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Comment by nwiswell | Hacker News Reader

Honestly, it really is true that upper middle class and wealthy Americans pay less tax than their European counterparts.

VAT is broadly much higher than sales tax, property taxes are not exactly unknown in Europe, and if you are an employed professional, your health insurance burden is typically pretty close to zero.

If you live in a no-income-tax state like Washington or Texas, and you are single making $200,000 a year, your effective (not marginal) tax rate, including FICA, is around 26%. I doubt that anywhere in Europe comes close.

The flip side is that poor people in America absolutely get shafted.

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Except that our social safety nets are practically non-existent. I bet if you made a middle-class comparison where you took a bunch of the typical EU social benefits, and equated the private costs middle class Americans pay to take care of them privately (healthcare, especially for a family, care of elder relatives, how much they'll need to save up to put their kids in college and retire even meagerly on their private income, etc)... I bet the Americans come out on the losing end of it on average.

I haven't calculated in financial terms which side would be the losing one but when I think about the stress and insecurity it brings, to always be on the edge to not lose your job and avoid struggle in your family. To always be only dependent on yourself while living in a society. It's maddening, I see lots of parallels to Brazilian society and it isn't healthy, even less to such a rich nation.

By my math, I'm come out with around 62.5% of my base income per year. But that includes a payment to pension. I pay for health myself (around €100 per month) but if something happens to me, I'm covered on some things. [edit: based in Ireland]

Bulgaria has a 10% flat tax. Hungary 15% flat tax. There are others.

Do they have payroll taxes? I struggle to see how you could run a pension system at those tax rates.

The 26% figure above does include the FICA payroll tax.

And a software engineer makes $50k there.

Only if they work for a local company. If you work for a richer EU country or the US, you can do very well financially.

>" If you work for a richer EU country or the US, you can do very well financially."

Will richer EU country and US companies pay you better than your local wage bracket in the EU? How do you find that? This sounds like the best of both worlds. I'm guessing its tricky?

> Will richer EU country and US companies pay you better than your local wage bracket in the EU?

Of course. Competition to find better remote talent.

> How do you find that? This sounds like the best of both worlds. I'm guessing its tricky?

You have less bargaining power because you are competing in a bigger pool of remote workers. There is a little problem with timezones. But you can get $100K+. If you're good and got connections you can get SF/NY wage wherever you are.

Been thinking about moving to Europe while continuing to work for US companies. But it may difficult to maintain full time status while in the EU. On the other hands, there are plenty of contract jobs I can take on then move to the EU. My biggest problems are: 1) how does one manage works hours in different timezones? Perhaps one can make arrangements? 2) tax: should I take my earning into a personal account in the US/EU? Or alternatively start a corp and do corp to corp without and only pay myself minimum amount? 3) tax: do I pay taxes in the US and in the EU? Do they go after my US corporate?

I know those are difficult questions to answer but I want to put themnout there

> 1) how does one manage works hours in different timezones?

I simply only apply to jobs where I work on my timezone. We have some meetings that end at 6PM locally.

> 2) tax: should I take my earning into a personal account in the US/EU?

Depends on your residency. And depends on the law of the country you end up residing in.

> Or alternatively start a corp and do corp to corp without and only pay myself minimum amount? 3) tax: do I pay taxes in the US and in the EU? Do they go after my US corporate?

You'll maybe need a VISA on the new country were you reside. Easiest would be a working visa. The country may have an agreement with USA where they run a sql-query to find tax-evaders and join it with a table of residents.

You might be found out. The USA may come after you for taxes on revenue of I believe +$150K/year. The USA has some fancy global taxation.

https://www.greenbacktaxservices.com/blog/foreign-earned-inc...

As a US citizen, you still have to file taxes. But can save a bunch depending on your situation.

>"Been thinking about moving to Europe while continuing to work for US companies. But it may difficult to maintain full time status while in the EU."

I'm curious are you an EU citizen already? If not I believe you would need a US company that has an EU entity which could supply you with Blue Card in order to work in the EU.

How many people are making 200k a year in a no-income state? 1%? This isn’t the point you think you’re making.

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