6 ms·

Top marginal rate in Sweden, 50%~ starts at $59k and our VAT is 25%. So eh, UK doesn't seem so bad.

ilikerashers 3y ago
Can we have your childcare, your healthcare and your housing market please in exchange? Childcare alone in Zone 4 London is £2000 per month.
- rojeee 3y ago
  Yup, it's mad! I pay £2,500 a month for nursery for my son in zone 2. So... to send your kid to nursery you need £40k of spare gross income before paying the mortgage, and everything else. I'm fed up and moving up north!
  - ilikerashers 3y ago
    That’s crap. Means a parent can’t work really.
    - lesuorac 3y ago
      And thats why women generally make less. Losing 5-11 (or more) years of experience really puts you behind a man that didn't (stereotypes w/e) stop working to raise a kid(s) until they could go to school.
  - leoedin 3y ago
    There are cheaper options though - my nursery in zone 3 North London is "only" £1500 a month.
- leoedin 3y ago
  For one child? My nursery in zone 3 is £1500 a month.
  - ilikerashers 3y ago
    Where is this nursery? Even my brother in Newcastle is paying £75 per day. Or is this for over 3's with both parents on <100k.
    - leoedin 3y ago
      North London, near Turnpike Lane. I think all the nurseries I enquired at in the area charge somewhere between £1200 and £1700 a month full time. Our previous nursery in Brixton was £1625 a week for a full time place. It probably helps that those are cheaper parts of the city.
fsckboy 3y ago
>our VAT is 25% VAT is the biggest scam, it's just an income tax under another name. What is a company's income? revenue - costs What is a company's value-add? revenue - costs massive eye-roll. I once asked a real(tm) economist what the difference was and he looked up and thought for a minute and said "payroll tax". Payroll tax is what the US calls social security tax (for retirement, unemployment and the like)
- lesuorac 3y ago
  Isn't VAT the best way to ensure tax is collected? Somebody can just not pay Sales tax and so the government doesn't collect it. But with VAT the seller is incentive to report so they can recover the VAT they paid. i.e. McDonalds buys 10 burgers and pays 1$ in VAT to their supplier. then McDonalds sells those 10 (now cooked) burgers and can recover 1$ in VAT from the government while the consumers ultimately pay >1$ in VAT for the 10 burgers.
  - fsckboy 3y ago
    when your employer pays your wages, they have an incentive to report that to the govt as a cost so they don't pay tax on it. That gives the govt the information they need to come after you for not paying your income tax on it. So, same thing, income tax and VAT there is more enforceability because he structure of payments and information flow can make a difference to ease of enforcement... but the amount of tax is based on what activity is being taxed. Sales taxes are considered "regressive" because poor people spend a greater %age of their income, so in some sense it can be seen as an "undoing" of progressive income tax. That's not strictly true, however, because the working class complaint about rich people is how much rich people consume while living greedy lavish lives: which shows that rich people would be paying a lot more of the overall %age of sales tax than poor people (not really strictly distinguishing VAT from sales tax here) So, anyway, I'm not defending sales taxes here (meaning tax on final sale to consume-ers with no taxes backward up the supply chain). VAT taxes do make more sense in terms of economic efficiency: 10% sales tax on a printer selling for $200 is $20, where the printer cost $300 to make (remember, they're going to sell you expensive ink), and with a VAT tax the tax would be $0 (or would it even be a $30 refund?)... ...point is, VAT tax works out to a high sales-tax-on-high-profit-margin-goods and a low sales-tax-on-low-profit-margin-goods, which is helpful because govt doesn't want to distort the market for low margin goods with high taxes. However, back to my original point, it simply means that income taxes make more economic sense than consumption taxes, and VAT is an income tax, not a consumption tax.

Can we have your childcare, your healthcare and your housing market please in exchange? Childcare alone in Zone 4 London is £2000 per month.

rojeee 3y ago
Yup, it's mad! I pay £2,500 a month for nursery for my son in zone 2. So... to send your kid to nursery you need £40k of spare gross income before paying the mortgage, and everything else. I'm fed up and moving up north!
- ilikerashers 3y ago
  That’s crap. Means a parent can’t work really.
  - lesuorac 3y ago
    And thats why women generally make less. Losing 5-11 (or more) years of experience really puts you behind a man that didn't (stereotypes w/e) stop working to raise a kid(s) until they could go to school.
- leoedin 3y ago
  There are cheaper options though - my nursery in zone 3 North London is "only" £1500 a month.
leoedin 3y ago
For one child? My nursery in zone 3 is £1500 a month.
- ilikerashers 3y ago
  Where is this nursery? Even my brother in Newcastle is paying £75 per day. Or is this for over 3's with both parents on <100k.
  - leoedin 3y ago
    North London, near Turnpike Lane. I think all the nurseries I enquired at in the area charge somewhere between £1200 and £1700 a month full time. Our previous nursery in Brixton was £1625 a week for a full time place. It probably helps that those are cheaper parts of the city.

fsckboy 3y ago

>our VAT is 25% VAT is the biggest scam, it's just an income tax under another name. What is a company's income? revenue - costs What is a company's value-add? revenue - costs massive eye-roll. I once asked a real(tm) economist what the difference was and he looked up and thought for a minute and said "payroll tax". Payroll tax is what the US calls social security tax (for retirement, unemployment and the like)

lesuorac 3y ago
Isn't VAT the best way to ensure tax is collected? Somebody can just not pay Sales tax and so the government doesn't collect it. But with VAT the seller is incentive to report so they can recover the VAT they paid. i.e. McDonalds buys 10 burgers and pays 1$ in VAT to their supplier. then McDonalds sells those 10 (now cooked) burgers and can recover 1$ in VAT from the government while the consumers ultimately pay >1$ in VAT for the 10 burgers.
- fsckboy 3y ago
  when your employer pays your wages, they have an incentive to report that to the govt as a cost so they don't pay tax on it. That gives the govt the information they need to come after you for not paying your income tax on it. So, same thing, income tax and VAT there is more enforceability because he structure of payments and information flow can make a difference to ease of enforcement... but the amount of tax is based on what activity is being taxed. Sales taxes are considered "regressive" because poor people spend a greater %age of their income, so in some sense it can be seen as an "undoing" of progressive income tax. That's not strictly true, however, because the working class complaint about rich people is how much rich people consume while living greedy lavish lives: which shows that rich people would be paying a lot more of the overall %age of sales tax than poor people (not really strictly distinguishing VAT from sales tax here) So, anyway, I'm not defending sales taxes here (meaning tax on final sale to consume-ers with no taxes backward up the supply chain). VAT taxes do make more sense in terms of economic efficiency: 10% sales tax on a printer selling for $200 is $20, where the printer cost $300 to make (remember, they're going to sell you expensive ink), and with a VAT tax the tax would be $0 (or would it even be a $30 refund?)... ...point is, VAT tax works out to a high sales-tax-on-high-profit-margin-goods and a low sales-tax-on-low-profit-margin-goods, which is helpful because govt doesn't want to distort the market for low margin goods with high taxes. However, back to my original point, it simply means that income taxes make more economic sense than consumption taxes, and VAT is an income tax, not a consumption tax.