4 ms·

I’m not convinced Americans pay less in taxes. When you include state taxes, social security from the employee and employer, then it starts to look like much l

by jraby3 3y ago

I’m not convinced Americans pay less in taxes. When you include state taxes, social security from the employee and employer, then it starts to look like much less of a difference. When you include health insurance and college education, Americans get much less value. I do agree with the first half of your comment. American labor laws make it easier to fire which allows employers to take more risk in hiring.

jylam 3y ago
> "I do agree with the first half of your comment. American labor laws make it easier to fire which allows employers to take more risk in hiring. " less risk, you used the wrong word. If they can fire easily, they take less risk by hiring. That's more risk for the employee though, you miss the fact that most of the people is not HN, and they don't get paid 6 or 7 figures and don't find a job in days if they really need to.
- profile53 3y ago
  I think they take less risk in each hiring decision and because of that, can take on more risky / less proven candidates, ergo more risk acceptance in the hiring practices.
  - 6D794163636F756 3y ago
    To rephrase, you're saying that US companies are able to more quickly divest from failed ideas so they are more willing to take on a venture that's not likely to succeed (risky) because failure will not hurt them as much (less risky). This is a scoping issue, the action contains the risk because the system has mitigated it.
- kogus 3y ago
  You are right - but because each hire is less risky, a US company can afford to take the risk of hiring for an "experimental" role that may not work out. I think this additional risk is what they were referring to.
pizzaknife 3y ago
take a look at "property tax"
mgaunard 3y ago
If you live in the UK, income tax is 45%, and you still cannot rely on either of public education or public healthcare, at least if you want something of good quality.
- pizzaknife 3y ago
  you should consider disposing of a significant swath of tea in the local harbor
- frereubu 3y ago
  Income tax in the UK is 45% only on the portion over £125,140 (~ $160,000) a year: https://www.gov.uk/income-tax-rates https://www.gov.uk/income-tax-rates
  - mgaunard 3y ago
    Principal software engineer positions and above frequently reach $1M per year.
    - kiitos 3y ago
      They do not.
      - mgaunard 3y ago
        Just look up how much a L8 makes at Google.
- burnished 3y ago
  It is 20% up to 37k, 40% after that through 125k, and 45% after that. The US federal income tax is graduated much more finely but hits 12% between 10k and 42k and 22% from there to 89k, and 24% until 140k. This neglects any state income or sales tax as well.
  - EduardoBautista 3y ago
bryanlarsen 3y ago
> American labor laws make it easier to fire which allows employers to take more risk in hiring. You can have your cake and eat it too. It's called the Danish model, although Denmark itself has an imperfect implementation of the model. In the Danish model, it's easy to fire people, but the social safety net ensures that the employee doesn't get screwed if it happens. They don't lose their health insurance, EI is generous enough that it has minimal impact on their lifestyle, etc.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  It's exactly the same in Austria, you can always get fired without any reasons and without any severance, you just have to rely on unemployment. It still sucks though compared to other countries where you can't easily get fired, as the unemployment money might not always cover your expenses like mortgage, if you had a high paying job and got into a lot of debt for a house. And this system of being easy to fire people hasn't exactly resulted in the well paying and plentiful jobs market the way it was promised, most likely due to the bureaucracy and high taxes on businesses, keeping investors away. So having employees easy to fire is not the key to a good jobs market, but it's having the capital, bureaucracy and tax laws, coupled with the risk taking mentality to convince the rich to invest their wealth in starting new businesses knowing 95% of them will fail and only 5% will succeed, instead of hoarding their wealth away in multi-gernerational real estate thanks to zero inheritance taxes like the wealthy in Austria and Europe in general do.
  - aastronaut 3y ago
    Correction: you cannot get fired ("Entlassung") without any reason in Austria, you need rather strong reasons to fire somebody[0], but your employment contract can be terminated with a notice period anytime* ("Kündigung")[1]. The notice period is 6 weeks at minimum by law (6-12 weeks is common in startups by employment contract) and includes "Postensuchtage"[2], which allow you to use 20% of your time during the notice period however you want. *: every 1st or 15th of the month is common [0]: https://www.usp.gv.at/en/mitarbeiter/beendigung-arbeitsverhaeltnis/entlassung.html https://www.usp.gv.at/en/mitarbeiter/beendigung-arbeitsverha... [1]: https://www.usp.gv.at/en/mitarbeiter/beendigung-arbeitsverhaeltnis/kuendigung.html https://www.usp.gv.at/en/mitarbeiter/beendigung-arbeitsverha... [2]: https://www.wko.at/service/arbeitsrecht-sozialrecht/Anspruch_auf_Postensuche.html https://www.wko.at/service/arbeitsrecht-sozialrecht/Anspruch...
rednerrus 3y ago
If Europeans had to pay to defend their own international shipping routes their taxes would be exorbinant.
- marcosdumay 3y ago
