Current European
Tax Rates...
United Kingdom
Income Tax: 50%
VAT: 17.5% TOTAL: 67.5%
Originally Posted by cptjohnstone
I won;t go through it all, but just clarify a couple of things.
Europe is not socialist. Most countries have a pretty even balance between the more left/liberal and the more right/conservative parties. Many are fairly politically centre.
The above figures on UK tax need explaining. The 50% is a temporary measure, which has already been announced to be scrapped in the near future, for those earning over £150K pa I think. 40% is paid for those earning over about £40K pa. There is a level of about £10K pa on which no tax is paid. Most people pay, I think, 21% tax on earnings above £10K. Take all these figures as ball park.
The small corporation tax is 20%. There are good incentives for capital gains tax for entrepeneurs.
Of course, there is in addition national insurance, I don;t have the figures, i don;t pay it as I take dividends rather than salary. It is maybe 8%. Historically it was for health/social care, but that connection has disappeared a long time ago.
I think the big figure is what different countries pay overall per citizen for health care, and how good those provisions are. UK pays, i think, less than France/Italy/Sweden etc. US pays much more than any other country, from what i have read on this forum.