means of production aren’t l owned by the workers.
Also in Europe strong welfare state means mediocre welfare state that 5/7 parties constantly try to get rid of…
democratic socialism is more of a liberal thing and not the same as socialism.
You mean social democracy instead of democratic socialism
probably.
but this feels like that life of Brian sketch
I know what you mean. The names are similar but they mean vastly different things
I’m not disagreeing, I’ll admit I it wrong, and a bit funny
Could you direct me to the judean people’s front ?
I also live in a country with very high tax and I’d need to make more than 120k USD per year to have the same standard of living if I lived in the USA. It’s impossible to make that much driving trains and also working 40 hours a week in the US as far as I know. Lower tier blue collar work is even worse.
Low tax is for billionaires.
Yeah exactly, we don’t pay our workers a living wage in the USA, it’s very well documented at this point. It’s a pay problem.
I did the math in the USA. When I was married with kids my effective rate for a the highest year was 52%. My last year as a single male and all kids over 26, it was 46%. Effective, not marginal, because that matters in the USA as we don’t track those “other salary deductions” for taxes. Effective for those ready to argue include stupid shit like deductibles, copays, uncovered care, out of network care (that happens more than you think with kids). one year we spent 40k (max. In network deductible) because one of my kids had a spiral fracture of his leg on a growth section that had he not endured 3 (THREE) surgeries, he would be left side shorter. That was 190k for all surgeries and 40k out of pocket. Dental, HSA, FSA, Vision, Medical… People need to realize that even though its pre tax, you’re still paying for it and that needs to be considered for effective rate.
I was offered a job in Denmark, so I know this for fact: Denmark was a near match at marginal rate to USA effective rate assuming I never needed critical care in the USA (i would be in debt). BUT, Denmark has effective tax rates in the 40% for those making less than 85k (USD). I think there’s a rich person tax above that at 49%, but I never accepted the job because my Ex wife was a shithead so I didn’t find out.
I’m now in spain paying around 47% effective, but get Beckhams law will make that be 24% at tax time for the next 10 years. After that I need to pay like everyone else and at 10 years I get a pension (small one) for spain.
So yes, Americans pay more. Waaaaay more.
Also wages might be higher in well paying jobs that people on Lemmy seem to have, but plenty of people in the US are dirt poor even with jobs. In Europe that happens as well but I feel like they often have more stability though tenant and worker rights and things like that. So at least you won’t be fired on the spot from your lousy job or have to renegotiate rent every few months.
Yeah, here in the UK if you’ve worked somewhere for longer than three months then your employer has to have good cause to let you go. Thanks to the Tories, we don’t get full employee rights until two years, so if, after two years we’re made redundant, we can claim redundancy pay. But in the meantime, if you feel you’ve been treated unfairly you can claim unfair dismissal. You might have some success at getting some lost earnings, but you’ll have to represent yourself because there’s no hope of getting legal aid for that. However, the tribunals who hear the cases often tend to lean towards the employee. Or at least, that was the case when I went through it some years ago.
And if you are let go, then you can immediately claim unemployment benefits, which really aren’t great, but they do come with the added benefit of free prescriptions.
Correction: We pay waaaay more for waaaay less.
That is a perfect Tl;dr. Heh
190k is a very large amount, I’m not sure if by 40k out of pocket you mean the insurance covered the rest.
Still, 40k is a lot of money and 190k is pretty much my salary for the next 10 years. I’m sure jobs are a bit better paid in the US; but I’m also quite convinced it is not that common to have that amount of money laying around.
An expense like that falling on you can definitely ruin your life.
I borrowed money to pay for it. I was lucky, very lucky.