  In the real life (instead of the heads of famous youtubers), piracy is fought on each country, by the local country. That's agreed upon by almost every country on the world, and the ones that don't agree or don't hold their part are cut from the global economy. Despite what a famous youtuber like to preach, the US participation is on the US and very few countries that explicitly call for help. And when countries need help, it's not usually the US that they ask first.
  - rednerrus 3y ago
    It's not just piracy, right?
cryptonector 3y ago
> When you include state taxes, social security from the employee and employer, then it starts to look like much less of a difference. When you count just the taxes we definitely pay less, especially in places like Texas and Florida. Well, I suppose there's the budget deficit and national debt to consider, though yours aren't exactly great either. Well, except that there's a middle income trap with social security taxes. Basically, you want to be earning either a fair bit more than the social security cut-off, or to be on welfare. This is a terrible feature of our system. > When you include health insurance and college education, Americans get much less value. Honestly I'm starting to believe that our tertiary education system is vastly overvalued and that we can do much better for much less cost. Also, we have state schools that are very good and very cheap (by comparison to private ones anyways). I know people who have done very well in tech without having gone to school or graduated. As for medical, the only coverage I want is catastrophic, and if I could just just get that then health care would be way cheaper. Health care providers generally have much lower prices when you have no insurance and pay out of pocket. > I do agree with the first half of your comment. American labor laws make it easier to fire which allows employers to take more risk in hiring. This is, on the whole, a very very nice feature. We also have better political speech rights than you. And... well, the whole Bill of Rights is a big deal, and European countries mostly don't have anything like it.
- TylerE 3y ago
  Texas has the highest property taxes in the country, so it is false to think that moving to Texas (or Florida, with their insurance nightmares) is some sort of free-money trick.
  - cryptonector 3y ago
    Eh, Texas has high property taxes (because they function as a backdoor income tax via the "Robin Hood" school district subsidy program), but they vary a fair bit, and there's no state income tax. Compare to NJ which has high income and high property taxes.
- ben_w 3y ago
  We definitely have something like the Bill of Rights: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human_Rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human_R... I think the US has more freedom of speech (although it's hard to tell without training in constitutional law over 24 official languages (25 if you want to count Welsh, is this EU, Europe, or Council of Europe? Might need to add more…) and a split between common and (multiple subtypes of) civil law), but also I think it's a difference in detail not in kind.
RestlessMind 3y ago
> college education College education can be had for super cheap in the US via community colleges. Going to an expensive college is a lifestyle choice and I know many people who spend first 2 years in local community colleges and then move to the state college system.
- TylerE 3y ago
  Not as cheap as it used to be. Here in NC, just those last 2 years at a state school, instate costs (NOT including lodging or other living expenses) are almost $40,000. Not nothing.
  - RestlessMind 3y ago
    Do you have any sources? I looked at the closest community college for me (De Anza) and it's tuition is 19,950 including 11,796 for room and board. Without that, since most college kids can live with parents, it's less than 8000[1]. And this is in SV, one of the most expensive places in the US. [1] https://www.deanza.edu/financialaid/apply/cost.html https://www.deanza.edu/financialaid/apply/cost.html
    - rahimnathwani 3y ago
      GP is talking about the last 2 years, not the first 2 years.
- MandieD 3y ago
  College education at US community colleges can be had for sort of cheap: you still have tuition in the $1000-2000 range per semester, as well as living costs. Example: Austin Community College, where a local resident (but not all Texans!) would be on the hook for about $1800 for a 15-credit-hour semester. If you have the good fortune of living in an excellent community college district, it can be pretty good; if you don’t… sorry. College education in Germany and most other EU members is truly cheap: you have semester fees well under 500 EUR (when they were raised to that in Germany, massive protests pushed them back), plus living costs, no matter where in the country you went to high school or your parents live, no matter whether you’re sticking around at Eastern Bavaria University of Applied Sciences (a relatively new institution serving a traditionally less-prosperous part of the state, with enrollment open to anyone who got an Abitur) or managed to win one of the competitive computer science spots at Technische Universität München: both have semester fees around 100 EUR.
chinchilla2020 3y ago
> I'm not convinced Americans pay less in taxes They do. It's been quantified. There are many states with no income tax. A 230k salary and corporate health insurance is going to put you ahead of almost every European software shop. I love Germany and enjoyed my time there, but I choose to work in the states and have the financial security that can only be gained by saving money from a high salary. Still, I would love to see some friction added to the layoff process in the US. Perhaps larger mandatory severance periods. Make layoffs possible, but not easy.

