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Most Danish voters oppose government plans to cut the top rate of income tax

83 points by lnguyen 10y ago

Retric 10y ago
The sad thing is the US has a focus on taxes not spending. SS, Medicare, State, Local, Federal spending add up to 41% GDP yet taxes are no where near that. But, unlike say Japan at 42% GDP spending we don't get free healthcare etc.
- ekianjo 10y ago
  Lol healthcare is far from being free in Japan.
  - Retric 10y ago
    100% free sets up perverse incentives. The minimum subsidy is 70% and there are effective price controls. So the actual bill is often higher in the US for those with decent insurance.
    - alkonaut 10y ago
      > 100% free sets up perverse incentives. How is that? I realize 100% free is pretty rare (I have a usual out-of-pocket cost of around $20 for an ER visit for example) but what are the perverse incentives created by completely free healthcare? You mean that those who supply the healthcare are incentivized to give more expensive treatments, because the patient doesn't need to keep an eye on the bill? Shouldn't the buyer (which in case of publicly financed healthcare is the government) be the one who oversees the cost, and not the patient?
      - ekianjo 10y ago
        Buyers are easily corrupted since there are few of them.
    - ekianjo 10y ago
      Effective price controls? You have probably never heard of the pernicious effects of FPA for new drugs.
VMG 10y ago
Their individual ones? Or the ones other citizens are paying?
- hanspeter 10y ago
  Both.
pjc50 10y ago
More accurately, Danes value their welfare state and high-equality society and are smart enough to accept that it has to be paid for. Therefore any campaign on cutting taxes immediately attracts the suspicion: what services are going to be cut?
- ekianjo 10y ago
  So are you saying its unreasonable for services to become less costly over time ?
  - hanspeter 10y ago
    Not unreasonable but so far unobserved. Any initiatives to reduce costs seem to increase an even costlier bureaucracy. /generalization
    - TeMPOraL 10y ago
      Also if services are getting cheaper then there's a question of why the money isn't reinvested to make those services better for the same price?
      - ekianjo 10y ago
        Or you know, reduce taxes. Why do you need to keep the fiscal pressure if you can be more efficient ?
  - Eridrus 10y ago
    Far less risky to first make the services less costly, show a surplus and that service has not been degraded and then lower taxes than lowering taxea first.
  - mrweasel 10y ago
    I think given the choice, many Danes would prefer to keep that taxation as is, and and get more and better services. If some public service would get cheaper (so fare all services seems to just get more and more expensive), there's a ton of other services that could really use the money that would be freed. Honestly I think that the Danish public sector is a terrifying example of mismanagement of public funds. We simply aren't getting enough value for the taxes we pay. Part of it is insane ways of handling purchasing and outsource of public work.
jonatron 10y ago
Not mentioned is that Denmark has the OECD's lowest inequality. Having visited a couple of times, it does feel like they're doing something right.
- alkonaut 10y ago
  Inequality is a large driver of crime. So keeping a low inequality means you don't have to spend as much on incarceration, police, courts etc., as you would have otherwise. That in turn means you can spend money on things that tax payers care about (schools, etc.) which increases equality, and so on.
  - egman_ekki 10y ago
    ...interestingly, Denmark has one of the highest number of burglaries per capita in Europe... violent crimes are probably quite rare, though
- egman_ekki 10y ago
  Lowest income inequality. Highest wealth inequality (Zimbabwe level)... not sure if that is the right way to go, though...
  - simongray 10y ago
    That's a fair point. The wealth inequality is high because a lot of people rent rather than buy housing and because savings are less important with the Danish level of cradle-to-grave government services. A lot of things that you would need savings for in other countries come in the form of welfare services instead.
- vixen99 10y ago
  That's a metric that evidently appeals to you. So be it. It's a relative measure and my preference, possibly shared by others, is for an absolute one. Human nature and entrepreneurship being what it is, as general wealth increases thus does inequality increase. We have seen this happening on a grand scale across the world during the last 20 years or more. One other point: what suits the Danes wouldn't necessarily suit the Brits or others. National characteristics are certainly different even we try sometimes to ignore this probably because it's tacitly interpreted as some hint of mild racism.
