[Flamingi]

Originally Posted by SYT_Shadow

It's only attainable in a few countries around the world. In most of Europe, if you have an M3 you are a wealthy person.

When your income is half (at most) what it is in the US, then you are taxed ~60% of that, then out of the 40% remaining you still have to pay ~20% VAT plus 70% tax on gasoline, property taxes, etc, well, you're basically living with 30% of your income.

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

Originally Posted by SYT_Shadow

Let's break it out in numbers.
In the US let's say you make 200k/year. In Europe let's assume you can find the same job and you're lucky that it pays you ~50%. Let's say 100k/year.

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.

Originally Posted by SYT_Shadow

Taxes take half of that. You have 50k left

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.

Originally Posted by SYT_Shadow

VAT takes 20% of that. You have 40k left.

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

Originally Posted by SYT_Shadow

If you want to buy a car there's an additional VAT of ~20%. If you want fuel it's 8/gal.

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)

Originally Posted by SYT_Shadow

You pay property tax, you pay for private healthcare because the public healthcare is clogged up.
You don't have a lot of money left when all is said and done.

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.