Comment by ajtaylor | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ajtaylor | Hacker News Reader

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The CEO's comments about 457 requirements reminded me of my recent experience working in Sydney on a 457. Not having access to the public health system was annoying (though luckily not too expensive because my family was generally healthy). What really annoyed me was having to pay the Medicare tax every fortnight, then claiming it back at the end of the year when I filed taxes. I don't like giving an interest-free loan to the government. Either give me access to the system, or don't tax me because you know I can't use Medicare!

The changes to LAFHA policy would have affected me very dramatically had my employer not given me a large raise to cover the difference. It completely boggles my mind that while I was paying the same tax as an Australian citizen, I had to pay out-of-pocket for my daughter's education (this was a NSW thing but is slowly spreading to other states). The mediocre local public school was $5k per child, so I spent $10k instead and sent her to a great private school.

It is clear to me that the Australian government is only interested in soaking foreign workers for as much as they could get away with. They clearly are not interested in anything other than digging stuff up out of the ground and selling it.

Er, to get you a 457 your employer has to prove private medical coverage, so...

The best schools in Sydney are the public schools... Went to one of the best public high schools in Sydney. My parents paid $400. At least you're not paying $20k USD/year in SF.

Your comments re tax can be applied to any country in the world (citizens vs residents/temporary residents). The US even has an exit tax on Green Card holders.

You can apply for a withholding exemption.

No, the visa holder is required to provide proof of private medical insurance (which costs more than your standard private insurance). My employer did not pay for this policy.

The local middle school in my suburb was mediocre (north of Hornsby). I'm sure there are others that are much better. (One of) the final straws was when her math teacher gave her a calculator when she continued to ask for help with math. The other was when the principal embarrassed her in front of the entire school assembly because of an technical issue with her uniform.

At the time, I couldn't find any information on withholding exceptions for Medicare tax. It worked out in the end though because we got a large refund for the un-refunded amount as we prepared to leave the country.

We loved our time in Australia, so please don't construe my comments as disparaging the country in general. It was a sad day as we flew away to the US.

If you're on a 457 at NSW, you do have to pay 5k per child, per year for them to be able to attend a public school.

Here is the fee schedule: http://www.detinternational.nsw.edu.au/media-assets/trp/fees...

If you choose to then apply for a PR, you're eligible for a partial refund based on your PR grant date.

Paperwork-wise, either you have never met France, either you didn't compare.

- Flat rental applications contain 2 years of tax return forms, 3 months of salary proof, for yourself and for a third person (or bank) who will guarantee you.

- As a self employed there are 18 different organizations to whom I must lodge contributions: VAT, retirement, retirement 2, training, universal income, disability, elderness 1, elderness 2, elderness 3, illness, health insurance, health insurance 2, workplace safety, help for housing, help for various institutions who went bankrupt, Commerce chamber, CSG, corporate tax, land tax. Employed people pay the same, plus unemployment, the employer handles half the paperwork but employees who don't cross-check are penalized.

- Each of them have an application form and half of them are monthly. Most of them apply on weird rules ("7.23% on 98.5% of revenue within limit of 1200 PASS if the revenue is ... and 1400 PASS if ..."). Some of them are taken, but don't give you benefits because you don't fit the rules (as you talked about pumping money from workers). Some are taken and refunded later.

- There are lunch tickets and holiday grants, for about 200€ per month, your employer must fund the employee bureau for this, but you need to apply to get them granted. Most usually you'll have to lodge an application for that, with your tax return and salary sheet, and you'll have fewer benefits if you don't have children. For example you'll be offered a rebate on a house rental for 5 people, which exactly fits the family of the employee managing the appcations.

- If you were a foreigner, you would also have to file for a visa and work permit, which means in average 0,5 day per trimester queuing in person at the Prefecture for various reasons.

A counterpoint: I moved to France with my family this year, and work as a self-employed developer while bootstrapping my own company.

- our landlord wanted to see a tax return from the previous year and three months' bank statements. No guarantee required. Our tenancy is for three years, before which the landlord cannot terminate it, but we can with 3 months' notice at any time. Renting was easy and cheap, and comes with a great deal of security.

- our new bank wanted a LOT of information about us, and some 70 pages of documentation. But now it's set up I can email or phone them and get an instant response from someone that knows me and my family (and speaks fluent English to boot). Their online systems are considerably better than my previous UK bank's.

- Registering for self-employment was entirely online and took 20 minutes.

- I fill out a social security return quarterly, which takes ~45 seconds, and all of the calculations are handled for me.

- We pay more tax than in the UK. But the state also pays for 85% of our childcare costs, and credits half of the remainder against our income tax bill.

- When I needed to check on our residence tax status, I rolled up at our local tax office where I was seen within 2 minutes by a friendly official who had immediately called all our details up on his computer, showed me what I needed to know and told me everything was in hand. (It was.)

It's not perfect. Being an employer is seriously not fun. Self-employment has its issues too. But it seems to be getting better, and by and large the systems work. (Probably because there are huge numbers of people running them.)

Where do you live, and what is your bank? That certainly doesn't sound like a Parisian experience.

Crédit Agricole. It probably helps that we're in the provinces (the Perigord).

A co-worker recently moved from France to the US after living for decades over there so I'll have to ask his opinion ;)

yeah, but France is a broken country when it comes to bureaucracy. Some aspects, like education seem to be in very good shape, but the system overall is repulsive.

One example out of blue - when you have a property (probably not your primary residence) and somebody breaks in and starts squatting in it, you cannot just drive them out without providing another accommodation for them. You go to courts, fight for months, and then maybe you're lucky and get your property back.

It's a system that looks social & fair from outside, but as everywhere else, rich gets richer, poor stay poor and are just thrown some bread crumbs to not complain too much.

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