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Taxes are far higher in Europe than in America. The additional "Social" benefits in my opinion are trivial in comparison with the differences in taxes. Progres

Taxes are far higher in Europe than in America. The additional "Social" benefits in my opinion are trivial in comparison with the differences in taxes. Progressive income taxes increase at a far higher rate in Europe. Plus Europe has other forms of taxes: far higher sales taxes (VAT), corporate taxes, and other forms of taxes like buying-property tax (Grunderwerbsteuer).

s1artibartfast 3y ago
It is actually a lot closer than you think if you add up all the different taxes for each country.
- refurb 3y ago
  It's actually a greater difference. VAT in the EU is 21% on average. Gasoline taxes are more than double. The easiest way to see the difference is tax revenue as a percentage of GDP. France is 46%, Germany 37%, UK 33%. The US is 27%.
  - personomas 3y ago
    Exactly, very well answered. UK might be higher now that they recently (this year) raised their corporate tax rate by 7%! And certainly this doesn't include the inflation tax either. Governments spend like crazy. No wonder we're not living sustainably! It starts from the top down! That's not corporations, it's the governments!
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    That is federal. Add in states and cities and US government revenue is more than 40% of GDP [1]. When you consider actual dollars, not % gdp, Americans pay MORE in actual dollars than many European countries. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Federal%2C_state%2C_and_local_tax_revenue_as_a_percent_of_GDP.pdf https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Federal%... France gdp/capita is around 43,658.98 USD. 47% is $20.5k/capita. US gdp/capita is around 66,000 USD. 40% tax revenue is $26.5k/capita. The US government brings in 30% more tax revenue per resident than the French government. The differences in social benefits between France and the US are not due to lower taxes in the US. They are due to inefficient spending and systemic economic differences.
    - refurb 3y ago
      I have no idea where you data comes from, but the OECD tax data (the one I quoted) includes all levels of government, property taxes and sales tax/VAT. "This indicator relates to government as a whole (all government levels) and is measured in percentage both of GDP and of total taxation." https://data.oecd.org/tax/tax-revenue.htm https://data.oecd.org/tax/tax-revenue.htm The OECD data has the US at 34% and France at 45%. And the idea that "the US pays more taxes doesn't even pass the sniff test. You only need to look at income tax rates, VAT, etc and anyone can tell that's not true at all.
      - s1artibartfast 3y ago
        Even using your numbers from OECD, US taxes revenues per capita are still higher than France in real dollars ($22k vs 20k)! The US Government doesn't have a revenue problem, it has an efficiency and cost control problem. For example, The US government healthcare spending per capita is 2.5X (250%) that of France- ($10.5K vs $4K per person), and France gets a universal national health insurance for that price, and the US gets medicare and medicaid. [1,2] Yes- you read that right, and it is still true if you adjust for PPP. The same phenomenon holds true across almost every aspect of US government spending. Look at infrastructure. The cost to build subways and light rail in the US is 2-7 times higher than in Europe. [3] Look at defense. US spends ~300% as much as France, which is actually higher than most western European countries.[4] From a purely numerical sense, the US can't overcome an efficiency problem by raising taxes and throwing more money at it. 1 https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=SHA https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=SHA 2 https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-reports/national-health-expenditure-data/nhe-fact-sheet#:~:text=NHE%20grew%202.7%25%20to%20%244.3,17%20percent%20of%20total%20NHE https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-repo.... 3 https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/01/subways-and-light-rail-cost-two-to-seven-times-more-to-build-in-the-usa-than-europe-or-japan.html#:~:text=The%20US%20has%20a%20range,to%20be%20%2410%2C000%20to%20%2425%2C000 https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/01/subways-and-light-rail.... 4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditure_per_capita#:~:text=As%20of%202021%2C%20the%20top,)%20and%20Singapore%20(~%241885) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_....
dukeyukey 3y ago
Worth pointing out that lots of Europe doesn't really have property taxes, something that is common in the US.
- broken-kebab 3y ago
  Really? To the best of my knowledge all the EU members have property taxes.
- personomas 3y ago
  Germany has property tax.
meetingthrower 3y ago
Your perspective depends on your income, obviously. If you are a truly middle class income (say $70K which is median household income in US), the benefits you get are HUGE relative to the taxes you pay. Not to include the insecurity of being one health event away from bankruptcy...
- personomas 3y ago
  Total disagree. See my comment up above (1). Health care is horrible in the EU. At least in America you can choose to go bankrupt in exchange for quality health care treatment. In the EU, if you ever even get Doctor time, it's always rushed, and very often misdiagnosed. This is coming from an American living in Germany. (1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37809938 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37809938.
  - curiousgibbon 3y ago
    This sentence is... wow. "At least in America you can choose to go bankrupt in exchange for quality health care treatment." I'm so glad the founding fathers protected my right to bankrupt myself at the hands of an incredibly profitable healthcare industry. Stupid Euros don't know what they're missing.
    - personomas 3y ago
      Yeah, but at least you can get quality health care in America. That hardly exists in Europe. Free "health" care to shit doesn't do much good. I have hard to seeing why you think you're worthy of incurring unending health cares expenses on a human health care system that by nature is not unending. If we are human and therefore our system can only by provide limited health care, then consequently you either go bankrupt at some point or you don't get health care. America chooses the former, EU chooses the latter.
  - addicted 3y ago
    And yet European health outcomes are significantly better than American ones across the board. So what’s missing? And if you think America doctors are not rushed and often misdiagnose stuff then you’ve probably not been to an American medical facility in quite some time.
gmerc 3y ago
As a young person it may be trivial but health related bankruptcy in the US tells another story overall
- personomas 3y ago
  EU health care is horrible - absolutely horrendous. It's very difficult for a young, working individual to get quality health care in a reasonable time - actually, almost impossible. I would definitely rather take the US health care situation over EU health care. Doctors are muchmore competant in the US, and they are much more likely to go out of their way to help you. One reason surely because EU doctors are unbelievably overwhelmed, working in health care in the EU must be really really horrible. In my opinion, if the EU social benefits are even a little bit better than in the US, it's definitely because of other factors, not at all because of health care.
  - dv_dt 3y ago
    That’s an odd choice because the US lags Europe in life expectancy, except for in states like CA, which as we’re discussing has just as high a cost but with increased uncertainty.
    - personomas 3y ago
      It's a minor difference (3 years), there are a lot of other reasons that can contribute to difference in life expectancy than health care. Europe is very much, you know, don't do anything, sit at a home all days. Americans are more likely to live their life and get out - which comes with obvious danger, but at least Americans might experience life!
      - dv_dt 3y ago
        How much is a year of your life worth? A few thousand in taxes a year? The US left expectancy has also been going down even after the worse of Covid while the EU is returning to a slow upward trend. It’s also that if you lose you’re job you immediately have to think about where you are going to get your healthcare from and changing a lot of paperwork or even providers.

