I lived and worked in Germany for several years

[Rick Newland]

I returned to the states because I could not afford the taxes anymore. Looks like it will get worse.

Generous pensions hard habit for Europe to break

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0309200214sep20,1,598918.story?coll=chi-news-hed

[LeftCoast]

1. What? Didn't like your 6 weeks of vacation, public transportation...

...social safety net, living in cities that are safe with a government that's actually concerned about its citizens privacy? Hmm...too bad.

[Blue_Chill]

4. That's great but many people

don't want to fall into a social safety net. It's great that it's there but I don't want to be there and obvioulsy neither did this person.

[LeftCoast]

14. Do you like seeing homeless people?

The social net isn't just there for you directly, it improves society generally as well. Germany's social net means there are far fewer homeless, not to mention far fewer people living dramatically below poverty level. Why do you think the crime rate is so much lower there?

[Blue_Chill]

17. It is my thinking

That such a net is possible without massive tax rates.

[Must_B_Free]

16. My French friend's response was

'yes, but we can't afford to go DO anything during that vacation time, so we just stay at home..."

[Mairead]

2. I'm not sure your decision was the wisest

Consider: are you better off in a world in which they take your money for taxes, but have an understood obligation not to let you suffer deprivation

...or a world in which they feel free to take your money for taxes, but have no obligation to you at all?

[GOPFighter]

3. Well, the average American will never have to worry about...

...generous pensions. Why do you believe the Europeans should break a habit that allows retirees to enjoy their retirement?

[Rick Newland]

5. I agree with what everyone has said

But how are the younger workers going to afford to live if they will be paying more in the future? When I left Germany my income taxes was at 44%, when you start adding your taxes like for gas at almost $5.00 a gallon, 17% vat tax on anything you buy, taxes on your TV your dogs and god forbid you own a home and they decide they need to repave the street in front of your house, that bill cost me $15,000. But yes the leave time was good :) but did get fedup with their sick leave policy, that was the most abused program I ever saw.

[HalfManHalfBiscuit]

7. A variation of a pyramid scheme

The young workers keep propping up the retirees. At some point the system will break.

I lived and worked in England. Although,luckily, I worked for an American company for relatively short stints (no more than a year at a time) and was not subject to their taxes. But it is staggering - not only is the income tax huge, they tax the hell out of everything, like you said. Thank heavens I did not own a dog. Repressive.

[Paschall]

9. You must have been making outrageous money

I've never lived in Germany, but I think we've certainly got a comparable public welfare system here in France. And only 50% of the French pay income tax, the other 50% is exempt.

You must have been pretty high up there in the income brackets to be paying at the 44% rate. And you still felt you couldn't afford the taxes? How much of your income was actually taxed at that rate?

[NJCher]

6. Good point. But it's even worse than this:

...or a world in which they feel free to take your money for taxes, but have no obligation to you at all?

Not only take your taxes and have no obligations to you, but take your taxes and use it to commit moral atrocities in your name! Despite the fact of being out on the street with a big sign saying, "No War in Iraq!"


Cher

[rogerashton]

8. Fortunately the US is not in quite as bad a position on Social Security,

and that is thanks to the foresight of one man: Democratic Senator Daniel Moynihan.

Shrub* is doing his best to reverse that.

[newyawker99]

10. Hi Rick Newland!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[demsrule4life]

11. Thanks for the welcome

What a great site, I have alot to learn here.

[calimary]

12. WELCOME TO DU!! Yes, I was shouting.

Maybe with more of us weighing in on boards like this, we can take our country back. And at least slow the damage that's been done - in just two and a half short years.

[Dirk39]

13. Hello from Germany!

You must have made lots of money, when you've paid 44% income tax. But I have 52% departures from my gross income, too. Are you sure you're talking about only the income tax? Not pension/health care (15%)/unempolyment insurrance etc.?
But I doubt those neoliberal discourse about pensions: they create kind of fear by stating that in future times two working people have to feed one retired person. But they forget that the average productivity is now 3 times higher than about 20 years before, which means that one person is creating more value than 3 persons 20 years before. The problem is, where the wealth goes. Capitalism. In a way, after the destruction of the Soviet Union - I still don't understand why the elites were so impressed by the existing socialism - a kind of cold neoliberal war has begun against the poor and the working people. Before they've made concessions.
Germany is number 11 in Europe,when it comes to taxes and departures.
Sweden: 52% tax, 38 departures, Denmark 50/48, France it nr. 4 followed by Belgium, Austria, Italy, Norwegian etc.
But in comparison the USA is Nr. 21: 27,7% tax, 16,7% departures.
I'd be willing to pay more tax than I do, if I would be sure that the money wouldn't be used to feed the big corporations.
I live in the european city with the most millionaires: Hamburg.
None of them is paying 1 cent tax! Hey, you were not clever enough!!!:-)
Tschüss,
Dirk

[Karenina]

15. Mentalität ist ALLES

My insurance program (and YES, I as an artist, am actually covered despite my feast or famine earnings) requires that as I earn more I PAY more. I could not be happier to do so as when my income rises, the increase goes to cover OTHER ARTISTS and their families. Others have covered me and whatever that debit becomes I could NEVER begrudge it. NIE. Actually it makes me feel GOOD!!!