hanspeter 10y ago
> Perhaps it's no coincidence then that their word for taxes, skat, also means “sweetheart”. The word "skat" means treasure. That's why we also use it as a word for our sweethearts.
- azeirah 10y ago
  Oh cool, we have the same word in Dutch, "schat".
  - vidarh 10y ago
    You know any two of German + one of the Scandinavian languages + Dutch, you can often read the third pretty well if you apply some imagination - they're all very closely related.
atemerev 10y ago
In other countries, taxes are complicated (no citation needed). There's income tax, but there are also social security payments, industry-specific taxes, etc. And you have to pay for your own education and healthcare! Danish tax is simple and all inclusive. It is around 50%, which is about the same as in US if all hidden obligatory payments are taken into account. But it is all inclusive: all education and healthcare is free in Denmark, and social security grid is immense. I am a pro-free-market person and Ayn Rand admirer. But even I think that Danish system is not that bad: you just pay 50% of your income to the government immediately, and they do not bother you until the next time. On the other hand, in the US, the IRS will pursuit you relentlessly, there are insane friction multipliers like healthcare insurance rising costs spiral, and everything is so complicated that only lawyers are happy about it. Free markets only work if the government is separated from the economy. If they are entangled, you are getting the worst of both worlds.
- sausman 10y ago
  Another thing to consider is the size of Denmark compared to the US. It's a much smaller political unit which tends to translate into more responsive politicians. Danes have about half the number of representatives we have in the US but less than 5% of our population. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_apportionment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_...
  - guard-of-terra 10y ago
    Relevant - Number of seats in the national parliament by country in Europe https://jakubmarian.com/number-of-seats-in-the-national-parliament-by-country-in-europe-total-per-capita-map/ https://jakubmarian.com/number-of-seats-in-the-national-parl... If only they had scatter plot!
- JensRex 10y ago
  I get your point, but you make it sound like Denmark has flat tax. For the record, it does not.
  - 10y ago
crdoconnor 10y ago
>The government's plan involves cutting the top rate of income tax by 5 percentage points >The main idea behind the change, which is now being discussed by parliament, is to make salaried work more attractive and woo some 40,000 people off welfare in the process. Not a bad plan for a country that faces labor shortages and growing pressure on its costly social safety net from an aging population. This is a sales pitch for tax cuts on the rich, not an idea. Somebody, somewhere made a campaign contribution and this is their reward.
- manarth 10y ago
  and raising personal allowances so as to boost the salaries of the lowest earners by an average of 7 percent So the plan is to cut the taxes of high-earners, as well as improving the tax-free allowance for everyone… Without increasing other taxes, or reducing spending? Where's the extra money coming from?
  - guard-of-terra 10y ago
    From creating jobs, taking people off welfare and making them pair their taxes, albeit reduced.
  - crdoconnor 10y ago
    >Where's the extra money coming from? Assuming that's true, by ramping up public borrowing (most likely), increased tax receipts from increased employment (less likely) or seigniorage (least likely).
  - spoonie 10y ago
    Regarding the personal allowance increase, I'm sad that the article glossed over this. I was really impressed that it was a tax cut for both the top bracket and "everyone". I wonder how the Danes would react if it was only an increase to the allowance, without the top bracket cut?
  - bouvin 10y ago
    Magical thinking.
jwally 10y ago
I'd be happy to pay more in taxes if I knew the money would be spent wisely.
ulrikmoe 10y ago
This is simply not true. In Denmark we have a welfare and tax scheme that benefits the majority at the expense of the productive few and the poor (Director's law?). I have never met a danish entrepreneur who didn't complain about taxes, never ever... http://taxfoundation.org/sites/taxfoundation.org/files/docs/Sanders%20Capital%20Gains.png http://taxfoundation.org/sites/taxfoundation.org/files/docs/...
- MrJagil 10y ago