by jraby3 3y ago

jylam 3y ago

> "I do agree with the first half of your comment. American labor laws make it easier to fire which allows employers to take more risk in hiring. " less risk, you used the wrong word. If they can fire easily, they take less risk by hiring. That's more risk for the employee though, you miss the fact that most of the people is not HN, and they don't get paid 6 or 7 figures and don't find a job in days if they really need to.

profile53 3y ago
I think they take less risk in each hiring decision and because of that, can take on more risky / less proven candidates, ergo more risk acceptance in the hiring practices.
- 6D794163636F756 3y ago
  To rephrase, you're saying that US companies are able to more quickly divest from failed ideas so they are more willing to take on a venture that's not likely to succeed (risky) because failure will not hurt them as much (less risky). This is a scoping issue, the action contains the risk because the system has mitigated it.
kogus 3y ago
You are right - but because each hire is less risky, a US company can afford to take the risk of hiring for an "experimental" role that may not work out. I think this additional risk is what they were referring to.

pizzaknife 3y ago

take a look at "property tax"

mgaunard 3y ago

If you live in the UK, income tax is 45%, and you still cannot rely on either of public education or public healthcare, at least if you want something of good quality.

pizzaknife 3y ago
you should consider disposing of a significant swath of tea in the local harbor
frereubu 3y ago
Income tax in the UK is 45% only on the portion over £125,140 (~ $160,000) a year: https://www.gov.uk/income-tax-rates https://www.gov.uk/income-tax-rates
- mgaunard 3y ago
  Principal software engineer positions and above frequently reach $1M per year.
  - kiitos 3y ago
    They do not.
    - mgaunard 3y ago
      Just look up how much a L8 makes at Google.
burnished 3y ago
It is 20% up to 37k, 40% after that through 125k, and 45% after that. The US federal income tax is graduated much more finely but hits 12% between 10k and 42k and 22% from there to 89k, and 24% until 140k. This neglects any state income or sales tax as well.
- EduardoBautista 3y ago

bryanlarsen 3y ago

> American labor laws make it easier to fire which allows employers to take more risk in hiring. You can have your cake and eat it too. It's called the Danish model, although Denmark itself has an imperfect implementation of the model. In the Danish model, it's easy to fire people, but the social safety net ensures that the employee doesn't get screwed if it happens. They don't lose their health insurance, EI is generous enough that it has minimal impact on their lifestyle, etc.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
It's exactly the same in Austria, you can always get fired without any reasons and without any severance, you just have to rely on unemployment. It still sucks though compared to other countries where you can't easily get fired, as the unemployment money might not always cover your expenses like mortgage, if you had a high paying job and got into a lot of debt for a house. And this system of being easy to fire people hasn't exactly resulted in the well paying and plentiful jobs market the way it was promised, most likely due to the bureaucracy and high taxes on businesses, keeping investors away. So having employees easy to fire is not the key to a good jobs market, but it's having the capital, bureaucracy and tax laws, coupled with the risk taking mentality to convince the rich to invest their wealth in starting new businesses knowing 95% of them will fail and only 5% will succeed, instead of hoarding their wealth away in multi-gernerational real estate thanks to zero inheritance taxes like the wealthy in Austria and Europe in general do.
- aastronaut 3y ago
  Correction: you cannot get fired ("Entlassung") without any reason in Austria, you need rather strong reasons to fire somebody[0], but your employment contract can be terminated with a notice period anytime* ("Kündigung")[1]. The notice period is 6 weeks at minimum by law (6-12 weeks is common in startups by employment contract) and includes "Postensuchtage"[2], which allow you to use 20% of your time during the notice period however you want. *: every 1st or 15th of the month is common [0]: https://www.usp.gv.at/en/mitarbeiter/beendigung-arbeitsverhaeltnis/entlassung.html https://www.usp.gv.at/en/mitarbeiter/beendigung-arbeitsverha... [1]: https://www.usp.gv.at/en/mitarbeiter/beendigung-arbeitsverhaeltnis/kuendigung.html https://www.usp.gv.at/en/mitarbeiter/beendigung-arbeitsverha... [2]: https://www.wko.at/service/arbeitsrecht-sozialrecht/Anspruch_auf_Postensuche.html https://www.wko.at/service/arbeitsrecht-sozialrecht/Anspruch...