Call me a socialist if you will.

[Yupster]

18. Grussgott Dirk

what do you mean by departures?

Is it true that Germany is now officially back in recession again?

[Dirk39]

19. Hello! We call it "Abzüge", it's what is taken from your income...

in general, including everything besides tax like health-insurrance, pension-insurrance, money to rebuild east-germany (in our case) etc.
Sorry, I don't know all the exact english terms for economic issues.
We are in recession for long and for many reason, in a way, with the unfication of Europe, it's like the worldbank and the IMF have invaded us and force us into the neoliberal nightmare and not much left to decide for national governments.
The other big problem is that nearly everything is paid by those, who work. We have 5 million unemployed people (official numbers, there are more) and about 80 million inhabitants.
Other sources to earn money are not used to draw money. As an example, I have a normal job, they take 52% from this money. I work as a freelancer too and earn more money there, but don't pay 1 cent for health insurrane, pensions, east-germany etc. It's crazy this way.

I want to open the borders for people, and put all the big corporations in prison for illegal immigration, that's how evil I am:-)
Dirk

[Mairead]

21. 'Abzüge' = 'payroll deductions'

[RainDog]

20. can't say about Germany

but when I lived in Belgium, I was also around my in-laws who were citizens, and people they had known for years.

I knew a person who was an exec for Smith-Klein, who certainly paid lots of taxes, but didn't object at all because he and his family were proud of the fact that Belgium doesn't want poor people to suffer horribly.

His family had an amazing house, took vacations where ever and whenever they wanted. He had all sorts of entrepreneurial ideas which he worked to implement...recycling and other ventures, for instance.

He gave his daughter his old house. Her family, too, had lots of freedom to enjoy family life, as well as work.

On the other hand, there were people I know who had a father who had a debilitating illness which kept him out of work.

In America, no doubt, his family would have been on the street after a few years. However, his family was able to buy a modest house and keep it. It was well kept, had a vegetable garden, they were able to have family gatherings and keep off the streets.

Their children were able to go to university, even though the father, even when well, could not afford a university education for his children in American terms.

His children, even though they were not rich at all, did well at school, in part because the family was able to concentrate on helping their children get an education and not worry about whether they would have to sleep in a car or a shelter.

One of the children went on to get a PhD in the states. That's the one I married, in fact.

All the other children are employed in good jobs in Belgium, from chocolatiers to public relations to banks to housewife.

I never heard any of these people complain that they had to pay taxes to have a good school system for all students, or a social safety net which keeps families intact and functioning to protect children.

On the other hand, Americans would complain because they had to pay taxes to both Belgium and America on income earned there over a certain amount. These Americans were already well off. Funny how Americans, who carp about patriotism and love of country don't seem to connect that love to the actual people who live in their country.

or so it seems to me.

but then again, I'm not married any more, and I have no health insurance, and I had to sell my house to survive, and I have two children with disabilties and I work a job which doesn't pay a living wage, even though I was a Phi Beta Kappa student and won awards for my work. These are things I deal with in America because the well being of my children is the most important thing to me, and circumstances are what they are for me and this is where I am at this point in life.

But thank goodness that richest one percent in America got their tax break!

[punpirate]

22. Two of the data points missing from this discussion are...

... simple facts which US citizens have not had to contemplate, or wished not to contemplate.

The first is that since WWII, maintenance costs of the military-industrial complex have steadily accelerated, and the money required for that has not gone to European-style social services. Those expenditures have not made us safer. In just six years of the Bushes in office, we've undertaken four wars. Since WWII, we've largely borne the financial brunt of several long, major wars, and we are demonstrably no safer now than when we began this build-up to military dominance fifty-five years ago. The cost of that has been the health of our social welfare system.

Second, and it is a point frequently forgotten in discussions about German social welfare programs in particular, when the Soviet Union came apart, the FDR absorbed all of East Germany, and has been trying to complete that assimilation (with varying success) for more than thirteen years.

This latter task is the equivalent of the United States absorbing, and assimilating into its population, culture and economy, overnight, all of Canada, Mexico, all the island states of the Caribbean, Latin and Central America and a fair portion of northern South America.

If that sounds dramatic, it is--it's precisely what Germany undertook to do in 1989. Taxes are paying for that, but, ultimately, the people of East Germany will be far better off twenty or thirty years from now for that being undertaken than if they had been left to drift in a condition of relative statelessness and without economic aid, as very likely would have happened had not Germany stepped in and done the sensible thing, even if the cost was high.

Cheers.