  That is a very simplistic attitude. First of all, I have met countless entrepreneurs who support this "scheme", just to counter your anecdotal evidence. Second, shouldn't a "welfare scheme" benefit the poor, not exist at the expense of them? Are you arguing that the danish welfare system failed in what could be considered it's most essential undertaking? Third, "benefits the majority at the expense of the productive few" doesn't ring true to me. You make it sound like the "productive few" do not receive the same benefits as everyone else, and that the fact that everyone else receives benefits is inconsequential. It's not. Time and again (financial) equality in society has proven to be immeasurably beneficial, in so many regards.
- hanspeter 10y ago
  And I have never met one who did complain about taxes (I haven't asked about it either). The danish successful entrepreneur Morten Strunge recently entered the tax discussion saying that he did not think much about taxes and that current proposed tax reliefs would not make much difference to him. I see myself as an entrepreneur and I am not complaining about taxes. In fact I have a hard time seeing taxes as something working particularly against entrepreneurs. 1) When you're an entrepreneur you keep your salary low and you re-invest the profit in your company. This will limit the amount of taxes you pay personally and in the company. 2) As an entrepreneur you likely have a dream about huge growth in the company and making a lot of money in the end. Why would you worry about having marginally less "lot of money" in the end?
  - ulrikmoe 10y ago
    How do you define "marginally less"? Open your eyes and look at the graph I posted. Let me name the obvious few: Christensen and Fornais (Saxo Bank), Jesper Buch (Just Eat), Mads Peter Veiby (M1), Lars Tvede, Toke Kruse (billys), Martin Thorborg (Jubii/Amino/Dinero/Agera). They are all members of Liberal Alliance and all of them frequently advocate lower taxes. Janus Friis (Skype) fled the country to avoid taxes (nuff said). I have met at least 50 entrepreneurs who openly complained about the current level of taxation.
iaskwhy 10y ago
Having been to Copenhagen a few times in my life (partner used to live there) I came to realise there might be two extremes in terms of the way you look at tax rates. Some people might move to Dubai because its income tax is low or even nil - that attracts people who are more interested in their own well being than their communities'. Now some people - I would include myself here (rightly or wrongly, it doesn't really matter) - look at countries with high taxes and low inequality and enjoy the idea of a country where the well being of the community might came before than yourself getting rich. It's all a bit utopical (and, knowing Copenhagen, it really feels a bit off reality) but I can't help not thinking about it.
- Shivetya 10y ago
  Even people who desire lower taxes and less services love their communities, they just operate from a strong sense or right and wrong. Right being that you work if you can and even if you cannot you do not impose on others unless necessary. The generations who came up in the early 1900s, twenties, thirties, and even forties, have a vastly different outlook than those that followed. You were entitled to do right, you were not entitled to take.
- unknown_apostle 10y ago
  All people who are net receivers from the system do so literally for their own well being. Which is logical. And ok, because obviously there are lots of truly helpless cases in any given country. But over the decades, it accumulates fraud. Or even worse, a kind of learned helplessness which keeps people in their place. Maybe Denmark is different. But my guess is that many living in Belgium and France will be able to point out multiple cases of fraud or at least debatable cases in their immediate surroundings. Finally, a lot of the available money never leaves the hands of the vast bureaucratic caste that manages the system. I guess what I want to say: people will be people, regardless of the system. Social democracy involves a lot of cynicism and greed too. And probably in a less constructive way than systems that don't rely exclusively on "anonymous" Big State-enforced redistribution.
EJTH 10y ago
As a dane I can tell you the headline is a lie, almost everyone I know thinks that we pay way too much for the mediocre services we get.
- alkonaut 10y ago
  I think it's a little bit of both (It's the same in Sweden). It depends on who you ask obviously, but also how you ask. Do people think they pay a lot of taxes? Yes. Too much? That depends on how you ask. If you ask "would you like to pay less taxes" the answer is generally no. The reason for that isn't that people feel they would rather pay less, only that they would like to get more for it. They are unhappy about waiting for surgery for 6 months (for example) - which they think shouldn't happen because they pay so much in taxes. But when asked whether that meant they'd like to pay less in taxes, the answer is usually "no, I'd like to have a shorter wait for the surgery"...
