Better how?
It is probably better if you do not intend to have children or ever need medical care.
People saying that taxes in the US are much lower than Europe, as a person who lived in London, San Francisco and NYC I’d like to disagree.
The tax rate for my income bracket in the UK is 45%, and while federal income tax is 39.6% I still have to pay state and city taxes on top of that which works out to be about the same.
However I get free medical care in the UK, affordable college tuition (10x less than the US at least), maternity leave, great public transit, I could go on. What does the same amount of taxes paid get me in the US? I’m not complaining about having to pay taxes, but sure would be nice to get something back that isn’t military.
> The tax rate for my income bracket in the UK is 45%, and while federal income tax is 39.6% I still have to pay state and city taxes on top of that which works out to be about the same.
This statement is meaningless without specifying the brackets or providing an effective tax rate for a certain amount of income.
How would a reader know that? And how can that be true when the brackets are so different? UK does not even look like it has single vs married distinctions, not to mention the myriad deductions in the US, and the drastically different taxes in various locales (I pay $30k+ less per year by living on the other side of a state/city border).
The 45% UK income tax rate is for 150k GBP, which is $167k. The top bracket for US federal income tax starts at $578k/$693k at a 37% tax rate.
It does not seem to pencil out to being remotely close, and that is ignoring UK National insurance and pension tax rates, but I am not sure how UK pension works to equivocate to US FICA taxes.
I was providing my personal anecdotal experience of having the basically the same net income in 3 places.
37% federal tax also does not account for 6.8% state tax and the 3.8% NYC tax which I know does not apply to all of the US, but then we get into the territory where we have to address that I will probably not have same income in bumblefuck alabama anyway.
People here are talking like the difference between US taxes and EU taxes is 20% or more, when in reality it’s maybe 5%
The difference in tax burden is give here: https://data.oecd.org/tax/tax-revenue.htm . It varies quite a bit by country, but the contrast with France/Nordics is particularly large
I’m not sure how income tax % to GDP is relevant here, but perhaps I am looking at a wrong thing, it’s quite painful on mobile
UPD: looked at the tax wedge, the US vs UK looks pretty similar to me- which supports my point.
Germany looks a lot higher, but they have 100% free tuition and I am not familiar with the rest of the benefits germans get.
A single digit % of total income may not be a big deal in European salary terms, but when you make US salaries it's significant. That's your first mistake.
Also, lol at UK public transit. Horrifically expensive - probably more than a single digit % of total income if you actually have to commute anywhere on a regular basis.
The tax rate for my income bracket in the UK is 45%, and while federal income tax is 39.6% I still have to pay state and city taxes on top of that which works out to be about the same.
However I get free medical care in the UK, affordable college tuition (10x less than the US at least), maternity leave, great public transit, I could go on. What does the same amount of taxes paid get me in the US? I’m not complaining about having to pay taxes, but sure would be nice to get something back that isn’t military.