[SYT_Shadow]

Originally Posted by Flamingi

Lol never saw that much BS written in a single post.

Let's see. Perhaps it is your post with is full of misinformation.

Originally Posted by Flamingi

Only true in certain areas (e.g. Computer Science stuff in SF), on average the wage in the EU is like 20% less than in the US (depending on which country of Europe you compare it to), so if you earn $200k in the US, you will earn $160k=€135k in Europe. Factoring in cost of living (mainly health care) it actually is less than the wage in Europe - but more to that later.

My company (not mine, the one I work for) sends people to Europe every blue moon. We won't send americans anywhere as expats because they are way too expensive, but if someone really wants to go sometimes we send them as a local contract at around 50% of their US salary.

Tables that show salary averages after tax by country are widely available, for example here:
https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-livin...ngs?itemId=105
The US is more than twice the PIGS, so even more than I thought. [for reference I am a citizen of one of the PIGS]

Originally Posted by Flamingi

Just plain wrong. Let's look at Germany, which is above average in taxation. If you earn €135k you are in the highest tax bracket, you will pay €40.8k in taxes, €7.7k in pension (like your 401k I think), €1k in unemplyoment insurance, €4.4k in health insurance and €1k in care insurance. This means based on €135k gross income, the net income is €80k ($94k). But, you have free health insurace, no copay. You will be paid your full wage up to 12 months and after that 60% if you get sick. You get paid 60% of your last wage if you loose your job (up to 12 months). You will get €3.3k per month in pension (it's capped at 3.3k) once you retire. All that included in those measly 40% you pay, Just being in the hospital a single time would probably cost more in the US, not speaking about any major health problems where you rack up millions in medical debt - even though you have insurance.

Compare that to the US, where you would have a take home salary of $132k, but you still need to pay health insurance (premium + deductible + out-of-pocket costs + copayments), 401k, unemployment insurance and everything else regarding social security. You will notice you get to a very similar available income very fast. Add to that the extremely high cost of living in urban areas and you will come out to less purchase power.

Obviously tax rates of 52% or higher do not equate to 52% of your salary gone, as it's a progressive tax rate, but it's close enough to give you an idea vs the US where it is also progressive.

Originally Posted by Flamingi

There is no VAT on you income lol, you pay VAT on the product. So you're still at 94k of net income.

I know. Once you're done with income taxes now you pay ~20% VAT out of the remainder, that's why my example goes from 50k to 40k of available income.

Originally Posted by Flamingi

No it's not additional, it's just the normal VAT, which is included in every product. BTW prices in Europe already include this VAT, so the 100k for a car in Europe are just 100k - no additional stuff. Just some extra cost for high emissions vehicles (That's in a few countries like Nordics or France). Fuel really depends on the country, but its around $8/gal (keep in mind it's better fuel, $8/gal gets you Aral Ultimate 102 comparable to 98 in the US, for about $6/gal you can get premium, for $5/gal standard)

I didn't say the sticker price on a car had VAT and an extra VAT added to it. I said cars did, which is correct.
M8c in the US, 144k$ without including 6% tax --> 152k out the door
M8c in Spain for example, costs 144kE without tax plus 21% VAT PLUS 15% car-VAT leaving you at a cool 195kE --> 230k$.
You can see for yourself here:https://www.km77.com/coches/bmw/seri...an-coupe/datos

Originally Posted by Flamingi

Property tax is actually less than in the US (on average). You don't pay for private healthcare, 90% have a public health insurance (the benefit of private insurance is, that it's cheaper when you're younger, but it get's much more expensive once you get older. Also, private health insurance might pay for non standard treatment. Public health insurance might not be availabel if you're self-employed) - which btw is not clogged up. In case of an emergency of course you will not sit around waiting for hours, care is taken of you based on priority. If you only have a small scratch - sure you'll probably have to wait, but if you have a serious incident you will be taken care of immediately. Getting a doctors appointment is usually just a waiting time of a couple days maybe 2 weeks - for anything non priority of course. If you're actually sick and need an appointment very soon you will get it in like the next 2 days (and if you need it right now, you can go to the ER). Everything I just mentioned of course without any copay. If you have a scratch somewhere - no extra costs. Broken arm - no extra costs. Diabetes - no extra costs. Giving birth - no extra costs. Cancer - no extra costs.

Healthcare costs are indeed an advantage in Europe vs the US. At least in Spain almost anyone who is not starving to death will have private insurance on top of the free one so they don't have to wait six months for an operation.


Conclusion:
If you like cars, don't have cancer or diabetes or pregnant, aren't a person who will take 12 months off work because they are ''depressed*'', then the US is a pretty damn good place to buy cars and live.
We are not in the broken-arm forum, or the childbirth forum, or the cancer forum, or the diabetes forum, or the forum for people who will scam the government saying they're depressed so they can live their life in permanent vacations (you come back to work a single day after your first year of vacations is up and obviously you don't want to work when you could be at home watching netflix, so you become depressed again and take another 12 months off, rinse and repeat). It is a car forum.

*Depression can be a real thing and can be really serious, but we all have more than 2 neurons which are sufficient to conclude that if it's easy to get 12 months off work with full pay by saying you are depressed, people will take advantage of that and milk the system.