rednerrus 3y ago

If Europeans had to pay to defend their own international shipping routes their taxes would be exorbinant.

marcosdumay 3y ago
In the real life (instead of the heads of famous youtubers), piracy is fought on each country, by the local country. That's agreed upon by almost every country on the world, and the ones that don't agree or don't hold their part are cut from the global economy. Despite what a famous youtuber like to preach, the US participation is on the US and very few countries that explicitly call for help. And when countries need help, it's not usually the US that they ask first.
- rednerrus 3y ago
  It's not just piracy, right?

cryptonector 3y ago

> When you include state taxes, social security from the employee and employer, then it starts to look like much less of a difference. When you count just the taxes we definitely pay less, especially in places like Texas and Florida. Well, I suppose there's the budget deficit and national debt to consider, though yours aren't exactly great either. Well, except that there's a middle income trap with social security taxes. Basically, you want to be earning either a fair bit more than the social security cut-off, or to be on welfare. This is a terrible feature of our system. > When you include health insurance and college education, Americans get much less value. Honestly I'm starting to believe that our tertiary education system is vastly overvalued and that we can do much better for much less cost. Also, we have state schools that are very good and very cheap (by comparison to private ones anyways). I know people who have done very well in tech without having gone to school or graduated. As for medical, the only coverage I want is catastrophic, and if I could just just get that then health care would be way cheaper. Health care providers generally have much lower prices when you have no insurance and pay out of pocket. > I do agree with the first half of your comment. American labor laws make it easier to fire which allows employers to take more risk in hiring. This is, on the whole, a very very nice feature. We also have better political speech rights than you. And... well, the whole Bill of Rights is a big deal, and European countries mostly don't have anything like it.

TylerE 3y ago
Texas has the highest property taxes in the country, so it is false to think that moving to Texas (or Florida, with their insurance nightmares) is some sort of free-money trick.
- cryptonector 3y ago
  Eh, Texas has high property taxes (because they function as a backdoor income tax via the "Robin Hood" school district subsidy program), but they vary a fair bit, and there's no state income tax. Compare to NJ which has high income and high property taxes.
ben_w 3y ago
We definitely have something like the Bill of Rights: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human_Rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human_R... I think the US has more freedom of speech (although it's hard to tell without training in constitutional law over 24 official languages (25 if you want to count Welsh, is this EU, Europe, or Council of Europe? Might need to add more…) and a split between common and (multiple subtypes of) civil law), but also I think it's a difference in detail not in kind.

RestlessMind 3y ago

> college education College education can be had for super cheap in the US via community colleges. Going to an expensive college is a lifestyle choice and I know many people who spend first 2 years in local community colleges and then move to the state college system.

TylerE 3y ago
Not as cheap as it used to be. Here in NC, just those last 2 years at a state school, instate costs (NOT including lodging or other living expenses) are almost $40,000. Not nothing.
- RestlessMind 3y ago
  Do you have any sources? I looked at the closest community college for me (De Anza) and it's tuition is 19,950 including 11,796 for room and board. Without that, since most college kids can live with parents, it's less than 8000[1]. And this is in SV, one of the most expensive places in the US. [1] https://www.deanza.edu/financialaid/apply/cost.html https://www.deanza.edu/financialaid/apply/cost.html
  - rahimnathwani 3y ago
    GP is talking about the last 2 years, not the first 2 years.
MandieD 3y ago
College education at US community colleges can be had for sort of cheap: you still have tuition in the $1000-2000 range per semester, as well as living costs. Example: Austin Community College, where a local resident (but not all Texans!) would be on the hook for about $1800 for a 15-credit-hour semester. If you have the good fortune of living in an excellent community college district, it can be pretty good; if you don’t… sorry. College education in Germany and most other EU members is truly cheap: you have semester fees well under 500 EUR (when they were raised to that in Germany, massive protests pushed them back), plus living costs, no matter where in the country you went to high school or your parents live, no matter whether you’re sticking around at Eastern Bavaria University of Applied Sciences (a relatively new institution serving a traditionally less-prosperous part of the state, with enrollment open to anyone who got an Abitur) or managed to win one of the competitive computer science spots at Technische Universität München: both have semester fees around 100 EUR.

chinchilla2020 3y ago

> I'm not convinced Americans pay less in taxes They do. It's been quantified. There are many states with no income tax. A 230k salary and corporate health insurance is going to put you ahead of almost every European software shop. I love Germany and enjoyed my time there, but I choose to work in the states and have the financial security that can only be gained by saving money from a high salary. Still, I would love to see some friction added to the layoff process in the US. Perhaps larger mandatory severance periods. Make layoffs possible, but not easy.