> If past experience would prove this effective, then OK, but it just proves the opposite!
Can you cite some examples? I'm interested, because I seem to read a lot about how experiments with basic income actually tend to work out very well. (It certainly does in Alaska, although that isn't much money[0], as well as other examples[1] cited in this thread.)
> Europe we pay around 40% of income tax. On top we pay at least another 8% for pension, which we will never see, and another 8-10% for health insurance, which is not great at all. On top of that, companies have another 30-40% of cost, _on top_ of the bruto salary of an employee in taxes and similar to pay to the state.
I don't know how much you earn, or where you work in Europe, but I have never paid this much. Income tax and social security (including NHS contributions, so all my health insurance) in the UK was never more than 30% of my salary. It's about the same for me in Germany right now, if anything a little lower.
Maybe you're in a really wealthy income bracket, though, in which case -- congratulations?
UK is not Europe, in fact you pay less taxes and you actually do get a pension since it's tied to a low taxation fund that belongs to you.
Germany is about 45% once you go over the 45-50k bruto, which is not much if you ask me (rent tends to be 35-40% of your income). Also, note in Germany the company has another 30-40% cost on top of your bruto (they pay the other half of your pension and health insurance, for instance). Don't look just at what you get, but at your overall cost for the company.
Past experience? After World War II public spending has been trending up everywhere (also in US, but more in Europe). What did we get in Europe? Slow growth, huge public debt, 3+ times the unemployment they have in USA, should I continue? The thing is: government is just really, really, bad in any kind of productive spending. Government should take care of the ones in need* and should make clear rules for everybody, that's it, everything else is waste (and we have seen it).
*And let's be clear here: this doesn't mean public housing in the city center. This means giving enough to keep your dignity, which means you need to accept to leave far from the city. Just that people "in need" should be actual people in need, not some privileged class (like in Denmark students get money to study, those are NOT people in need)
If you are in the UK, 50k a year (above average but honestly, if even remotely close to London, not that much) will bring you a tax bill of around 38% (19k) if you consider employee NHS contributions ( data from http://www.listentotaxman.com/50000? ). So you are already at 38% and you have council tax (probably another 2k or more a year) plus VAT (21% or something?) on stuff you buy. I don't remember other taxes I paid while in the UK but these were the big ones. It isn't hard to get to the end of the year and see that you(+ employer) paid around 50-60% in taxes.
I live in Portugal, and if I consider VAT+income tax+social security contributions (self employed so I pay both parts or approx. 33% in social security) and ignoring other extra taxes (property, road tax, etc) 62% or so of the money I earn goes to the government (this was for 2014, my accountant did the math). I could probably get this lower with some creative accounting I guess.
Yes. That was the point of the grandfather post. That on top of that you even have employers contributions. If you add all of that you will get a value that often reaches 50-60%. I've given the example of myself, since I'm self-employed I pay everything, my tax rate is around 60%.
Ah, if you can still edit it then you might want to change "employee" to "employer" then.
In which case your effective tax rate is ~35% rather than 38%, 36325 / 55780.
My council tax is under £1200/year (and that's for the house, so we should only count half of that for me and half for my wife) and VAT is 20% on some but not all items. Pension contributions bring the tax rate down too, so it gets a bit hard to compare.
It's not fantastic, it's just that the UK is a very unequal country with an expensive property market. 50k gives a comfortable middle-class lifestyle outside London.
If you weren't paying those taxes, how much would you have to pay simply for equivalent health/education/unemployment insurance/pensions cover?
Well, looking at my payslip, disregarding the fineprint (I have some taxes lower because my wife is a stay-at-home mom) ~40% from what my employer pays for me goes to the state.
This of course includes health insurance, social welfare insurance and income tax.
Can you cite some examples? I'm interested, because I seem to read a lot about how experiments with basic income actually tend to work out very well. (It certainly does in Alaska, although that isn't much money[0], as well as other examples[1] cited in this thread.)
> Europe we pay around 40% of income tax. On top we pay at least another 8% for pension, which we will never see, and another 8-10% for health insurance, which is not great at all. On top of that, companies have another 30-40% of cost, _on top_ of the bruto salary of an employee in taxes and similar to pay to the state.
I don't know how much you earn, or where you work in Europe, but I have never paid this much. Income tax and social security (including NHS contributions, so all my health insurance) in the UK was never more than 30% of my salary. It's about the same for me in Germany right now, if anything a little lower.
Maybe you're in a really wealthy income bracket, though, in which case -- congratulations?
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund#Permanen...
[1]: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/1970s-manitoba-povert...