- unknown_apostle 10y ago
  (Caution: serious venting ahead ;-) Same here in Belgium. Both the situation and the propaganda about it. Total tax pressure is extremely high. Government services in Belgium are mediocre at best. Imagine every public institute disease possible (rent seeking, no skin in the game, resistance to reform, employees not giving a shit, impossible size, …). Then multiply it by the fragmentation between Belgium’s many governments and departments and regions and bureaucracies. Then there's the EU. But in the end it all depends on whom you ask. The ever growing group of net receivers of the system are very happy. Multinationals and the very rich don’t care. Even people who are employed in the private sector don’t care. They have a significant portion of their taxes paid for by their employer. So for them it remains an abstract thing as long as they don’t get fired. The ones who sweat extremely high taxes the most are self employed people and SMEs. Basically most people who are personally involved with a business and are willing to work very hard to get ahead with something. But hey, it’s social democracy so the majority is what matters! And boy let me tell you, the majority is very happy with socialism. I bet a lot of them would rather get rid of refugees and immigrants than abort socialism. And since the majority has got it all figured out, I’m looking to emigrate, away from Utopia. It’ll have to be Australia or NZ because Canada and the US have closed down. Anything Western outside the EU that’s just slightly behind on the curve is fine.
hedgew 10y ago
I'm not in Denmark but in a very similar European country. I don't want the high taxes. The current taxes and mandatory payments feel unfair. The generations before us worked during the greatest economic boom in history, were mostly employed in safe and high paying government jobs (still are), bought houses before their values tripled, and are now receiving monthly pension payments that are almost twice what most young people earn through work. My effective tax rate is more than 50% (including mandatory pension payments that are more than 10% of my pre-tax pay). A good part of that goes to pay the pensions of existing retirees. A third of my remaining pay goes into paying rent for the apartments owned by the older generation. In the end, I get around 1.5k euro out of the 7k I cost my company (employers also have to pay additional social and pension payments). Looking at the current luxurious lifestyle of the older generations, and the rapidly ageing population, and increasing youth unemployment — I want out.
- mcv 10y ago
  Your problem is not the high taxes themselves, but the way they are used. If young people are taxed in order to provide pensions for old people that are higher than the salaries of working young people, then there's something wrong, and I can totally understand the resentment. I think the main reason why people object to taxes, is when those taxes are wasted on stupid things. But if taxes are efficiently used to provide a better society, then I think most people would support even fairly high taxes. Like in Denmark. Or in many European countries and the US just after WW2. Taxes were insane back then, but they were used to build up the country.
- mstade 10y ago
  This sounds like Sweden or Norway, and I couldn't agree more.
  - verinus 10y ago
    or austria
  - MrBuddyCasino 10y ago
    or Germany
guard-of-terra 10y ago
Explanation doesn't seem to make sense: "Equality is deeply ingrained in a society that resents individuality and success", therefore they would oppose smaller taxes for the poor (same taxes for more affluent). "Danes treasure their welfare state", therefore they would oppose measures to decrease load on said welfare state while giving unemployed a job. Somethig is amiss here.
dpatru 10y ago
The fallacy here is to aggregate the people. Democracy has been compared to two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner. Proposals to cut government will fail when more than 50℅ figure they are net beneficiaries. This does not mean the system is just or that the lambs approve of their exploitation.
- rayiner 10y ago
  I love how the rich and privileged in this hypothetical are the lambs.
redthrow 10y ago
Bill Gates, on the other hand, is in favor of switching from income tax to progressive consumption tax. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ar0ri9NLArs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ar0ri9NLArs
perseusprime11 10y ago
Here is a well laid out argument for flat tax http://www.hoover.org/research/flat-tax-solution http://www.hoover.org/research/flat-tax-solution

