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I also live in a country like this and it manages to have a budget surplus, incredible public safety and social peace in spite of all that :) Which makes me fee

I also live in a country like this and it manages to have a budget surplus, incredible public safety and social peace in spite of all that :) Which makes me feel most European taxation systems are just an engine of depriving middle class from ever being able to compete with the rich, not at all socially oriented.

kergonath 3y ago
I agree that income tax is a tax on the middle class. Poor people don’t have enough income to be taxed significantly, and rich people get most of their wealth from capital and have things like trusts and companies to shield themselves. OTOH, income distribution is insanely sharp on the high end, it’s actually ridiculous. The top 10% in France have twice the income of the 80-90%. It flattens somewhat below that, but the gap is nowhere near what people pay in income tax. The middle class is a squishy and juicy target and it supports most of the budget of the state, but income tax does not really work as a tool to keep them down compared to wealthier classes. And it’s not really needed anyway. It is socially oriented in the way that the middle class pay for the poor (which is great, I pay my share and am not complaining about that), but apparently national solidarity stops being a factor once you’re rich enough.
- anovikov 3y ago
  That is by design. My point is that "social state" does not exist for the benefit of the poor. Poor are just fodder. It exists to prevent middle class, through income taxation, from accumulating wealth and becoming rich and thus getting to be a competition to entrenched existing rich who are heirs of the people who became rich before social state came into existence. America has enormous inequality but the society is fluid and vast majority of rich are first-generation rich and a good (but not too big) chunk of them even come from poor families. Europe has little inequality comparatively but on a flip side, it effectively has a caste system. Only people who break through it are foreigners who already arrived with cash.

kergonath 3y ago

I agree that income tax is a tax on the middle class. Poor people don’t have enough income to be taxed significantly, and rich people get most of their wealth from capital and have things like trusts and companies to shield themselves. OTOH, income distribution is insanely sharp on the high end, it’s actually ridiculous. The top 10% in France have twice the income of the 80-90%. It flattens somewhat below that, but the gap is nowhere near what people pay in income tax. The middle class is a squishy and juicy target and it supports most of the budget of the state, but income tax does not really work as a tool to keep them down compared to wealthier classes. And it’s not really needed anyway. It is socially oriented in the way that the middle class pay for the poor (which is great, I pay my share and am not complaining about that), but apparently national solidarity stops being a factor once you’re rich enough.

anovikov 3y ago
That is by design. My point is that "social state" does not exist for the benefit of the poor. Poor are just fodder. It exists to prevent middle class, through income taxation, from accumulating wealth and becoming rich and thus getting to be a competition to entrenched existing rich who are heirs of the people who became rich before social state came into existence. America has enormous inequality but the society is fluid and vast majority of rich are first-generation rich and a good (but not too big) chunk of them even come from poor families. Europe has little inequality comparatively but on a flip side, it effectively has a caste system. Only people who break through it are foreigners who already arrived with cash.