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Comment by NalNezumi | Hacker News Reader

Looking at salaries after tax is completely meaningless, what is even this article trying to infer. You have to take in to account the cost of living and also quality of services you get for it.

France & Sweden is close in the numbers but France is notably cheaper to eat out and Healthcare quality can't even be compared (to French favor). But if you're wealthy you'd probably prefer Sweden still because of the low taxes around wealth.

I recently compared (by actually going there) Switzerland vs Sweden when I passed a FAANG tech interview in Zurich, but even with 4-5x Salary of what I have now, I would probably end up living poorer if I had kids (if more than 2, it's for certain) in Zurich.

So like, who is this article for.

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In addition (I'm European), I object to the use of per-hour wages instead of monthly salaries. It's less informative in Europe. Most jobs are full-time, salaries are typically advertised and talked about in monthly terms, and the length of the work week varies as well. Per month is just more useful as a comparison point.

Oh and Sweden is slightly ahead of France on the latest EHCI. Sweden scores near the bottom on accessibility (as is tradition, same thing 10 and 15 years ago even) but ranks highly overall and especially on outcomes, so I take issue with the assertion that French healthcare is much better.

> EHCI

I live in a country from the bottom of this ranking and can confirm from personal experience. Nothing works, people die, and still it's very expensive.

I am interested in learning more about EHCI? I found this link from 2018. It gave high scores to Switzerland and Northern Europe. France and Germany were the middle of the pack?

https://santesecu.public.lu/dam-assets/fr/publications/e/eur...

Taxes in Switzerland are generally quite a bit lower than in other European countries. However mandatory health insurance is not included as a tax in Switzerland and is one of the highest expenditures for regular folks and yes, cost of living is also generally very high. Specifically in urban areas (Geneva, Zürich etc.) but also in tax haven cantons (Zug, Schwyz etc.), because you pay a premium for housing/rent there.

Child tax credits are varied as well and generally too low (IMO), maternity/paternity leave and especially child support are much weaker than in Nordic countries.

From my perspective the strongest case for Switzerland is the decentralized and half-direct democratic process, political stability due to consensus. But you only get that as a citizen, which is not easy to achieve (takes a decade and you have to jump through a whole bunch of hoops). But the Swiss are very happy with their governmental structure in comparison and cherish direct democracy especially.

I don’t think it’s completely meaningless if you’re trying to save / invest. A smaller percentage of a larger salary is often more optimal than the reverse.

This is why for example working in a high COL city with a high salary is ultimately better; your 10% going to savings will be higher. It might not matter if you never leave the high COL city, but ceteris paribus I’d rather have a larger number in the bank account.

>I don’t think it’s completely meaningless if you’re trying to save / invest

It's largely meaningless, because some of what people are saving for in one country can be included in tax and social security contributions in another country - e.g. pensions and university tuition.

What do you think is more meaningful a metric?

Depends on what it is you really want to know. For macro economic comparisons you would probably want to use some metric that has "disposable income" in its name. And then you'd have to ask what this income includes. Does it include cash transfers? Transfers in kind (e.g. for health and education)? Does it use PPP or market exchange rates?

Here's a dataset that Eurostat publishes. It includes cash transfers and transfers in kind, compared using PPP (PPS) exchange rates:

Adjusted gross disposable income of households per capita in PPS

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/tec00113/defa...

What exactly are the tax privileges for rich in Sweden? Because indeed in wealth inequality rankings they are next to Russia and USA.

There are no special privilieges for the rich, as everyone has the same rules. It's actually better for the poorer in a sense as everyone is exempt to pay tax on profits on stock and dividends below a certain amount, 300000 SEK.

In Sweden you can invest your money in a special investment account which charges a certain fixed percentage each year on the amount you have in this account (cash and stocks). The percentage is based on the central bank interest rates (a special formula based on that) so it changes each year. In the past 10 years it has been around between 0.5-1% of the total amount you have in this account. Then all the profits you make are tax free as well as no tax on dividends and interest. You can't deduct losses though.