83 points by lnguyen 10y ago

The sad thing is the US has a focus on taxes not spending. SS, Medicare, State, Local, Federal spending add up to 41% GDP yet taxes are no where near that. But, unlike say Japan at 42% GDP spending we don't get free healthcare etc.

ekianjo 10y ago
Lol healthcare is far from being free in Japan.
- Retric 10y ago
  100% free sets up perverse incentives. The minimum subsidy is 70% and there are effective price controls. So the actual bill is often higher in the US for those with decent insurance.
  - alkonaut 10y ago
    > 100% free sets up perverse incentives. How is that? I realize 100% free is pretty rare (I have a usual out-of-pocket cost of around $20 for an ER visit for example) but what are the perverse incentives created by completely free healthcare? You mean that those who supply the healthcare are incentivized to give more expensive treatments, because the patient doesn't need to keep an eye on the bill? Shouldn't the buyer (which in case of publicly financed healthcare is the government) be the one who oversees the cost, and not the patient?
    - ekianjo 10y ago
      Buyers are easily corrupted since there are few of them.
  - ekianjo 10y ago
    Effective price controls? You have probably never heard of the pernicious effects of FPA for new drugs.

VMG 10y ago

Their individual ones? Or the ones other citizens are paying?

hanspeter 10y ago
Both.

pjc50 10y ago

More accurately, Danes value their welfare state and high-equality society and are smart enough to accept that it has to be paid for. Therefore any campaign on cutting taxes immediately attracts the suspicion: what services are going to be cut?

ekianjo 10y ago
So are you saying its unreasonable for services to become less costly over time ?
- hanspeter 10y ago
  Not unreasonable but so far unobserved. Any initiatives to reduce costs seem to increase an even costlier bureaucracy. /generalization
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    Also if services are getting cheaper then there's a question of why the money isn't reinvested to make those services better for the same price?
    - ekianjo 10y ago
      Or you know, reduce taxes. Why do you need to keep the fiscal pressure if you can be more efficient ?
- Eridrus 10y ago
  Far less risky to first make the services less costly, show a surplus and that service has not been degraded and then lower taxes than lowering taxea first.
- mrweasel 10y ago
  I think given the choice, many Danes would prefer to keep that taxation as is, and and get more and better services. If some public service would get cheaper (so fare all services seems to just get more and more expensive), there's a ton of other services that could really use the money that would be freed. Honestly I think that the Danish public sector is a terrifying example of mismanagement of public funds. We simply aren't getting enough value for the taxes we pay. Part of it is insane ways of handling purchasing and outsource of public work.

jonatron 10y ago

Not mentioned is that Denmark has the OECD's lowest inequality. Having visited a couple of times, it does feel like they're doing something right.

alkonaut 10y ago
Inequality is a large driver of crime. So keeping a low inequality means you don't have to spend as much on incarceration, police, courts etc., as you would have otherwise. That in turn means you can spend money on things that tax payers care about (schools, etc.) which increases equality, and so on.
- egman_ekki 10y ago
  ...interestingly, Denmark has one of the highest number of burglaries per capita in Europe... violent crimes are probably quite rare, though
egman_ekki 10y ago
Lowest income inequality. Highest wealth inequality (Zimbabwe level)... not sure if that is the right way to go, though...
- simongray 10y ago
  That's a fair point. The wealth inequality is high because a lot of people rent rather than buy housing and because savings are less important with the Danish level of cradle-to-grave government services. A lot of things that you would need savings for in other countries come in the form of welfare services instead.
vixen99 10y ago
That's a metric that evidently appeals to you. So be it. It's a relative measure and my preference, possibly shared by others, is for an absolute one. Human nature and entrepreneurship being what it is, as general wealth increases thus does inequality increase. We have seen this happening on a grand scale across the world during the last 20 years or more. One other point: what suits the Danes wouldn't necessarily suit the Brits or others. National characteristics are certainly different even we try sometimes to ignore this probably because it's tacitly interpreted as some hint of mild racism.

