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Comment by qwerta | Hacker News Reader

Article is just b*t. There is zero criticism, zero data, just naive adoration. It is sad to see something like that on NY Times.

My friend worked in Netherlands for 6 years. He lost 20% of his salary, he will get ZERO, because he is not local resident.

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Potentially of interest to your friend, depending on their country of citizenship or primary residence over their working career: it is possible that there exists a totalization agreement between that country and the Netherlands which will count his years in the Netherlands system for the purpose of his public pension.

A page on the subject, specific to the US, for purpose of illustration:

http://www.ssa.gov/international/agreements_overview.html

If he had what Dutch people call a pension, it's still his, and he can still collect it. We're not talking about money given out by the Dutch government at retirement. By pension, we're talking about investments made during the lifetime of your employment that the employee owns. If he made contributions to a Dutch pension he still owns it. That's property, and has nothing to do with residency.

He should also have paid a very low tax rate - a 30% discount on taxable income, which results in a rate closer to 20% than the 50% I pay.

See: http://www.iamexpat.nl/expat-page/official-issues/taxation/3...

You're either earning EUR100k+, or your accountant sucks if you're paying close to 50% :P

Your friend is not well-informed.

If he is a European citizen as you indicate (more exactly, if he is a European resident, as for outside Europe, I have no clue), he will be able to transfer his annuity to his country of residence.

As far as I know, he can do it now or he can do it a few years before going into retirement.

Source : I'm exactly in the same situation and asked at the services of my current country of residence (France)

Should you design a pension system for the people retiring there, or the half of percent of people who are visitors?

No, but why to make it compulsory for 'visitors'?

He is EU resident. Imagine in US you would be forced to contribute to state pension, but would get your money only if you work for 30 years in single state. Moving from California to Texas == zero pension.

Dutch here. Everybody has to pay if you work. This goes for pensions, this goes for healthcare, this goes for social security. It only works if everybody who works, contributes.

I do however find it strange that he's not entitled to a pension he paid for. I guess the EU isn't ready for that yet.

He is actually entitled to it. You can always arrange for a buy-out (uitkopen); you're still liable for income tax if you contributed pre-tax on your pension.

Did he not know he was going to work in the Netherlands?

I'm open to the idea that the European countries are overtaxing its citizens, but if someone moves there, I say they're getting exactly what was advertised.

He was planning to stay long-term, but had to change his job.

Just saying this system is not as super as it sounds.

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