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Comment by iak8god | Hacker News Reader

> Around here car taxes, road taxes, "environmental taxes" on fuel etc adds up to a whole lot more than the combined price of road maintenance and so on.

That's really different from the situation in the States and the UK which is where I've seen the actual numbers.

I'm not a heavy user of fuel, so may be a bit biased on this, but it seems really sensible to me to use taxes to compensate for externalities. For instance, I'd guess based on my general impressions of Scandanavia and other civilized places that Norway has publicly-funded universal healthcare. Good on you for that. Now, doesn't it make sense for some of the taxes on owning and using an automobile to go toward public health? In my country, collisions involving cars are a leading source of injury and death. Elsewhere in this thread are estimates of the health impacts of auto emissions -- they are significant.

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> For instance, I'd guess based on my general impressions of Scandanavia and other civilized places that Norway has publicly-funded universal healthcare. Good on you for that.

Thanks! The first time I really understood the North American model where people have to pay to send their kids to college or go to the doctor, that was an eye opener for me. I now happily pay my taxes.

> Now, doesn't it make sense for some of the taxes on owning and using an automobile to go toward public health?

Absolutely. I think I mentioned it in the post. The part I don't like is where they call it road tax or environmental tax only to go ahead and use it for something completely different.

> The part I don't like is where they call it road tax or environmental tax only to go ahead and use it for something completely different.

Well, even a little honesty may be too much to expect from politicians anywhere.

I'm guessing you were downvoted above by people who had trouble imagining the existence of a place where automobile ownership and use is taxed to the levels you describe.

> I'm guessing you were downvoted above by people who had trouble imagining

That's what I thought too.

(I had a feeling a few days ago that someone who recently got their downvote privilege has been a little extra triggerhappy but I'm not sure. This is the first time I got hit.)

I honestly don't understand where most tax dollars go in the U.S. I'm in Korea at the moment and the tax burden is overall very light when compared to the States, but the level of service you receive is absolutely tremendous for the most part.

Example, if you make over around $85,000 USD, you fall into the maximum tax bracket, which is 35%. Most people pay around 25%. As a foreigner, I can also pay an alternative 17.5% instead.

There's also a 10% surtax at all income levels. So I can really get by with about 18.5% income tax (and there's all kinds of easy deductions).

> Example, if you make over around $85,000 USD, you fall into the maximum tax bracket, which is 35%.

In the US, the maximum income bracket has a 39.6% marginal rate and is reached at $400,001 in AGI for a single filer; the (weirdly narrow) 35% bracket starts at $398,351.

So if Korea has a 35% top bracket, witha 10% surtax, that starts around $85,000 USD, I'm not seeing how that's "overall very light when compared to the States".

Hmmm...maybe you're right. For some reason I feel like I pay less here. I definitely get more service at least.

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