hanspeter 10y ago

> Perhaps it's no coincidence then that their word for taxes, skat, also means “sweetheart”. The word "skat" means treasure. That's why we also use it as a word for our sweethearts.

azeirah 10y ago
Oh cool, we have the same word in Dutch, "schat".
- vidarh 10y ago
  You know any two of German + one of the Scandinavian languages + Dutch, you can often read the third pretty well if you apply some imagination - they're all very closely related.

atemerev 10y ago

In other countries, taxes are complicated (no citation needed). There's income tax, but there are also social security payments, industry-specific taxes, etc. And you have to pay for your own education and healthcare! Danish tax is simple and all inclusive. It is around 50%, which is about the same as in US if all hidden obligatory payments are taken into account. But it is all inclusive: all education and healthcare is free in Denmark, and social security grid is immense. I am a pro-free-market person and Ayn Rand admirer. But even I think that Danish system is not that bad: you just pay 50% of your income to the government immediately, and they do not bother you until the next time. On the other hand, in the US, the IRS will pursuit you relentlessly, there are insane friction multipliers like healthcare insurance rising costs spiral, and everything is so complicated that only lawyers are happy about it. Free markets only work if the government is separated from the economy. If they are entangled, you are getting the worst of both worlds.

sausman 10y ago
Another thing to consider is the size of Denmark compared to the US. It's a much smaller political unit which tends to translate into more responsive politicians. Danes have about half the number of representatives we have in the US but less than 5% of our population. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_apportionment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_...
- guard-of-terra 10y ago
  Relevant - Number of seats in the national parliament by country in Europe https://jakubmarian.com/number-of-seats-in-the-national-parliament-by-country-in-europe-total-per-capita-map/ https://jakubmarian.com/number-of-seats-in-the-national-parl... If only they had scatter plot!
JensRex 10y ago
I get your point, but you make it sound like Denmark has flat tax. For the record, it does not.
- 10y ago

crdoconnor 10y ago

>The government's plan involves cutting the top rate of income tax by 5 percentage points >The main idea behind the change, which is now being discussed by parliament, is to make salaried work more attractive and woo some 40,000 people off welfare in the process. Not a bad plan for a country that faces labor shortages and growing pressure on its costly social safety net from an aging population. This is a sales pitch for tax cuts on the rich, not an idea. Somebody, somewhere made a campaign contribution and this is their reward.

manarth 10y ago
and raising personal allowances so as to boost the salaries of the lowest earners by an average of 7 percent So the plan is to cut the taxes of high-earners, as well as improving the tax-free allowance for everyone… Without increasing other taxes, or reducing spending? Where's the extra money coming from?
- guard-of-terra 10y ago
  From creating jobs, taking people off welfare and making them pair their taxes, albeit reduced.
- crdoconnor 10y ago
  >Where's the extra money coming from? Assuming that's true, by ramping up public borrowing (most likely), increased tax receipts from increased employment (less likely) or seigniorage (least likely).
- spoonie 10y ago
  Regarding the personal allowance increase, I'm sad that the article glossed over this. I was really impressed that it was a tax cut for both the top bracket and "everyone". I wonder how the Danes would react if it was only an increase to the allowance, without the top bracket cut?
- bouvin 10y ago
  Magical thinking.

jwally 10y ago

I'd be happy to pay more in taxes if I knew the money would be spent wisely.

ulrikmoe 10y ago

This is simply not true. In Denmark we have a welfare and tax scheme that benefits the majority at the expense of the productive few and the poor (Director's law?). I have never met a danish entrepreneur who didn't complain about taxes, never ever... http://taxfoundation.org/sites/taxfoundation.org/files/docs/Sanders%20Capital%20Gains.png http://taxfoundation.org/sites/taxfoundation.org/files/docs/...

