4 ms·

Does France really have that low tax rate? Usually it's not only income tax people are paying over here and once Americans laern the total % of your money regul

Does France really have that low tax rate? Usually it's not only income tax people are paying over here and once Americans laern the total % of your money regular Joe pays for the government they are in shock, since they are not used to having so little money being left on the table.

Taniwha 10y ago
here in NZ I pay the high 30% marginal rate (that includes social security) and get mostly free health care. Drugs have a low co-pay, we have one organisation bulk buying for the entire country The difference of course is I'm not paying for a bunch of cowboys who invade other countries at the drop of a hat
boudin 10y ago
There's several taxes. The tax he talks about is what you pay based on your revenues (with several ties, like in the uk). In france we receive what we call a 'salaire brut' which is a salary on which the employer already payed some taxes (which are quite high if i'm not mistaken). On this 'salaire brut' some taxes are automaticaly taken (including some for healthcare), then you obtain what we call 'salaire net', which the money that you get into your account. On this 'salaire net' you still have to pay income taxes (the next year for the previous for the moment, it my change to be taken immediatly on your salary, like in the uk). I don't know, altogether how much taxes we pay. It varies depending your salary, your job or location (farmers have a different healthcare for exemple). Including everything, If i remember well, an employee cost twice his salary to the employer. A salaire net is something like 2/3 of the salaire brut. Income taxes depends of your income. In comparison with european countries, I think that it's mainly the employer part of taxes that are high.
ekianjo 10y ago
> Does France really have that low tax rate No, its much higher than 23% as claimed by the author. At least in the 30 or 40% depends on your level of income. Its also fair to say that there is a large amount of households in France that pay no taxes at all.
- rtpg 10y ago
  Except for the 20% VAT, which affects poorer people much more as percent of their income. If you're living paycheck to paycheck, that's 20% tax on your income. If you're a multi-millionaire, I doubt you're spending too much on groceries for the VAT to matter.
- vbernat 10y ago
  40% is a marginal rate. For the lower part of the income, you'll have a lower marginal rate. The effective rate is lower than the marginal rate. 23% is the rate of someone single and declaring 75k€ of net income (the marginal rate in this case is 41%). It seems that with such an income, you are part of the 3% wealthiers.
- omginternets 10y ago
  >Its also fair to say that there is a large amount of households in France that pay no taxes at all. It should be specified that this is because the French tax code provides exemptions to people making less than I-forget-how-much per year.
johan_larson 10y ago
The thing to look at is total taxation as a portion of GDP. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_revenue_as_percentage_of_GDP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_reven... In the US, that's 26.9%. In France it's much higher, at 47.9%.

Taniwha 10y ago

here in NZ I pay the high 30% marginal rate (that includes social security) and get mostly free health care. Drugs have a low co-pay, we have one organisation bulk buying for the entire country The difference of course is I'm not paying for a bunch of cowboys who invade other countries at the drop of a hat

boudin 10y ago

There's several taxes. The tax he talks about is what you pay based on your revenues (with several ties, like in the uk). In france we receive what we call a 'salaire brut' which is a salary on which the employer already payed some taxes (which are quite high if i'm not mistaken). On this 'salaire brut' some taxes are automaticaly taken (including some for healthcare), then you obtain what we call 'salaire net', which the money that you get into your account. On this 'salaire net' you still have to pay income taxes (the next year for the previous for the moment, it my change to be taken immediatly on your salary, like in the uk). I don't know, altogether how much taxes we pay. It varies depending your salary, your job or location (farmers have a different healthcare for exemple). Including everything, If i remember well, an employee cost twice his salary to the employer. A salaire net is something like 2/3 of the salaire brut. Income taxes depends of your income. In comparison with european countries, I think that it's mainly the employer part of taxes that are high.

ekianjo 10y ago

> Does France really have that low tax rate No, its much higher than 23% as claimed by the author. At least in the 30 or 40% depends on your level of income. Its also fair to say that there is a large amount of households in France that pay no taxes at all.

rtpg 10y ago
Except for the 20% VAT, which affects poorer people much more as percent of their income. If you're living paycheck to paycheck, that's 20% tax on your income. If you're a multi-millionaire, I doubt you're spending too much on groceries for the VAT to matter.
vbernat 10y ago
40% is a marginal rate. For the lower part of the income, you'll have a lower marginal rate. The effective rate is lower than the marginal rate. 23% is the rate of someone single and declaring 75k€ of net income (the marginal rate in this case is 41%). It seems that with such an income, you are part of the 3% wealthiers.
omginternets 10y ago
>Its also fair to say that there is a large amount of households in France that pay no taxes at all. It should be specified that this is because the French tax code provides exemptions to people making less than I-forget-how-much per year.

johan_larson 10y ago

The thing to look at is total taxation as a portion of GDP. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_revenue_as_percentage_of_GDP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_reven... In the US, that's 26.9%. In France it's much higher, at 47.9%.