Comment by grecy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by grecy | Hacker News Reader

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Believe it or not, high income earners in other parts of the world are very happy to pay "crazy high" taxes.

Those countries provide a hell of a lot to their citizens, and the citizens are happy to pay.

For most of his life in Australia, my Dad, a teacher, paid very close to 50% income tax on what he earned over about $60k. He was extremely happy with this, as Australia had provided a lot for him and his family of 3 kids. We had a very good uppder-middle class life.

EDIT: A couple of examples of what "crazy high" income tax gets you.

1. My brother broke his leg horribly, required multiple surgeries, ambulance rides, helicopter rides, multiple hospitals and close to 2 months in hospital. There was never a bill.

2. My 5 years of university for Software Engineering were paid for by the Australian government, and I now have a interest-free loan for the ~$24k. Whenever I earn over $40k/year, I just pay 3% more income tax to pay off the loan. If I don't earn that much in Australia, I never pay back the loan and that's fine. (actually, my Mum and Dad are angry about this - for them, university was free like High school.)

3. The Australian government will pay a "wage" to low-income students going to university/college (approx. $176/wk)

4. The Australian government pays unemployment benefits to any adult out of work (approx $228/wk). It does not matter if you have ever had a job or been fired or not. This payment will continue forever.[1]

They will also help to pay your rent, with a program called "Rent Assistance"

Despite what you might be thinking, Australia has a very strong economy - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Australia

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment_benefits#Australia

UPDATE: Dole is $228/wk

>Believe it or not, high income earners in other parts of the world are very happy to pay "crazy high" taxes.

>Those countries provide a hell of a lot to their citizens, and the citizens are happy to pay.

When you have a $600k per year income, those services aren't necessarily as valuable as they are to someone who makes $60k per year.

Seems that I've upset some people. Have you forgotten that international business does exist?

This is extremely short-sighted. While the person themselves may not directly benefit from those services, they benefit from the fact that those around them do. For example, if we assume that the $600k is an employer (pretty common), then having employees who have received good public education is good for their business.

I could have business operations in France but it doesn't mean I have to live there.

Don't know if this is your opinion or if you're just stating a fact about others, but that is some selfish social pariah thinking right there. "Fuck you, I've got mine". Unfortunately, that's what seems to go through many rich people's minds.

Well, in your previous comment, you pointed out that paying high taxes is not an altruism, but just a deal/agreement with your government.

So, at some stage you might be comfortable with the conditions agreed, but you might also get to another stage of your life, when it is not comfortable anymore - thus you start seeking better deals.

There is nothing bad or evil in this.

Some people attribute part of their success to the opportunities a society has offered them, and feel an obligation to share and give back what they received in the first place.

Unfortunately, the US doesn't really do that in very visible ways for people in the middle class and up besides offering a good environment for business, and barely seems to get the job done for poor people, which raises the question for many of what people are actually paying for. I feel an obligation, but much of the reasoning is abstract.

Sure, it is not about giving back vs not giving back - it is about _amount_ you give back.

For some people it is 20% and for others - 75%.

The Australian government is paying for my education in the manner described above - when I graduate and hopefully get a well paying job I will attribute part of my success to society helping me out with my education.

And be more than happy to pay high taxes.

It would seem to me that when you make 600k a year, paying more taxes isn't as painful either.

Anecdotally, the years I've been in this situation I've found it extremely painful - way more painful than the years I make $40K or so.

I'm sure there's a threshold beyond which you just don't care, when you already have enough money to do everything you could possibly want, but whenever I've written a check for hundreds of thousands of dollars to the government I think "well, that probably would've paid for the college education of one of my kids" or "well, invested prudently that would've let me retire years earlier." I've also thought "huh, I'm getting exactly the same services as everybody else but paying ridiculous amounts of money for them."

Neither's a particularly good feeling.

Yes, you noticed that the government is not a free market.

And sustainable societies have moral hazards.

And if you really want to live in true freedom, where freedom to knock down the house around you is not specially excepted under some theory of Objetivist morality, good luck finding off the hordes.

Easy, tiger. I might find paying large amounts of taxes painful, but that doesn't automatically imply I'm an Ayn Rand fan, don't see the need for some form of social safety net, and don't get why a progressive tax system is an unfortunate necessity.

Think of it like this: when you were born, the government made a huge investment in you by providing you with healthcare so you don't die, school so that you can educate yourself, roads so you can get to work etc. Now you made a successful business using this investment from the government, but they also own XX% of your business, it's not entirely yours. This is an analogy but I think it holds very true. Sure it hurts to pay back to your investors, but without them you'd never have reached the point at where you are today. Escaping from the responsibility of paying back is immoral in my opinion, but unfortunately it's also good business in this world.

Bad analogy, since the government that invested in my healthcare and education when I was growing up hasn't asked for a dime of my money. (Who knows - maybe they should.)

I do get the point you're trying to make, but no matter how you feel about taxes intellectually, I don't think anyone ever says "awesome, I get to write a very large check to the government" before they've reached the threshold where they have enough money to do whatever they want.

