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in some states. On a salary of £120,000 in the UK, you'll take home 60% of your pay [0], meanwhile in California on $145,000 [1] you take home 63%. The real di

in some states. On a salary of £120,000 in the UK, you'll take home 60% of your pay [0], meanwhile in California on $145,000 [1] you take home 63%. The real difference is that it's very hard to be paid 120,000 in the UK. [0] https://www.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/salary.php https://www.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/salary.php [1] https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-paycheck-calculator#H1zdEHOS3c https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-paycheck-calculator#...

varispeed 4y ago
This is a bit misleading, because on £120k salary the employer has to additionally pay £17k of employer's NI which comes from your salary budget. So in real terms you make £137k and your take home is about 53% (and it's get worse as your pay goes up as you are losing personal allowance and your take home quickly becomes less than 50%). It does not account for Apprenticeship Levy. It's a quite nasty way for the government to hide the true level of taxation from employees.
- maccard 4y ago
  There's always a hidden cost. There's also the fact that on 120k an employer is required to contribute 3% and likely does so via salary sacrifice which changes the numbers again. The number I picked for California is also on the higher end, other states are lower again. All thats to say a direct general comparison isn't possible but it's not right to claim that the west has a higher tax burden either the numbers are dangerously close in many cases.
- rowanajmarshall 4y ago
  The UK handles this quite well, the same author as this post also wrote this: https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1511394247500566533 https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1511394247500566533
digianarchist 4y ago
There can be huge tax advantages in the US compared to Canada or the EU. My effective rate in California is 24% because I can file my taxes jointly which isn't possible elsewhere.
- cdavid 4y ago
  It depends on the country. In France, you definitely gets lots of tax advantage getting married, and in many cases 1 person earning X is not so different than 2 people getting x/2 after tax. That is definitely not true in the UK, at least when I was working there from 2011 to 2017.
- ido 4y ago
  It may not be possible everywhere but it’s certainly possible elsewhere (my wife and I also file jointly in Germany).
  - digianarchist 4y ago
    TIL: https://www.diw.de/documents/dokumentenarchiv/17/81949/steiner_familiensplitting_folien.pdf https://www.diw.de/documents/dokumentenarchiv/17/81949/stein...
justinlloyd 4y ago
> The real difference is that it's very hard to be paid 120,000 in the UK. Interesting. I recently turned down the opportunity to interview with a UK company because the compensation target was 120,000 pounds and I flat out told them, "that won't even get me out of bed in the morning." I have been talking with quite a few UK recruiters over the past few months and what I am noticing is that a lot of recruiters and headhunters in the UK just don't have access to the upper tier deal flow that pays the 200K salary. My current recruiter is under a strict "don't come to me unless they either have a super interesting problem in a revenue positive, stable company for 200K or a boring problem for 250K in a post-seed start-up." I have a standing offer with a company I don't want to work for for a little over 200K base compensation, so that's the target any recruiter has to hit. The work is out there, it just takes a while to find. Thanks for the link to the salary calculator, useful to know what my take home will be when I am ready to make the move.
- lozenge 4y ago
  You can pretty much list the highest-paying UK companies on levels.fyi. There's FAANG, Bloomberg and a couple of other financial/trading companies. The financial companies are the only ones to engage external recruiters.

varispeed 4y ago

This is a bit misleading, because on £120k salary the employer has to additionally pay £17k of employer's NI which comes from your salary budget. So in real terms you make £137k and your take home is about 53% (and it's get worse as your pay goes up as you are losing personal allowance and your take home quickly becomes less than 50%). It does not account for Apprenticeship Levy. It's a quite nasty way for the government to hide the true level of taxation from employees.

maccard 4y ago
There's always a hidden cost. There's also the fact that on 120k an employer is required to contribute 3% and likely does so via salary sacrifice which changes the numbers again. The number I picked for California is also on the higher end, other states are lower again. All thats to say a direct general comparison isn't possible but it's not right to claim that the west has a higher tax burden either the numbers are dangerously close in many cases.
rowanajmarshall 4y ago
The UK handles this quite well, the same author as this post also wrote this: https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1511394247500566533 https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1511394247500566533

digianarchist 4y ago

There can be huge tax advantages in the US compared to Canada or the EU. My effective rate in California is 24% because I can file my taxes jointly which isn't possible elsewhere.

cdavid 4y ago
It depends on the country. In France, you definitely gets lots of tax advantage getting married, and in many cases 1 person earning X is not so different than 2 people getting x/2 after tax. That is definitely not true in the UK, at least when I was working there from 2011 to 2017.
ido 4y ago
It may not be possible everywhere but it’s certainly possible elsewhere (my wife and I also file jointly in Germany).
- digianarchist 4y ago
  TIL: https://www.diw.de/documents/dokumentenarchiv/17/81949/steiner_familiensplitting_folien.pdf https://www.diw.de/documents/dokumentenarchiv/17/81949/stein...

justinlloyd 4y ago

> The real difference is that it's very hard to be paid 120,000 in the UK. Interesting. I recently turned down the opportunity to interview with a UK company because the compensation target was 120,000 pounds and I flat out told them, "that won't even get me out of bed in the morning." I have been talking with quite a few UK recruiters over the past few months and what I am noticing is that a lot of recruiters and headhunters in the UK just don't have access to the upper tier deal flow that pays the 200K salary. My current recruiter is under a strict "don't come to me unless they either have a super interesting problem in a revenue positive, stable company for 200K or a boring problem for 250K in a post-seed start-up." I have a standing offer with a company I don't want to work for for a little over 200K base compensation, so that's the target any recruiter has to hit. The work is out there, it just takes a while to find. Thanks for the link to the salary calculator, useful to know what my take home will be when I am ready to make the move.

lozenge 4y ago
You can pretty much list the highest-paying UK companies on levels.fyi. There's FAANG, Bloomberg and a couple of other financial/trading companies. The financial companies are the only ones to engage external recruiters.