In Sweden there is no wealth tax and no inheritance tax.

EDIT: And for completeness, if you invest outside of the above mentioned type of account you have to pay 30% on profits and 30% on dividends and interests.

So a path to wealth for a normal person is being invested in capital markets but only through a "special" account and assuming that real estate rental or purchase will not eat every leftover from highly taxed monthly salary. This "special" account gives access to all major capital markets?

I'm not sure what you are after with you comment, but this account, of which the rules are decided by the authorities, is not that special as every bank and internet trader offers it and it is free and provides low cost Internet trading. And contrary to special pension accounts which exist in many countries, you can take out your money (and add) anytime you want. You just have to pay the tax percentage which is due. So you cannot really add and remove money too often as then you trigger this tax, but once a year is fine.

It's pretty universal in the developed world to have some type of long term savings tax-scheme. In us it's 401k/roth. In canada it's tfsa. in uk it's isa. isa/401k/roth has pretty low caps. tfsa and isk has no cap.

But yea, considering I pay close to 50% tax it's remarkable at the same time I can speculate in the market, make 500% and pay 1% tax on it. Or that people with actual money pay so little.

But 1% is on the total held, not on the capital gains, right?

If that's the case, it affects earnings quite a bit. Say your investments beat inflation by 3 percentage points, you're effectively down to 2 percentage points after tax, so a 33% reduction in income.

Yea it was better in the years of extremely low rates. 2020-2022 it was 0.375% of total. Now it's up to 0.888% last year. There's some cases where it might be benefitial to use the "normal" account but for average Joe, not having to track every transaction has generally been very benefitial. And as a result 80-90% of adults own some type of stock either directly or through funds/retirement accounts vs the free market utopia us of 62%.

"everyone has the same rules" and "no special privileges" seems disingenuous to say. In both directions! Progressive tax codes are "the same" for "everyone", but obviously will mean the rich pay more. Now you can argue that's unfair or that it's extremely fair, but it's at least different!

But there is no progressive tax in this account. It is a percentage of what you have in the account. Same percentage for everyone. It's just that starting in 2026 they decided to make it tax free for the first 300000 SEK (about 30000 USD) you have in this account.

That's literally a progressive tax.

The ISK rules and taxes are relevant for a middle class I think. This was a question about the really rich.. then we need to look at taxes on capital gains, dividends, corporate tax et.c.

We have no wealth tax, no inheritance tax. If most of your income is a salary, the tax burden is high, but if you're living off investments, properties or generational funds, it's quite advantageous.

Sounds like in Sweden it's critical to pick the right parents.

Where is that not the case?

In countries lower in the ranking of wealth inequality, less so. I mean they are next to Russia, Saudi Arabia, and UAE. No, not everywhere it's the same.

That always helps. Another thing that helps is the free child care/school/university/health care/elderly care/parenting support/living support that the high taxes provides. The lowest standard is very high, the middle is comfy life but keep less dollars than if you lived in the states, the rich not-surprising gets away here too.

In Sweden, you can choose to have your investments in an ISK or KF, which effectively allows you to choose whether you want CGT or wealth tax, for public investments.

The current ISK tax is about 3x that of a low tax canton.

Foundations and Family Offices. Only available to the rich.

You think they pay 56% tax on income like the idiotic peasants?

"You don't have to move out of Sweden if you're a billionaire today. And actually, some billionaires are moving here" - https://www.bbc.com/news/business-68927238

Vacation is also never mentioned in those discussions or comparisons. 10 days in the US vs. 20-30 (+ 8-14 public holidays, depending on the state) in Germany is much more important for _me_ than the net income.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_b...

Can't you take days off without pay in the US? The numbers that usually come up are twice the income compared to France. Taking 20 more days off without pay means losing a month of salary, which doesn't come close to making up the difference.

Technically yes, but most employers do not look favorably on this route.

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