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Comment by CalRobert | Hacker News Reader

Regarding salaries...

I work in tech. I make less than I would in the US (though with a new job that's fully remote, the delta isn't as big as it might be).

My wife, however, makes a good deal more than she would in the US. She doesn't work in tech.

Also, she gets a full month off a year. 6 months' paid maternity even if the job itself is crummy. Paid public holidays (or double-pay if she has to work).

On top of all that, we don't have to drop thousands of dollars a year on car ownership.

It's worked out pretty well.

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The USA tried to balance this with crazy tax rules and brackets, where you will get rewarded if you massively out-earn your partner. My buddy was actually lamenting the fact that his wife got a nice raise at the public library because it would actually mean less take-home money after tax day.

> My buddy was actually lamenting the fact that his wife got a nice raise at the public library because it would actually mean less take-home money after tax day.

There are relatively few scenarios where this would occur. It would have to be something like a sharp phase out of a deduction or credit or some sort of benefit. I don't think the usual graduated phase outs would do it for any material change.

Are you sure that this is not just a misunderstanding of how marginal tax rates work?

I am not GP, but I know that there are massive cliffs in Obamacare credits for people that use them. When you exceed 400% of the federal poverty line you can lose >$10,000 of credits because of a single marginal dollar of income.

Other situations with cliffs

Yup that's one of the few situations I was thinking of.

Not trying to be condescending, but your buddy might not understand how marginal tax rates work.

  taxB > taxA

  $salary * (1 - taxA) = take-homeA

  $salary * (1 - taxA) + $raise * (1 - taxB) = take-homeB

  take-homeB > take-homeA

In short, if his wife earns more, only the new, additional income is taxed at a higher rate.

Increasing pretax retirement contributions would’ve fixed that (would’ve dropped their tax bracket while putting more away for retirement).

They also have a house and some other tax complexities. You are probably right, but that kind of illustrates the ridiculous nuance with US tax law.

The US tax code has a lot of interests competing against each other (revenue vs benefits for different constituencies); I agree it should be simplified, but that takes substantial effort and political will. Changing your 401k contribution is 15 minutes.

Choose the hill to die on carefully.

The hill to die on? That rhetoric is a bit extreme.

This is a common idiom in US speech, like saying "choose your battles."

When you compare your salary do you include taxes and differences in the commodity prices?

Taxes yes - in addition to occasionally checking tax calculators I know what our after-tax income is in both places.

Commodities - not in a rigorous fashion. I know we have more at the end of the month. If it's because we just buy less stuff that's OK with me. As I mentioned, we save a lot just not having to own or operate a car; we walk or cycle most places. Health insurance is also far, far less expensive (about 2500 EUR per year for a family of three), and even if that was "included" in my pay in the US, somebody was paying for it.

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