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by baybal2 3320 days ago
Bulgaria has low income tax, but a monsterous social security, EI and pension payments as is with most formerly red countries.

This gives self employed people, or people leaving their profits on a company account an ennormous, unfair advantage
2 comments
fest 3320 days ago
That is, until those people realize that they most likely will need that assistance at some point of their lives (child birth, major health issues).

EDIT:

To expand a bit, my wife is currently in one of those situations. A government program allowed reduced social taxes for small businesses (<5 employees, <720EUR/month wage). The place my wife has worked for the past 5 years has been like that (her first workplace).

Now, with a child underway, we came to realize, that the social benefits she will be getting before and after birth will amount to maybe few tens of EUR/month (compared to 60% of previous wage when full social taxes are being paid).

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baybal2 3320 days ago
The issue there is that: A. Those people will get all of that anyways B. Paying more towards you EI, SI, and pensions there gives very little additional benefit C. Truckloads of people still in productive age are dependent on cash payouts from the state. You can imagine those are the ones who make the majority of the electorate of most Eastern European nutjob political parties
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icebraining 3320 days ago
What values are we talking about? From a few sites, it seems ~31% (employer + employee), which doesn't seem that high relative to other European countries.
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baybal2 3320 days ago
Well, they went down. Used to be like that http://www.worldwide-tax.com/bulgaria/bulgarialaborlaws.asp + income tax + "real insurance" + different property taxes, and all of that in a country with a relatively high VAT
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baybal2 3320 days ago
Even today, that 31% rate + 10% income tax, + other stuff can easily halve your income.
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icebraining 3320 days ago
Yeah, well, as a Portuguese I'm paying 35% in SS contributions, plus more than 10% in income tax if one earns more than 920€/month, so I feel your pain.

It wouldn't really bother me if so much of it wasn't wasted, though.

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