7 ms·

Sorry to hear you got priced out :( Unfortunately i am also quite pessimistic about the future of europe and the us, too.

by ixtli 8mo ago

retired 8mo ago
The Netherlands is taking action against the brain drain by rapidly importing highly skilled migrants through various tax lowering schemes in the first five years of living here. However plenty of those people leave after that period. Especially with the upcoming 36% unrealized capital gains tax on all your savings and investments. Feels a bit like ISPs giving discounts to new customers only.
- andriesm 8mo ago
  On unrealized gains, wait, what??
  - retired 8mo ago
    Yes. Say you have €80k in investments. Markets go up, in one year time your investments are worth €90k. You did not sell. That means you had €10k in unrealized capital gains. Subtract the €1800 per person threshold. €8200, 36% tax is €2952 tax to be paid at the start of the year. Losses give you tax credits redeemable against future capital gains (not against income tax from employment)
    - jay_kyburz 8mo ago
      Assuming you're not going to somehow avoid paying your tax when you do eventually liquidate, paying year to year is not that crazy. Paying tax on money you make because you already have money is far better than playing tax on your time you sold for salary.
    - kcb 8mo ago
      How does that even work? What does it apply to? Say I own a 100% share in a business, each year does the government appraise it and pretty much require me to divest a portion of it to pay the tax? Unrealized capital gains taxes are crazy all in an effort to own the rich or something. Meanwhile the people they're perceived as targeting have all the resources to avoid it.
      - retired 8mo ago
        Yes, you are supposed to either sell part of the stocks to cover the yearly tax or you need to dip into your savings account to find money to cover the tax. I don't know about non-publicly listed companies, I assume you indeed need to appraise yearly. The rich don't pay these taxes as the unrealised capital gains tax is only for private individuals, not companies. The rich have their assets in companies / shells.
    - prewett 8mo ago
      A 36% tax?! Nobody's going to invest in that environment, since the taxes will really sap your effective compounding rate. That's a great way to push all your finance people out of the country.
      - GJim 8mo ago
        I think you will find people are investing. And working.
        CamperBob2 8mo ago
        And bailing out for the US, understandably, as soon as their hard work starts to pay off. Well, that's how it used to go, anyway.
  - robotresearcher 8mo ago
    Why is this shocking? Surely if you hadn’t grown up with the very technical idea of unrealized gains, this would seem totally normal. The surprising thing is that we let ourselves be convinced in the past that making money with money should be tax advantaged compared to making money with labor. Unrealized gains are gains.
    - prewett 8mo ago
      Do you have to pay tax on unrealized gains with realized money? A classic problem with exercising employee stock options and holding the stock is that you have a tax event on the unrealized gain, but if the stock drops substantially, you still owe the tax money on the unrealized gain, but you cannot sell the stock for enough to pay for it. This happened to a lot of people around 2001. Paying for unrealized gains with realized money is not a situation anyone want to be in.
      - robotresearcher 8mo ago
        I was thinking of 'real' holdings rather than options that don't have a liquid value. Not all unrealized gains are the same. Thanks for pointing out the complexity.
  - CamperBob2 8mo ago
    It's every bit as stupid as it sounds, and IMHO it's probably why we have Donald Trump in the White House today. Harris started talking about taxing unrealized capital gains almost immediately after she was nominated, and that's when the billionaires -- including the ones that own all the media outlets -- started switching sides. Brought to you by the same party of self-defeating geniuses who thought they could win elections in Texas on a gun-control platform.
- mjuarez 8mo ago
  This is misleading. It's actually taxing 36% of _assumed gains_ of say 5% on all assets. So if you have $1M in savings, you'll end up paying 1.8% or $18K/annum, regardless of the actual investment return. I can see it would be painful during down years, but most of the time it would be ok.
  - retired 8mo ago
    That is the current system. In the new system it will be 36% on all capital gains, no more assumed gains. And an €1800 a year tax-free threshold. Also it's a bit more, right now you are looking at 36% on 6% or 2.16% per year with a €59k threshold. So a bit over €20k a year on that €1M.
    - tasuki 8mo ago
      Actually that makes more sense? If you lose money on your investments, I suppose you can write it off next time?
      - retired 8mo ago
        You can write it off against future capital gains, but not against income tax from employment. So if the market is down a few years, you gain a lot of tax credits and you pray that the government doesn't get rid of those credits in the mean time.
  - tasuki 8mo ago
    No, that's not ok. Many years ago, a friend of mine in the Netherlands had the same job as another guy, earning the same money, my friend being extremely thrifty, the other guy splurging. When they both found themselves out of a job at the same time, my friend got no support from the government as he had savings, while the other guy started getting a very generous allowance. This goes directly against all that is reasonable. This is directly discouraging financial responsibility. My friend is thrifty just for the sake of it, he knows it's not in his interest. But he gets the short end.
- Izikiel43 8mo ago
  > 36% unrealized capital gains tax This sounds like the Netherlands speed running their way out of investments. If a country I was living in proposed this, I would be leaving ASAP, or getting some heavy financial engineering done.
- johanyc 8mo ago
  > brain drain Where are they draining to?