I find it really interesting that back when I was a poor grad student, the small amount of money I paid in taxes would've made a much bigger difference in my standard of living than the large amount of taxes I've had to pay in one of my good years. Because of this, you'd think the small amount of money I paid when I was poor would be much more painful to pay, since it could've meant the difference between (say) living in a garret or a decent place. But that wasn't the case.

Psychologically, at least for me, the absolute dollar amount seems to matter a great deal, and so does the absolute dollar amount others are paying. I don't think I'm a freakish psychological outlier, so perhaps this provides some insight into others as well.

I agree, it will always be difficult for the human mind to see his treasures taken away. We tend to easily forget the help we received and assume we did it all on our own. As previously said, it also has a lot to do with the benefits you can see in society.

For me, it helps to think of all the things I have my country to thank for. I saved up to my first computer when I was 10, with government subsidies, which later led to my career. I attended university for 5 years without paying tuition and without being a burden financially on my parents. The government paid my tuition when I went to a US school for a year. They even got me a lawyer when my US landlord sued me for $30,000 for a leak they were responsible for. I'm thankful for my cousin, whose mother died in cancer and father died after having to have his leg amputated (becoming an orphan at 17), and he himself suffering for his whole life from an incurable disease even after a kidney transplant. I'm thankful that he can life a normal life today with no medical debt and a normal job. I'm thankful for the government providing living assistance to my grand mother, who recently suffered a stroke, so that she can continue living at home close to her friends. I guess I have a lot to be thankful for, and I try to think of that when I pay my taxes.

Oh man, that's an awesome government indeed! May i ask which nation you hail from?

Any developed country != America

And you can get those same services, maybe better quality, for a 18% flat tax in Hong Kong. Patriotism doesn't mean accepting a poor quality of government.

Two completely different responses to the reluctant taxpayer:

1) You don't want your fair share of government services. You really don't. You don't want to be in prison. You don't want remedial literacy training. You don't want drug rehab. You don't want your children taken into care. You don't want to live on unemployment. You want to pay for these things to exist in case you need them one day. Also, the fact that other people get them may also be to your advantage.

2) The value of the welfare I received as a youngster is more to me than the cash value plus interest. I grew up poor but now I'm comfortably middle class thanks to care and opportunity that was blind to my ability to pay.

I am happy to pay now for more than my share of the burden of education and health care for others, while having more money left over than I strictly need. I have benefitted from the education and the healthcare. Without it, I would not be financially comfortable, healthy, or have children. I did the work myself, but I would not have been able to do it without educational opportunity and occasional medical care.

If you grew up comfortably off, you might not feel the same way I do. You might resent paying for those less fortunate than yourselves. I don't, because I was one of them.

Security so the poor won't rob you, flat roads to drive your Ferrari, healthy coughs from the homeless. Taxes have its uses.

Try getting a serious sickness in the US and watch your $600K melt away, watch your insurance company dropping you, or refusing to cover you because you forgot to mention some minor thing when you signed up.

Intestine transplant costs more than $1 million. Heart transplant - $700-800K. Bone marrow transplant - $600-700K.

When did non-government sponsored benefits equate to no health care at all?...especially if you're making over half a million dollars per year.

When your insurance company drops you.

If you make half a million a year, you have options for paying for services yourself instead of relying on someone else (like an insurance company) to pay it for you. You can just, you know, buy healthcare.

Note that some of the life-saving operations listed above a) cost significantly more than $500k and b) are related to ailments that will likely stop you from working on AwesomeApply.io or whatever it is for a potentially indefinite period of time.

This is why I think free healthcare actually promotes entrepreneurship. I have a family and run my own business in New Zealand and have no concerns over healthcare as it'll all be covered by the government.

How much is not having your money stolen from you by an angry mob worth? Seems to me like the rich are doing their best to recreate the jacquerie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacquerie

You're right--there's a lot more to it than just "the tax rate". You've got to consider what that tax rate is getting you. It's also reasonable to have high earners pay more in taxes than low earners--the high earners arguably benefit much more from the infrastructure in place allowing them to even earn a high income in the first place (eg, rule of law), so it is in their interests (and power) to keep that infrastructure humming. When you're rich, social darwinism seems all good and well until you've got the disenfranchised in front of your castle with torches and you can't call the police because their budgets were cut.

That said, I think france is a pretty good example of a place I'd never want to live if I planned on producing anything of value. I don't think it's a coincidence that france is not exactly a hub for startups. Australian and French economic policies are quite different.

So regardless, it's not an apples to apples comparison and not all tax spending is created equal. Personally, I think the French have really bad economic policies if they're interested in anything more than stagnation and taxation is partly to blame.

Are you sure about number (4)? The link you supplied seems to say something different I think.

Yep, my brother is receiving it right now, and I've used it in the past.

Things have changed in the last few years where they will actively make you apply for jobs, and possibly force you to work on community projects (known as "work for the dole"), but essentially you still get ~$228/wk when you don't have a job, forever.

UPDATE: Sorry, since moving to North America I keep getting fortnight and week mixed up. It's $228/wk, or ~$400/fortnight.

Government is always the problem, not the solution.

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