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I lived in Italy for many years. It's my impression that Italy is losing its young population due to incredibly low salaries. Young professionals see 10x-20x sa

I lived in Italy for many years. It's my impression that Italy is losing its young population due to incredibly low salaries. Young professionals see 10x-20x salaries in the US or 5x salaries in Germany, Switzerland, Norway. And they make one obvious choice. And your taxes and your version of IRS are just insane. We have a relative, a single mother, who is making 15K EUR a year, and they are going after her because her accountant used a wrong category when she paid taxes 5 years ago, so now she has to pay 10K eur fine for that year and 5K for the next (basically a whole year of income). Another relative is a medical professional making 88K EUR in private practice, but he pays 55% in income taxes. Another friend was making 14K EUR per year coding C#. He moved to the US since, now making 10x of that. It's absolutely insane. I have zero surprise young people are fleeing.

syngrog66 4y ago
I designed a vastly more simple and fair tax system years ago. As a personal hobby challenge. I dont expect it to ever be adopted by any major real world government, because it would disempower too many grifters, haha. But it always makes me amused when I read any horror stories online about tax problems. The old William Gibson quote about "the future is here its just not evenly distributed yet."
- thriftwy 4y ago
  Care to submit it to HN?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - syngrog66 4y ago
    I dont see any upside to it for me, only downside (eg. critics or copycats). if I felt it was a net win I would ;-)
- bufferoverflow 4y ago
  Is it another "tax the rich" scheme, where the rich take their money elsewhere and your country's businesses are left without investors? It's easy to design a tax system, it's hard to predict its long-term effects.
smnrchrds 4y ago
> Young professionals see 10x-20x salaries in the US or 5x salaries in Germany, Switzerland, Norway. And they make one obvious choice. If you talk about tech, maybe. But I don't think the salary situation in Italy is that bleak if we look at the whole economy and account for purchasing power parity. Using OECD's number for 2019, household disposable income incl. social transfers in kind, in US dollars/capita at current prices and PPPs for the countries you mentioned are: Italy: 31.7k Norway: 40.1k Germany: 41.0k Switzerland: 41.1k United States: 54.9k https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-disposable-income.htm?context=OECD https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-disposable-income.htm?co...
- bufferoverflow 4y ago
  Ah, PPP, so these are adjusted numbers, not actual. I am talking about young professionals, they make a lot more money than that in Norway, Switzerland, USA. We know a Yoga teacher in Switzerland who makes 150 eur/hr, for example.
  - kbcool 4y ago
    That's why PPP is so great. When using it, it doesn't matter if the person makes 150 euros an hour if it costs them that much for a meal but the person in Italy only has to work half as long for a meal.
    - mort96 4y ago
      That's great when talking about people who spend the vast majority of their wealth on "cost of living" type stuff. But does it work in this case? If a person in Italy makes just enough to live comfortably, you can compare that to a person in Norway who makes just enough to live comfortably. But if a person wants a new iPhone on top of that, they're gonna be paying around $1250 whether they're in Norway or in Italy ($1295 in Norway, $1253 in Italy). So it seems to me that the calculation is a bit more complex than just some purchasing power parity factor. Even if $1 in Italy was $2 in Norway adjusted for PPP, I would much rather be making $8000/month in Norway than $4000/month in Italy because the price of luxury goods don't vary as wildly as the price of cost-of-living stuff. Or is my understanding wrong?
ur-whale 4y ago
Agree with everything you said, and while Italy is one of the worst offender on theses topics, they are unfortunately not the only ones in the EU.
durnygbur 4y ago
The most violent culture shock is the switch from living in Italian tourist bubble to living in Italian societal and economic realities. The moment you realise that people yell and gesticulate not because it looks cute, but because how infuriating is the daily life there.
- bufferoverflow 4y ago
  I found Italian people very friendly, and most of them would try to help me, a foreigner. Most did struggle financially. Most were unhappy with the tax man. Imagine making around the US minimum wage and constantly getting harassed by the IRS.
riffraff 4y ago
Nobody pays 55% in income taxes in Italy, the highest bracket is 43©, and of course that only applies to the part of your income above €75k. Possibly they were receiving 45% net, which is plausible but that is because you are paying for pension and social security, not income taxes. It is true anyway that IT is vastly underpaid in Italy compared to the rest of the world, and that the agenzia delle entrate is insanely harsh.
Tiktaalik 4y ago
Possible that these things are part of the declining population death spiral. Less people => less economic opportunity => weaker economy => lower wages. Aging population => greater healthcare need, less people => taxes raised to make up the program revenue shortfall. In Canada the Atlantic provinces through the 90s-00s emptied out for various economic reasons with young people going elsewhere for economic opportunity. It's remarkable to see that their sales taxes and income taxes in the area are much higher than BC, one of the economic powerhouses of Canadian federation. Very hard to get out of this. I think the only solution really is to open up the taps for immigration. Eventually the relative affordability of the declining area can help this. Nova Scotia just pushed past the $1M mark. The relative affordability of the area, growing acceptance of WFH policies and absurdly stupid expensive real estate everywhere else likely helped.