Sorry to hear you got priced out :( Unfortunately i am also quite pessimistic about the future of europe and the us, too.

by ixtli 8mo ago

Sorry to hear you got priced out :( Unfortunately i am also quite pessimistic about the future of europe and the us, too.

retired 8mo ago

The Netherlands is taking action against the brain drain by rapidly importing highly skilled migrants through various tax lowering schemes in the first five years of living here. However plenty of those people leave after that period. Especially with the upcoming 36% unrealized capital gains tax on all your savings and investments. Feels a bit like ISPs giving discounts to new customers only.

andriesm 8mo ago
On unrealized gains, wait, what??
- retired 8mo ago
  Yes. Say you have €80k in investments. Markets go up, in one year time your investments are worth €90k. You did not sell. That means you had €10k in unrealized capital gains. Subtract the €1800 per person threshold. €8200, 36% tax is €2952 tax to be paid at the start of the year. Losses give you tax credits redeemable against future capital gains (not against income tax from employment)
  - jay_kyburz 8mo ago
    Assuming you're not going to somehow avoid paying your tax when you do eventually liquidate, paying year to year is not that crazy. Paying tax on money you make because you already have money is far better than playing tax on your time you sold for salary.
  - kcb 8mo ago
    How does that even work? What does it apply to? Say I own a 100% share in a business, each year does the government appraise it and pretty much require me to divest a portion of it to pay the tax? Unrealized capital gains taxes are crazy all in an effort to own the rich or something. Meanwhile the people they're perceived as targeting have all the resources to avoid it.
    - retired 8mo ago
      Yes, you are supposed to either sell part of the stocks to cover the yearly tax or you need to dip into your savings account to find money to cover the tax. I don't know about non-publicly listed companies, I assume you indeed need to appraise yearly. The rich don't pay these taxes as the unrealised capital gains tax is only for private individuals, not companies. The rich have their assets in companies / shells.
  - prewett 8mo ago
    A 36% tax?! Nobody's going to invest in that environment, since the taxes will really sap your effective compounding rate. That's a great way to push all your finance people out of the country.
    - GJim 8mo ago
      I think you will find people are investing. And working.
      - CamperBob2 8mo ago
        And bailing out for the US, understandably, as soon as their hard work starts to pay off. Well, that's how it used to go, anyway.
- robotresearcher 8mo ago
  Why is this shocking? Surely if you hadn’t grown up with the very technical idea of unrealized gains, this would seem totally normal. The surprising thing is that we let ourselves be convinced in the past that making money with money should be tax advantaged compared to making money with labor. Unrealized gains are gains.
  - prewett 8mo ago
    Do you have to pay tax on unrealized gains with realized money? A classic problem with exercising employee stock options and holding the stock is that you have a tax event on the unrealized gain, but if the stock drops substantially, you still owe the tax money on the unrealized gain, but you cannot sell the stock for enough to pay for it. This happened to a lot of people around 2001. Paying for unrealized gains with realized money is not a situation anyone want to be in.
    - robotresearcher 8mo ago
      I was thinking of 'real' holdings rather than options that don't have a liquid value. Not all unrealized gains are the same. Thanks for pointing out the complexity.
- CamperBob2 8mo ago
  It's every bit as stupid as it sounds, and IMHO it's probably why we have Donald Trump in the White House today. Harris started talking about taxing unrealized capital gains almost immediately after she was nominated, and that's when the billionaires -- including the ones that own all the media outlets -- started switching sides. Brought to you by the same party of self-defeating geniuses who thought they could win elections in Texas on a gun-control platform.
mjuarez 8mo ago
This is misleading. It's actually taxing 36% of _assumed gains_ of say 5% on all assets. So if you have $1M in savings, you'll end up paying 1.8% or $18K/annum, regardless of the actual investment return. I can see it would be painful during down years, but most of the time it would be ok.
- retired 8mo ago
  That is the current system. In the new system it will be 36% on all capital gains, no more assumed gains. And an €1800 a year tax-free threshold. Also it's a bit more, right now you are looking at 36% on 6% or 2.16% per year with a €59k threshold. So a bit over €20k a year on that €1M.
  - tasuki 8mo ago
    Actually that makes more sense? If you lose money on your investments, I suppose you can write it off next time?
    - retired 8mo ago
      You can write it off against future capital gains, but not against income tax from employment. So if the market is down a few years, you gain a lot of tax credits and you pray that the government doesn't get rid of those credits in the mean time.
- tasuki 8mo ago
  No, that's not ok. Many years ago, a friend of mine in the Netherlands had the same job as another guy, earning the same money, my friend being extremely thrifty, the other guy splurging. When they both found themselves out of a job at the same time, my friend got no support from the government as he had savings, while the other guy started getting a very generous allowance. This goes directly against all that is reasonable. This is directly discouraging financial responsibility. My friend is thrifty just for the sake of it, he knows it's not in his interest. But he gets the short end.
Izikiel43 8mo ago
> 36% unrealized capital gains tax This sounds like the Netherlands speed running their way out of investments. If a country I was living in proposed this, I would be leaving ASAP, or getting some heavy financial engineering done.
johanyc 8mo ago
> brain drain Where are they draining to?