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An income tax marginal rate of 42 % doesn't seem super high in international comparison: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates https://e

An income tax marginal rate of 42 % doesn't seem super high in international comparison: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates Belgium tops that list at 79.5 % but even in the USA it can reach 51.6 %. In 1975 the author Astrid Lindgren famously had a marginal rate of 102 % on her income tax in Sweden, so the more money she earned the less she had left after taxes... http://ianangell.com/blog-entries/the-pomperipossa-effect/page/%25%25/ http://ianangell.com/blog-entries/the-pomperipossa-effect/pa...

TacticalCoder 3y ago
> Belgium tops that list at 79.5 % but even in the USA it can reach 51.6 %. Yup in Belgium income rate can be as high as 50% (down from more than that but the max income rate is now "only" 505) but moreover if you're self-employed (without a company), you have in addition to these 50%, social taxes of 20%... Effectively putting you as high as 70%. So it's not as high as 79.5% anymore (I think the Wikipedia article is incorrect) but 69% sure. And then on the 31% you manage to save, everything you buy has 21% VAT tax and if you still manage to save money, you'll have to pay at least 30% tax if you make any capital gains (more if they decide to add your capital gains to your income and for that the process is entirely arbitrary and anybody who says the contrary has no idea what it's talking about). People have to understand I left my home country which was literally the one topping that Wikipedia link you gave about the most taxing countries in the world. Fun story: one day a local IRS man came to my place and literally told me, after opening the "file" they had on me: "Had I opened your file before coming, I'd have realized there was no money to take" (because I had filed my taxes correctly). This made me stick to my stomach. Then I googled the dude's name and, in addition to being an IRS agent, he was also on local voting lists, to be a local politicians, cumulating IRS agent pay and local politician job (of course on a socialist list). So (quite a while ago now) I just gave Belgium the middle finger and left.

TacticalCoder 3y ago

> Belgium tops that list at 79.5 % but even in the USA it can reach 51.6 %. Yup in Belgium income rate can be as high as 50% (down from more than that but the max income rate is now "only" 505) but moreover if you're self-employed (without a company), you have in addition to these 50%, social taxes of 20%... Effectively putting you as high as 70%. So it's not as high as 79.5% anymore (I think the Wikipedia article is incorrect) but 69% sure. And then on the 31% you manage to save, everything you buy has 21% VAT tax and if you still manage to save money, you'll have to pay at least 30% tax if you make any capital gains (more if they decide to add your capital gains to your income and for that the process is entirely arbitrary and anybody who says the contrary has no idea what it's talking about). People have to understand I left my home country which was literally the one topping that Wikipedia link you gave about the most taxing countries in the world. Fun story: one day a local IRS man came to my place and literally told me, after opening the "file" they had on me: "Had I opened your file before coming, I'd have realized there was no money to take" (because I had filed my taxes correctly). This made me stick to my stomach. Then I googled the dude's name and, in addition to being an IRS agent, he was also on local voting lists, to be a local politicians, cumulating IRS agent pay and local politician job (of course on a socialist list). So (quite a while ago now) I just gave Belgium the middle finger and left.