syngrog66 4y ago

I designed a vastly more simple and fair tax system years ago. As a personal hobby challenge. I dont expect it to ever be adopted by any major real world government, because it would disempower too many grifters, haha. But it always makes me amused when I read any horror stories online about tax problems. The old William Gibson quote about "the future is here its just not evenly distributed yet."

thriftwy 4y ago
Care to submit it to HN?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- syngrog66 4y ago
  I dont see any upside to it for me, only downside (eg. critics or copycats). if I felt it was a net win I would ;-)
bufferoverflow 4y ago
Is it another "tax the rich" scheme, where the rich take their money elsewhere and your country's businesses are left without investors? It's easy to design a tax system, it's hard to predict its long-term effects.

smnrchrds 4y ago

> Young professionals see 10x-20x salaries in the US or 5x salaries in Germany, Switzerland, Norway. And they make one obvious choice. If you talk about tech, maybe. But I don't think the salary situation in Italy is that bleak if we look at the whole economy and account for purchasing power parity. Using OECD's number for 2019, household disposable income incl. social transfers in kind, in US dollars/capita at current prices and PPPs for the countries you mentioned are: Italy: 31.7k Norway: 40.1k Germany: 41.0k Switzerland: 41.1k United States: 54.9k https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-disposable-income.htm?context=OECD https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-disposable-income.htm?co...

bufferoverflow 4y ago
Ah, PPP, so these are adjusted numbers, not actual. I am talking about young professionals, they make a lot more money than that in Norway, Switzerland, USA. We know a Yoga teacher in Switzerland who makes 150 eur/hr, for example.
- kbcool 4y ago
  That's why PPP is so great. When using it, it doesn't matter if the person makes 150 euros an hour if it costs them that much for a meal but the person in Italy only has to work half as long for a meal.
  - mort96 4y ago
    That's great when talking about people who spend the vast majority of their wealth on "cost of living" type stuff. But does it work in this case? If a person in Italy makes just enough to live comfortably, you can compare that to a person in Norway who makes just enough to live comfortably. But if a person wants a new iPhone on top of that, they're gonna be paying around $1250 whether they're in Norway or in Italy ($1295 in Norway, $1253 in Italy). So it seems to me that the calculation is a bit more complex than just some purchasing power parity factor. Even if $1 in Italy was $2 in Norway adjusted for PPP, I would much rather be making $8000/month in Norway than $4000/month in Italy because the price of luxury goods don't vary as wildly as the price of cost-of-living stuff. Or is my understanding wrong?

ur-whale 4y ago

Agree with everything you said, and while Italy is one of the worst offender on theses topics, they are unfortunately not the only ones in the EU.

durnygbur 4y ago

The most violent culture shock is the switch from living in Italian tourist bubble to living in Italian societal and economic realities. The moment you realise that people yell and gesticulate not because it looks cute, but because how infuriating is the daily life there.

bufferoverflow 4y ago
I found Italian people very friendly, and most of them would try to help me, a foreigner. Most did struggle financially. Most were unhappy with the tax man. Imagine making around the US minimum wage and constantly getting harassed by the IRS.

riffraff 4y ago

Nobody pays 55% in income taxes in Italy, the highest bracket is 43©, and of course that only applies to the part of your income above €75k. Possibly they were receiving 45% net, which is plausible but that is because you are paying for pension and social security, not income taxes. It is true anyway that IT is vastly underpaid in Italy compared to the rest of the world, and that the agenzia delle entrate is insanely harsh.

Tiktaalik 4y ago

Possible that these things are part of the declining population death spiral. Less people => less economic opportunity => weaker economy => lower wages. Aging population => greater healthcare need, less people => taxes raised to make up the program revenue shortfall. In Canada the Atlantic provinces through the 90s-00s emptied out for various economic reasons with young people going elsewhere for economic opportunity. It's remarkable to see that their sales taxes and income taxes in the area are much higher than BC, one of the economic powerhouses of Canadian federation. Very hard to get out of this. I think the only solution really is to open up the taps for immigration. Eventually the relative affordability of the declining area can help this. Nova Scotia just pushed past the $1M mark. The relative affordability of the area, growing acceptance of WFH policies and absurdly stupid expensive real estate everywhere else likely helped.