6 ms·

Keep in mind that Bulgaria has just elected a reformist parliament for the first time in more than 10 years. Maybe wait a year or two before buying a one-way ti

Keep in mind that Bulgaria has just elected a reformist parliament for the first time in more than 10 years. Maybe wait a year or two before buying a one-way ticket as the government may raise taxes, especially on the unaffected by the anti-COVID measures. Or they could lower taxes even more if they manage to get on top of the rampant tax evasion and grey economy (one can hope). Also there are other small things to consider: * Healthcare in Bulgaria is severely underfunded and understaffed. Not only that, but the incentive system for hospitals is currently IMO completely broken, as they get paid per patient i.e. more sick people = more pay, not more healthy people. My current belief is that you need to live in a large city if you want to have a chance to survive an incident or a heart attack/stroke. Source: trust me, I live here, have lost several family members due to poor healthcare, and have had one receiving incompetent treatment so the hospital can receive more money from health insurance. * Same goes for childcare/education. * * There is currently a severe deficit of kindergartens in the large cities -- Sofia (~10k children left out), Plovdiv, Varna and Burgas. * * Bulgarian public education has been in a freefall for the last 10 years as evidenced by dropping results in state exams and international studies (https://gpseducation.oecd.org/CountryProfile?primaryCountry=BGR&treshold=10&topic=PI https://gpseducation.oecd.org/CountryProfile?primaryCountry=...). Private schooling is available in large cities and unsurprisingly is limited. Take into account potential need of home-schooling if you plan to start a family here. * The public institutions are (currently) not working or corrupt. There are issues with the judicial system, the prosecution, the police, etc. Tl; dr: better hope you won't have to deal with those before major reforms and definitely don't rely on having your rights protected by them. You are on your own here. Do not be under the illusion that Bulgaria is just like $western_european_country but with less taxes and cheaper housing. Everything comes at a price. You will not find many things you take for granted in your home country here.

gcbirzan 5y ago
If by those unaffected by COVID you mean self-employed people, not sure that's really the case, as taxes for people that are employed by a Bulgarian company are not THAT much higher. Using the 10k BGN example, your net salary is 8627.94, and the employer (of course, excluding accounting and all that stuff) pays 10567.60. I don't remember exactly the numbers for self employed, but if his are correct (and they seem a bit off, maybe because of the missing health insurance), the difference is basically 5-600 BGN, so 5-6pp.
- phoronixrly 5y ago
  The plans are to raise the maximal social security income (“максимален осигурителен доход”). This will arguably* disproportionately affect people with incomes above 3000 BGN. *) Arguably because (while they could easily afford to pay more tax) higher income employees usually get taxed on their actual amount of income as opposed by the rampant tax evasion among employees with lower pay and their employers (so called grey economy: employers declare they pay a given employee the BG equivalent of the US 'minimum wage' which the employee receives monthly via bank transfer, while the rest of the salary is given in cash and not declared).
  - gcbirzan 5y ago
    Didn't they raise it? To be fair, I've always thought it's way too low.
ostenning 5y ago
On the plus side Bulgarian food is excellent
- phoronixrly 5y ago
  Ah yes, sorry for the negativity above. Just wanted to point out that moving here should be a well thought out decision and preferably not based on a single not-entirely-correct HN post. There are trade-offs and there's more to a country and to life than low taxes...
  - romaniatax 5y ago
    There is plenty of negativity surrounding east europe on HN so there is no need to remind people they won't get the same quality of life as in western europe, but it's not that bad. At least that's what i keep telling myself and counting invoices. I saved enough to buy a deeecent flat in London (>600kEUR).
  - dimonomid 5y ago
    > moving here should be a well thought out decision and preferably not based on a single not-entirely-correct HN post. There are trade-offs and there's more to a country and to life than low taxes... While I definitely agree with that (and in fact my own reasons to move to Bulgaria back in the day were not about taxes at all), could you elaborate on the not-entirely-correct part? What exactly is not correct?
romaniatax 5y ago
> Do not be under the illusion that Bulgaria is just like $western_european_country but with less taxes and cheaper housing. Everything comes at a price. You will not find many things you take for granted in your home country here. Technically speaking you are right: there is almost no police, no public health care (quality is too low to even step foot in a public hospital), school are pretty low quality, and people tend to be rude. But for a temporary gig (I am in Romania due to taxes for a few years) it can be beneficial. It's not as bad as say India or Pakistan as east eu countries are orders of magnitude more developed, and if you can put up with the nuisance for a while then you can return to your western country and maybe afford a deposit to stop living with flatmates as an adult. Worth while in my case.

gcbirzan 5y ago

If by those unaffected by COVID you mean self-employed people, not sure that's really the case, as taxes for people that are employed by a Bulgarian company are not THAT much higher. Using the 10k BGN example, your net salary is 8627.94, and the employer (of course, excluding accounting and all that stuff) pays 10567.60. I don't remember exactly the numbers for self employed, but if his are correct (and they seem a bit off, maybe because of the missing health insurance), the difference is basically 5-600 BGN, so 5-6pp.

phoronixrly 5y ago
The plans are to raise the maximal social security income (“максимален осигурителен доход”). This will arguably* disproportionately affect people with incomes above 3000 BGN. *) Arguably because (while they could easily afford to pay more tax) higher income employees usually get taxed on their actual amount of income as opposed by the rampant tax evasion among employees with lower pay and their employers (so called grey economy: employers declare they pay a given employee the BG equivalent of the US 'minimum wage' which the employee receives monthly via bank transfer, while the rest of the salary is given in cash and not declared).
- gcbirzan 5y ago
  Didn't they raise it? To be fair, I've always thought it's way too low.

ostenning 5y ago

On the plus side Bulgarian food is excellent

phoronixrly 5y ago
Ah yes, sorry for the negativity above. Just wanted to point out that moving here should be a well thought out decision and preferably not based on a single not-entirely-correct HN post. There are trade-offs and there's more to a country and to life than low taxes...
- romaniatax 5y ago
  There is plenty of negativity surrounding east europe on HN so there is no need to remind people they won't get the same quality of life as in western europe, but it's not that bad. At least that's what i keep telling myself and counting invoices. I saved enough to buy a deeecent flat in London (>600kEUR).
- dimonomid 5y ago
  > moving here should be a well thought out decision and preferably not based on a single not-entirely-correct HN post. There are trade-offs and there's more to a country and to life than low taxes... While I definitely agree with that (and in fact my own reasons to move to Bulgaria back in the day were not about taxes at all), could you elaborate on the not-entirely-correct part? What exactly is not correct?

romaniatax 5y ago

> Do not be under the illusion that Bulgaria is just like $western_european_country but with less taxes and cheaper housing. Everything comes at a price. You will not find many things you take for granted in your home country here. Technically speaking you are right: there is almost no police, no public health care (quality is too low to even step foot in a public hospital), school are pretty low quality, and people tend to be rude. But for a temporary gig (I am in Romania due to taxes for a few years) it can be beneficial. It's not as bad as say India or Pakistan as east eu countries are orders of magnitude more developed, and if you can put up with the nuisance for a while then you can return to your western country and maybe afford a deposit to stop living with flatmates as an adult. Worth while in my case.