48 ms·

Tax returns should be public. Like in Norway. That would sort out all kinds of "payment gap" issues as well.

TrackerFF 4y ago
Kinda, sorta. The public tax returns we have in Norway do not say: - Where the income comes from (could be many sources) - Whether or not there were any serious deductions At the very best, you'll get a figure with lots of variance. Say you sell a house / apartment, and made $xxk on that one. That one will get lumped in with your regular income. Same if you sell some stock / equity.
dijit 4y ago
Tax returns are public in Sweden too. I would guess it's the same in Denmark (even if they're not quite as socialist); Perhaps Finland. But the majority of tech in Europe is: Dublin, Berlin and Amsterdam. AFAIK none of those have host countries which publicly disclose tax information;
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >But the majority of tech in Europe is: Dublin, Berlin and Amsterdam. And Zurich and London (non-EU).
  - dijit 4y ago
    Ah yes, I totally forgot the non-EU ones. Zurich IME is more in line with Californian salaries though.
    - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
      While being more expensive than California.
      - hiq 4y ago
        You can't compare Zurich with California. According to Wikipedia, California is 10 times as big as Switzerland. Rent is usually the biggest part of expenses and the prices are crazier in the SV than in Zurich (the city). Maybe you were not referring to the SV, but then you have places 30min away (by train) from Zurich that are also way cheaper.
- ptr 4y ago
  Sweden and Denmark don’t differ in how much “socialist” they are. Also, they’re not socialist countries.
  - dijit 4y ago
    Sweden & Denmark favour high taxes and social responsibility; I'm sure you are aware but in socialist countries, healthcare, education and economic support are all provided free to every citizen, regardless of how much they earn. Sweden & Denmark absolutely live that vision. People get confused because they've conflated socialism and communism, where communism is a means of controlling and distributing the means of production across the people; an economic model that differs from socialism which puts the needs of the people in control of the state; but allows innovation outside of that. Some people also get confused because they believe that anything involving a private market means Capitalism; that's not true, capitalism is a specific system where, by definition, the wealth has similar rights to the labour in how it gets paid. Some people think this is why capitalism is innovative, because it incentivises "old money" capital to invest, but it favours rewarding people who already have money, which is at odds with the Swedish model. I think you're right that Denmark is not materially less socialist, in fact you could argue that Sweden is the less socialist one as they've been selling off their healthcare systems to private healthcare for a while now.. Which has resulted in a pretty bad healthcare system honestly.
    - ptr 4y ago
      Most countries in Europe provide that don’t they? Also, Sweden has the number 8 highest income tax in Europe and has in fact very low taxes on investments (the ISK accounts). “Pretty bad healthcare system honestly”? That’s a big exaggeration… both public and private healthcare has worked great in my experience. Sounds like you have some kind of beef with Scandinavia.
      - dijit 4y ago