MrJagil 10y ago
That is a very simplistic attitude. First of all, I have met countless entrepreneurs who support this "scheme", just to counter your anecdotal evidence. Second, shouldn't a "welfare scheme" benefit the poor, not exist at the expense of them? Are you arguing that the danish welfare system failed in what could be considered it's most essential undertaking? Third, "benefits the majority at the expense of the productive few" doesn't ring true to me. You make it sound like the "productive few" do not receive the same benefits as everyone else, and that the fact that everyone else receives benefits is inconsequential. It's not. Time and again (financial) equality in society has proven to be immeasurably beneficial, in so many regards.
hanspeter 10y ago
And I have never met one who did complain about taxes (I haven't asked about it either). The danish successful entrepreneur Morten Strunge recently entered the tax discussion saying that he did not think much about taxes and that current proposed tax reliefs would not make much difference to him. I see myself as an entrepreneur and I am not complaining about taxes. In fact I have a hard time seeing taxes as something working particularly against entrepreneurs. 1) When you're an entrepreneur you keep your salary low and you re-invest the profit in your company. This will limit the amount of taxes you pay personally and in the company. 2) As an entrepreneur you likely have a dream about huge growth in the company and making a lot of money in the end. Why would you worry about having marginally less "lot of money" in the end?
- ulrikmoe 10y ago
  How do you define "marginally less"? Open your eyes and look at the graph I posted. Let me name the obvious few: Christensen and Fornais (Saxo Bank), Jesper Buch (Just Eat), Mads Peter Veiby (M1), Lars Tvede, Toke Kruse (billys), Martin Thorborg (Jubii/Amino/Dinero/Agera). They are all members of Liberal Alliance and all of them frequently advocate lower taxes. Janus Friis (Skype) fled the country to avoid taxes (nuff said). I have met at least 50 entrepreneurs who openly complained about the current level of taxation.

iaskwhy 10y ago

Having been to Copenhagen a few times in my life (partner used to live there) I came to realise there might be two extremes in terms of the way you look at tax rates. Some people might move to Dubai because its income tax is low or even nil - that attracts people who are more interested in their own well being than their communities'. Now some people - I would include myself here (rightly or wrongly, it doesn't really matter) - look at countries with high taxes and low inequality and enjoy the idea of a country where the well being of the community might came before than yourself getting rich. It's all a bit utopical (and, knowing Copenhagen, it really feels a bit off reality) but I can't help not thinking about it.

Shivetya 10y ago
Even people who desire lower taxes and less services love their communities, they just operate from a strong sense or right and wrong. Right being that you work if you can and even if you cannot you do not impose on others unless necessary. The generations who came up in the early 1900s, twenties, thirties, and even forties, have a vastly different outlook than those that followed. You were entitled to do right, you were not entitled to take.
unknown_apostle 10y ago
All people who are net receivers from the system do so literally for their own well being. Which is logical. And ok, because obviously there are lots of truly helpless cases in any given country. But over the decades, it accumulates fraud. Or even worse, a kind of learned helplessness which keeps people in their place. Maybe Denmark is different. But my guess is that many living in Belgium and France will be able to point out multiple cases of fraud or at least debatable cases in their immediate surroundings. Finally, a lot of the available money never leaves the hands of the vast bureaucratic caste that manages the system. I guess what I want to say: people will be people, regardless of the system. Social democracy involves a lot of cynicism and greed too. And probably in a less constructive way than systems that don't rely exclusively on "anonymous" Big State-enforced redistribution.

