[throwaway2037]

Where is your country of residence? What is your effective tax rate? (Please don't tell me about your top marginal rate -- that is nonsense unless you have a enormous taxable income.) What do you think is the "correct" tax rate for your income level?

[john567]

Sweden, the way I think we should look at it is the discrepancy between what my employer is paying me and what I receive in my bank account.

That's 51.8% of what I make. That is the government is taking just slightly more than half of everything I earn.

In order to answer what I think is reasonable to pay in tax, we need to look at what the Swedish government spends it's money on. Core infrastructure, health care, school, police etc. This is about 30% of the current government spending. That is frightening to me. I'd be happy to pay less in tax, frankly I want to pay as little as possible but Sweden has this huge government apparatus and it's growing by the day with all kinds of more or less non-essential government arms. I could go into details but I won't right now. I just don't want to finance a lot of this with my money.

It won't be possible any time soon but I'd love to see my tax rate cut in half and given the spending of our governments it should be possible but only if we make it a priority.

[throwaway2037]

Are you a Swedish national or a high income foreigner? If #2, I strongly encourage you to stop complaining and leave soon. Sweden is a highly advanced democracy. This tax rate has been confirmed by numerous, fairly elected governments. The result of this policy is very low income equality and very strong social safety net.

I can assure you that an effective tax rate of 25% would result in much higher income inequality, and much weaker social safety net. Is this the society that you want?

[john567]

It's sounds like you'd be interested to live in my country (born and raised here, I'm almost 40 now and have two kids, happily married etc) but I don't think you know all too much about Sweden. And if you really want to know, ask away, I will answer as truthfully as I can.

The tax rate hasn't always been this high. It's basically the result of government overreach over the past 100 years. I don't think you need to take more than 25% to provide essential services but I also expect people to pay more for the services that they use. I want people to allocate capital more so that the government.

Right now, Sweden has a serious immigration problem. 2 million new people over that past 20 years, a lot of them from radically different cultures. Our social welfare is being used to support these people and they aren't able to contribute back. This is a net drain on our economy and I'm not super happy about that. The studies we have show that these people don't integrate and don't generate tax revenue. And I'm not paying these taxes for their benefit, I'm paying these taxes to build a better future for my kids.

For the longest time, the lie that was being told was that it be a huge asset and opportunity for Sweden and it could have turned out this way, Sweden has had successful immigration in the past but it didn't turn out this way this time.

You talk about progressive taxation and income inequality but people forget that you need a healthy economy as well. You can't just tax everybody and expect equality.

Despite everything you think you may know about Sweden, we have the most gun violence and the most rape in Europe. The Swedish police can't be bothered with solving all the rape because of all the killings.

We have an energy crisis because environmentalists wants to shut down our nuclear reactors (50% of our energy production) and replace it with wind whit cannot work short term or during winter.

I will stop here. At some point Sweden did deserve it's reputation but this country is living on old merits. There's so much crap going on right now that I will take my chances. At least in a free and open society I'd be able to make a bigger impact myself.

[throwaway2037]

Zero trolling: Did you ever consider relocation? Nothing radical: How about Norway, Denmark, or Finland? I've heard there is lots of language overlap with Norway and Denmark. And Finland has lots of respect for Swedish speakers given their special minority status (Hello Linus Torvalds!). Maybe the taxes might not be a /lot/ lower, but the social issues might be /different/. Another good point about those three nations: They are all close to home, if you need/want to visit relatives often (in a low carbon manner!).

If you want something radical, I would recommend:

(1) Australia -- very rich (they avoided the 2008 global financial crisis), much less fair than Sweden (but not stupidly so like US/HK/SG), and crazy high quality of life.

(2) New Zealand -- still rich, more fair than AUS, and insanely good nature / food.

[john567]

Yes, we're spending the summer in Denmark. If we like what we see this is the best option. It all hinges on how this year's election goes. I don't know why I believe we can change but I hope we bring about something new and start fixing problems.

Taxes in the Scandinavian countries are similar but it wouldn't be as frustrating to pay them if everything else was working as intended.

My situation is foobar and I rather go to some place where you as an individual have more freedom and responsibilities. New Zealand sounds nice and warm though.