s1artibartfast 3y ago

It is actually a lot closer than you think if you add up all the different taxes for each country.

refurb 3y ago
It's actually a greater difference. VAT in the EU is 21% on average. Gasoline taxes are more than double. The easiest way to see the difference is tax revenue as a percentage of GDP. France is 46%, Germany 37%, UK 33%. The US is 27%.
- personomas 3y ago
  Exactly, very well answered. UK might be higher now that they recently (this year) raised their corporate tax rate by 7%! And certainly this doesn't include the inflation tax either. Governments spend like crazy. No wonder we're not living sustainably! It starts from the top down! That's not corporations, it's the governments!
- s1artibartfast 3y ago
  That is federal. Add in states and cities and US government revenue is more than 40% of GDP [1]. When you consider actual dollars, not % gdp, Americans pay MORE in actual dollars than many European countries. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Federal%2C_state%2C_and_local_tax_revenue_as_a_percent_of_GDP.pdf https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Federal%... France gdp/capita is around 43,658.98 USD. 47% is $20.5k/capita. US gdp/capita is around 66,000 USD. 40% tax revenue is $26.5k/capita. The US government brings in 30% more tax revenue per resident than the French government. The differences in social benefits between France and the US are not due to lower taxes in the US. They are due to inefficient spending and systemic economic differences.
  - refurb 3y ago
    I have no idea where you data comes from, but the OECD tax data (the one I quoted) includes all levels of government, property taxes and sales tax/VAT. "This indicator relates to government as a whole (all government levels) and is measured in percentage both of GDP and of total taxation." https://data.oecd.org/tax/tax-revenue.htm https://data.oecd.org/tax/tax-revenue.htm The OECD data has the US at 34% and France at 45%. And the idea that "the US pays more taxes doesn't even pass the sniff test. You only need to look at income tax rates, VAT, etc and anyone can tell that's not true at all.
    - s1artibartfast 3y ago
      Even using your numbers from OECD, US taxes revenues per capita are still higher than France in real dollars ($22k vs 20k)! The US Government doesn't have a revenue problem, it has an efficiency and cost control problem. For example, The US government healthcare spending per capita is 2.5X (250%) that of France- ($10.5K vs $4K per person), and France gets a universal national health insurance for that price, and the US gets medicare and medicaid. [1,2] Yes- you read that right, and it is still true if you adjust for PPP. The same phenomenon holds true across almost every aspect of US government spending. Look at infrastructure. The cost to build subways and light rail in the US is 2-7 times higher than in Europe. [3] Look at defense. US spends ~300% as much as France, which is actually higher than most western European countries.[4] From a purely numerical sense, the US can't overcome an efficiency problem by raising taxes and throwing more money at it. 1 https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=SHA https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=SHA 2 https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-reports/national-health-expenditure-data/nhe-fact-sheet#:~:text=NHE%20grew%202.7%25%20to%20%244.3,17%20percent%20of%20total%20NHE https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-repo.... 3 https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/01/subways-and-light-rail-cost-two-to-seven-times-more-to-build-in-the-usa-than-europe-or-japan.html#:~:text=The%20US%20has%20a%20range,to%20be%20%2410%2C000%20to%20%2425%2C000 https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/01/subways-and-light-rail.... 4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditure_per_capita#:~:text=As%20of%202021%2C%20the%20top,)%20and%20Singapore%20(~%241885) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_....