EJTH 10y ago

As a dane I can tell you the headline is a lie, almost everyone I know thinks that we pay way too much for the mediocre services we get.

alkonaut 10y ago
I think it's a little bit of both (It's the same in Sweden). It depends on who you ask obviously, but also how you ask. Do people think they pay a lot of taxes? Yes. Too much? That depends on how you ask. If you ask "would you like to pay less taxes" the answer is generally no. The reason for that isn't that people feel they would rather pay less, only that they would like to get more for it. They are unhappy about waiting for surgery for 6 months (for example) - which they think shouldn't happen because they pay so much in taxes. But when asked whether that meant they'd like to pay less in taxes, the answer is usually "no, I'd like to have a shorter wait for the surgery"...
unknown_apostle 10y ago
(Caution: serious venting ahead ;-) Same here in Belgium. Both the situation and the propaganda about it. Total tax pressure is extremely high. Government services in Belgium are mediocre at best. Imagine every public institute disease possible (rent seeking, no skin in the game, resistance to reform, employees not giving a shit, impossible size, …). Then multiply it by the fragmentation between Belgium’s many governments and departments and regions and bureaucracies. Then there's the EU. But in the end it all depends on whom you ask. The ever growing group of net receivers of the system are very happy. Multinationals and the very rich don’t care. Even people who are employed in the private sector don’t care. They have a significant portion of their taxes paid for by their employer. So for them it remains an abstract thing as long as they don’t get fired. The ones who sweat extremely high taxes the most are self employed people and SMEs. Basically most people who are personally involved with a business and are willing to work very hard to get ahead with something. But hey, it’s social democracy so the majority is what matters! And boy let me tell you, the majority is very happy with socialism. I bet a lot of them would rather get rid of refugees and immigrants than abort socialism. And since the majority has got it all figured out, I’m looking to emigrate, away from Utopia. It’ll have to be Australia or NZ because Canada and the US have closed down. Anything Western outside the EU that’s just slightly behind on the curve is fine.

hedgew 10y ago

I'm not in Denmark but in a very similar European country. I don't want the high taxes. The current taxes and mandatory payments feel unfair. The generations before us worked during the greatest economic boom in history, were mostly employed in safe and high paying government jobs (still are), bought houses before their values tripled, and are now receiving monthly pension payments that are almost twice what most young people earn through work. My effective tax rate is more than 50% (including mandatory pension payments that are more than 10% of my pre-tax pay). A good part of that goes to pay the pensions of existing retirees. A third of my remaining pay goes into paying rent for the apartments owned by the older generation. In the end, I get around 1.5k euro out of the 7k I cost my company (employers also have to pay additional social and pension payments). Looking at the current luxurious lifestyle of the older generations, and the rapidly ageing population, and increasing youth unemployment — I want out.

mcv 10y ago
Your problem is not the high taxes themselves, but the way they are used. If young people are taxed in order to provide pensions for old people that are higher than the salaries of working young people, then there's something wrong, and I can totally understand the resentment. I think the main reason why people object to taxes, is when those taxes are wasted on stupid things. But if taxes are efficiently used to provide a better society, then I think most people would support even fairly high taxes. Like in Denmark. Or in many European countries and the US just after WW2. Taxes were insane back then, but they were used to build up the country.
mstade 10y ago
This sounds like Sweden or Norway, and I couldn't agree more.
- verinus 10y ago
  or austria
- MrBuddyCasino 10y ago
  or Germany

guard-of-terra 10y ago

Explanation doesn't seem to make sense: "Equality is deeply ingrained in a society that resents individuality and success", therefore they would oppose smaller taxes for the poor (same taxes for more affluent). "Danes treasure their welfare state", therefore they would oppose measures to decrease load on said welfare state while giving unemployed a job. Somethig is amiss here.

dpatru 10y ago

The fallacy here is to aggregate the people. Democracy has been compared to two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner. Proposals to cut government will fail when more than 50℅ figure they are net beneficiaries. This does not mean the system is just or that the lambs approve of their exploitation.

rayiner 10y ago
I love how the rich and privileged in this hypothetical are the lambs.

redthrow 10y ago

Bill Gates, on the other hand, is in favor of switching from income tax to progressive consumption tax. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ar0ri9NLArs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ar0ri9NLArs

perseusprime11 10y ago

Here is a well laid out argument for flat tax http://www.hoover.org/research/flat-tax-solution http://www.hoover.org/research/flat-tax-solution