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Comment by braythwayt | Hacker News Reader

> The US is the most wealthy-unfriendly tax regime in the world.

I'd like to hear more about this. I'm a Canadian, and our conservative politicians are always saying that WE are the most wealthy-unfriendly tax regime in the world, and that it is stifling investment.

And I keep reading about how in Scandanavian countries, the rich have to give nearly all of their income back to the state, but they are impossibly nice people, so they don't mind. Are Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark friendlier to the wealthy AND providing Universal Health Care to their citizens?

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Hi, a Finn here. Everyone here in Finland, including but not limited to the wealthy, feels that they themselves pay too big a share of maintaining the welfare state (while they don't seem to mind if other demographics would end up paying more). So business as usual I guess.

Hi. I'm a Russian citizen living in Sweden. I have a work visa.

The income tax is progressive and hits the ceiling of 60% pretty fast. I don't remember exactly but I think it does if your salary is more than 60000 Swedish kronas (around 6000 euros). Universal Health Care is available to everyone who has Swedish ID (I do) and includes higher cost protection for dental services.

Without diving in I can tell Sweden is definitely not friendly to the wealthy but it's very friendly to a lot of people with everyday common jobs with lower and middle level salaries.

Au contraire. The high taxes in Sweden are on income (and consumption). Capital gains tax is maximum 30%, the property "tax" is low, and there's no "asset tax."

I see. I've interpreted "the wealthy" meaning too narrow and haven't taken in account everything you've mentioned.

Thanks for the info.

>the rich have to give nearly all of their income back to the state

High-income tax rates are high, but not that high.

Well, in France we have national celebrities who prefer to take Russian citizenship rather than pay taxes here. So I think we have the most wealthy-unfriendly tax regime in the world.

Out of curiosity, can you name some of those celebrities? I know Gerard Depardieu moved to Russia, but haven't heard about others. Thanks.

I know only this one particular case, sorry for the exageration. However thousands of (nameless) millionaires have left france in these past years (according to http://www.lalsace.fr/actualite/2017/04/11/de-plus-en-plus-d...) it was 12000 in 2016, 10000 in 2015 and 6000 in 2014. Not a very good development.

That's a lot of people, thanks for the reply.

That is a major conservative politician talking point. I do not consider it founded in reality, but making it a talking point and an objective does increase political contributions from wealthy sources.

See answer above. 80% tax rate is irrelevant if you structure in a way that you don't technically have income.

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