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Comment by boulos | Hacker News Reader

Actually, the marginal tax rate on $1M in California is over 50% (37 federal plus 13.3 state).

For 200k (euros), that's $250k or so which is 35% federal (single filer), 9.3% California for 44.3%. (Which I would argue isn't that far off).

It would probably be more useful to compare effective tax rates and what you get for them. In the US, Social Security applies to the first $147k now (so on $250k that's 3.6% effective), but you also get a small retirement income. In Finland, I assume people get services in exchange for those taxes that you might be paying for in the US (e.g., healthcare, childcare, education, and retirement income), so you can't just compare using "what are relative tax rates like?" as a question.

tl;dr: taxes and services are nuanced!

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Exactly. Yes my salary in France was more than half my salary in the US.

But a very large chuck of the difference are “cotisations” a word that does not exists in English and is often inaccurately translated to “taxes”.

Those cotisations is money I will get back once old, sick, or un-employed. It can’t be spend on buying new fighter jet or fixing the roads.

That’s the same as social security and Medicare “cotisations” except we just call them taxes. There’s also unemployment but I believe it’s by state and comes out of your states income tax, if they have one.

I find the difference between cotisations and taxes meaningful.

Specially in a context where one side of the political spectrum is constantly pushing to reduce the tax burden. Cotisations can be set aside in that discussion ( because, they are not taxes, you are guaranteed to see the money back in a specific and personal way )

Another difference is that French folks rely and plan to use the equivalent of Medicaid more. Here; my understanding is that it’s a nice bonus. ( I might be wrong )

Very true - the other side to this is it's a _LOT_ harder to get to 200k+ in Europe than in California.

Anyway, I like the EU, but it still is a harder place to build wealth on the whole. Where I am you pay tax on _unrealized_ gains in ETF's (called deemed disposal), CGT is high (33%), and you get much less advantage saving for retirement than in the US.

On the other hand, if I lose my job, unemployment benefits more than cover our monthly expenses if we pare back a bit. Our overhead is low.

If it tells you anything I went back to California to start a company. Then, after someone drove a car in to my wife and the cop lied about her statement and she was lucky not to get a huge bill (it was the first few months of Obamacare before the horrific deductibles came in), AND she took her 1 week of vacation and that was it for the year, we decided to hell with that and moved back to the EU.

The maximum out of pocket expense for 2021 is $17k or so for a family, and even in CA, maximum premiums should be ~$25k per year for a family of 4, maybe closer to $30k if parents are age 55+.

At a million dollars of salary, that is not going to make a difference to anyone, especially because most of the $30k premiums will be paid by employer, so you are left spending $20k out of pocket maximum including your portion of the premiums.

I would just add $15k for a single person / $30k for a family to tax expenses to compare relative taxes for an employer person in US vs EU.

I never argued anything different, though million dollar pay is very, very rare.

I was trying to give an idea of what horrific deductible would be. Probably less than $5k per year, and out of pocket maximum less than $10k even for a family. Healthcare expenses are not material to employees of tech companies…as long as they remain employees.

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