        1) Most countries in Europe provide [healthcare, education and economic support] Varies state to state, in some countries there is "mandatory health insurance" which is subsidised, NHS is free at point of sale in the UK. Education is also dubious, as in some of Europe there's subsidies for childcare under school age, but it's nearly universal to have free healthcare for standard ages (school years 0 - 11); and very few countries offer higher education (university) for free (and even fewer pay you) -- Sweden/Denmark do all of that. When it comes to income support, if you lose your job then you're really taken care of, it's not really as binary as "do they offer support", in Sweden you can have 80% of your pay for the first year in most cases, only 20% of that is paid by your employer; which is a bit unprecedented in Europe. 2) Sweden has the number 8 highest income tax Such things are not so easy to quantify, Sweden has 2 tax rates; a) Municipal tax rate, (usually around 32%~) b) Federal tax rate (20%) Municipal tax applies to everything you earn, Federal tax only applies to everything after 45,000 SEK (4.500 EUR/mo); that's for income tax, there's also social contribution tax that your employer pays (19-30% depending on how they operate in the country) and the highest VAT in Europe. You'd have to try to understand how that applies for you. My salary is higher than average but not absurdly high and I'd earn more money in my pocket in every single other country in Europe, I think that's because there's an "absurdly high earner" tax in most countries and a lot of those comparisons take "maximum effective tax" as their only reporting metric, UK has 4 tax bands for example, one of which only kicks in at 150.000gbp p/a; which is 4x the national average and the tax rate then is still lower than Swedens. So it being "8th highest" is dubious. I'd be interested to see the citation; though I would agree that websites are not doing a real analysis about what they're saying and just stating an "effective top tax" 3) Private healthcare works for me Private healthcare through my insurance is actually great, but nothing is better than a fully working properly socialised healthcare service; they have tremendous buying power, even operate their own supply chains and can provide services which don't just bring them profit. My childhood in the UK without the NHS would have been positively miserable, it's hard to imagine how it was because of what it has become now though.
- Olphs 4y ago
  Same in Finland, just not in the Internet (except for the highest earners' tax returns), you can call by phone or physically visit the tax office to get anyone's tax return
Hamuko 4y ago
Most people don't go around perusing other people's tax returns even if they are public though. I'm not sure if most people even realise that they can just go and ask the tax authorities on what their boss makes.
Varqu 4y ago
It might work, but the presumption is that you are in a country with high social cohesion and low wealth inequality. Otherwise, by stripping people from their privacy, you create basically a database of targets for thieves and other criminals.
ribfeast 4y ago
Helps with salary gaps within those countries, but salaries are still laughable compared to US software engineering salaries. Does anyone know why that is?
- mustafa_pasi 4y ago
  Demand: US has much more investment in pure-tech. In EU a lot of SWE are working in IT offices of non-tech companies. So the job market in the US is more competitive. Supply: In the EU university is easily accessible, meaning that there are thousands of universities pumping hundreds of thousands of graduates a year. Plus, now they even invented the Blue Card to make it easy for skilled second/third worlders to immigrate to the EU.
  - ribfeast 4y ago
    At least according to [this](https://www.cbi.eu/market-information/outsourcing-itobpo/software-development-services/market-potential https://www.cbi.eu/market-information/outsourcing-itobpo/sof...), there's an under-supply of developers in the EU.
    - wing-_-nuts 4y ago
      Listen to the MBAs and they'll tell you there's a shortage of developers everywhere. What they really mean is that there's a shortage of devs willing to work for what they're willing to pay.