dukeyukey 3y ago

Worth pointing out that lots of Europe doesn't really have property taxes, something that is common in the US.

broken-kebab 3y ago
Really? To the best of my knowledge all the EU members have property taxes.
personomas 3y ago
Germany has property tax.

meetingthrower 3y ago

Your perspective depends on your income, obviously. If you are a truly middle class income (say $70K which is median household income in US), the benefits you get are HUGE relative to the taxes you pay. Not to include the insecurity of being one health event away from bankruptcy...

personomas 3y ago
Total disagree. See my comment up above (1). Health care is horrible in the EU. At least in America you can choose to go bankrupt in exchange for quality health care treatment. In the EU, if you ever even get Doctor time, it's always rushed, and very often misdiagnosed. This is coming from an American living in Germany. (1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37809938 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37809938.
- curiousgibbon 3y ago
  This sentence is... wow. "At least in America you can choose to go bankrupt in exchange for quality health care treatment." I'm so glad the founding fathers protected my right to bankrupt myself at the hands of an incredibly profitable healthcare industry. Stupid Euros don't know what they're missing.
  - personomas 3y ago
    Yeah, but at least you can get quality health care in America. That hardly exists in Europe. Free "health" care to shit doesn't do much good. I have hard to seeing why you think you're worthy of incurring unending health cares expenses on a human health care system that by nature is not unending. If we are human and therefore our system can only by provide limited health care, then consequently you either go bankrupt at some point or you don't get health care. America chooses the former, EU chooses the latter.
- addicted 3y ago
  And yet European health outcomes are significantly better than American ones across the board. So what’s missing? And if you think America doctors are not rushed and often misdiagnose stuff then you’ve probably not been to an American medical facility in quite some time.

gmerc 3y ago

As a young person it may be trivial but health related bankruptcy in the US tells another story overall

personomas 3y ago
EU health care is horrible - absolutely horrendous. It's very difficult for a young, working individual to get quality health care in a reasonable time - actually, almost impossible. I would definitely rather take the US health care situation over EU health care. Doctors are muchmore competant in the US, and they are much more likely to go out of their way to help you. One reason surely because EU doctors are unbelievably overwhelmed, working in health care in the EU must be really really horrible. In my opinion, if the EU social benefits are even a little bit better than in the US, it's definitely because of other factors, not at all because of health care.
- dv_dt 3y ago
  That’s an odd choice because the US lags Europe in life expectancy, except for in states like CA, which as we’re discussing has just as high a cost but with increased uncertainty.
  - personomas 3y ago
    It's a minor difference (3 years), there are a lot of other reasons that can contribute to difference in life expectancy than health care. Europe is very much, you know, don't do anything, sit at a home all days. Americans are more likely to live their life and get out - which comes with obvious danger, but at least Americans might experience life!
    - dv_dt 3y ago
      How much is a year of your life worth? A few thousand in taxes a year? The US left expectancy has also been going down even after the worse of Covid while the EU is returning to a slow upward trend. It’s also that if you lose you’re job you immediately have to think about where you are going to get your healthcare from and changing a lot of paperwork or even providers.