Kinda, sorta. The public tax returns we have in Norway do not say: - Where the income comes from (could be many sources) - Whether or not there were any serious deductions At the very best, you'll get a figure with lots of variance. Say you sell a house / apartment, and made $xxk on that one. That one will get lumped in with your regular income. Same if you sell some stock / equity.

dijit 4y ago

Tax returns are public in Sweden too. I would guess it's the same in Denmark (even if they're not quite as socialist); Perhaps Finland. But the majority of tech in Europe is: Dublin, Berlin and Amsterdam. AFAIK none of those have host countries which publicly disclose tax information;

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
>But the majority of tech in Europe is: Dublin, Berlin and Amsterdam. And Zurich and London (non-EU).
- dijit 4y ago
  Ah yes, I totally forgot the non-EU ones. Zurich IME is more in line with Californian salaries though.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    While being more expensive than California.
    - hiq 4y ago
      You can't compare Zurich with California. According to Wikipedia, California is 10 times as big as Switzerland. Rent is usually the biggest part of expenses and the prices are crazier in the SV than in Zurich (the city). Maybe you were not referring to the SV, but then you have places 30min away (by train) from Zurich that are also way cheaper.
ptr 4y ago
Sweden and Denmark don’t differ in how much “socialist” they are. Also, they’re not socialist countries.
- dijit 4y ago
  Sweden & Denmark favour high taxes and social responsibility; I'm sure you are aware but in socialist countries, healthcare, education and economic support are all provided free to every citizen, regardless of how much they earn. Sweden & Denmark absolutely live that vision. People get confused because they've conflated socialism and communism, where communism is a means of controlling and distributing the means of production across the people; an economic model that differs from socialism which puts the needs of the people in control of the state; but allows innovation outside of that. Some people also get confused because they believe that anything involving a private market means Capitalism; that's not true, capitalism is a specific system where, by definition, the wealth has similar rights to the labour in how it gets paid. Some people think this is why capitalism is innovative, because it incentivises "old money" capital to invest, but it favours rewarding people who already have money, which is at odds with the Swedish model. I think you're right that Denmark is not materially less socialist, in fact you could argue that Sweden is the less socialist one as they've been selling off their healthcare systems to private healthcare for a while now.. Which has resulted in a pretty bad healthcare system honestly.
  - ptr 4y ago
    Most countries in Europe provide that don’t they? Also, Sweden has the number 8 highest income tax in Europe and has in fact very low taxes on investments (the ISK accounts). “Pretty bad healthcare system honestly”? That’s a big exaggeration… both public and private healthcare has worked great in my experience. Sounds like you have some kind of beef with Scandinavia.
    - dijit 4y ago
      1) Most countries in Europe provide [healthcare, education and economic support] Varies state to state, in some countries there is "mandatory health insurance" which is subsidised, NHS is free at point of sale in the UK. Education is also dubious, as in some of Europe there's subsidies for childcare under school age, but it's nearly universal to have free healthcare for standard ages (school years 0 - 11); and very few countries offer higher education (university) for free (and even fewer pay you) -- Sweden/Denmark do all of that. When it comes to income support, if you lose your job then you're really taken care of, it's not really as binary as "do they offer support", in Sweden you can have 80% of your pay for the first year in most cases, only 20% of that is paid by your employer; which is a bit unprecedented in Europe. 2) Sweden has the number 8 highest income tax Such things are not so easy to quantify, Sweden has 2 tax rates; a) Municipal tax rate, (usually around 32%~) b) Federal tax rate (20%) Municipal tax applies to everything you earn, Federal tax only applies to everything after 45,000 SEK (4.500 EUR/mo); that's for income tax, there's also social contribution tax that your employer pays (19-30% depending on how they operate in the country) and the highest VAT in Europe. You'd have to try to understand how that applies for you. My salary is higher than average but not absurdly high and I'd earn more money in my pocket in every single other country in Europe, I think that's because there's an "absurdly high earner" tax in most countries and a lot of those comparisons take "maximum effective tax" as their only reporting metric, UK has 4 tax bands for example, one of which only kicks in at 150.000gbp p/a; which is 4x the national average and the tax rate then is still lower than Swedens. So it being "8th highest" is dubious. I'd be interested to see the citation; though I would agree that websites are not doing a real analysis about what they're saying and just stating an "effective top tax" 3) Private healthcare works for me Private healthcare through my insurance is actually great, but nothing is better than a fully working properly socialised healthcare service; they have tremendous buying power, even operate their own supply chains and can provide services which don't just bring them profit. My childhood in the UK without the NHS would have been positively miserable, it's hard to imagine how it was because of what it has become now though.
Olphs 4y ago
Same in Finland, just not in the Internet (except for the highest earners' tax returns), you can call by phone or physically visit the tax office to get anyone's tax return

Hamuko 4y ago

Most people don't go around perusing other people's tax returns even if they are public though. I'm not sure if most people even realise that they can just go and ask the tax authorities on what their boss makes.

Varqu 4y ago

It might work, but the presumption is that you are in a country with high social cohesion and low wealth inequality. Otherwise, by stripping people from their privacy, you create basically a database of targets for thieves and other criminals.

ribfeast 4y ago

Helps with salary gaps within those countries, but salaries are still laughable compared to US software engineering salaries. Does anyone know why that is?

mustafa_pasi 4y ago
Demand: US has much more investment in pure-tech. In EU a lot of SWE are working in IT offices of non-tech companies. So the job market in the US is more competitive. Supply: In the EU university is easily accessible, meaning that there are thousands of universities pumping hundreds of thousands of graduates a year. Plus, now they even invented the Blue Card to make it easy for skilled second/third worlders to immigrate to the EU.
- ribfeast 4y ago
  At least according to [this](https://www.cbi.eu/market-information/outsourcing-itobpo/software-development-services/market-potential https://www.cbi.eu/market-information/outsourcing-itobpo/sof...), there's an under-supply of developers in the EU.
  - wing-_-nuts 4y ago
    Listen to the MBAs and they'll tell you there's a shortage of developers everywhere. What they really mean is that there's a shortage of devs willing to work for what they're willing to pay.