[radicalbyte]

The problem with taxes in Europe are that the ultra-wealthy don't pay them. That burden is particularly focused on those who are high wage earners. If I look at my own country, as a high earner I'm paying close to a 50% effective tax rate (a little less with mortgage interest deductions). However the billionaire families who own the beer brewers, shipping companies and agraculture companies are paying well under 0.5% effective. They pay less than in the US. Due to this reason we're one of the most infamous tax dodge countries in Europe, apparently the Swedish and German billionaires have tax residency to avoid paying it.

[no-name-here]

Effective tax rates for European ultra rich seem to be ~50x that from my googling. Is there a source for the “well under 0.5% effective”?

Perhaps you’re thinking of wealth taxes rather than effective tax rates? https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/effectivetaxrate.asp

[tmikaeld]

He is, the rich pay normal tax and in Sweden (~52-55% effective), includes extra tax on high income. Even dividend tax is 30%

[radicalbyte]

Ikea use my country - The Netherland - to avoid paying tax. Same thing that Google and go co with Ireland. They have literal custom agreements with our tax office.

[Gud]

Rich don’t have income, they have wealth.

And the oligarchs in Sweden pay very little taxes.

[no-name-here]

> Rich don't have income

Wouldn't rich people still have dividends, interest, and possibly executive compensation and capital gains? And if, for example, their money is in a business, that business would be paying all taxes as well, both resulting in tax revenue, and less for the investor? Or is there a source that they don’t have income?

> oligarchs in Sweden pay very little taxes

How are you quantifying that claim? From what I can find, the top 1% pay 10-15% of Sweden’s total tax revenue, presumably a far larger share than any other similarly sized group? Or what's the quantification you're using?

[Hikikomori]

The obscenely rich in Sweden are for the most part so because they own companies that grew a lot in value, when their stock was issued its value was low so they paid very little taxes on it. If they sell stock they pay 30% on profit from it, which is not a lot of tax on possibly billions.

They may also avoid selling by taking out loans instead, and just pay interest rather than any taxes.

This doesn't mean that the rich are not paying taxes or are not paying for a larger % of taxes in total, but they're far from paying their fair share because most of their wealth didn't come from income. Regular employees have higher effective tax rates, even more so if they're issued RSUs.

[disgruntledphd2]

> How are you quantifying that claim? From what I can find, the top 1% pay 10-15% of Sweden’s total tax revenue, presumably a far larger share than any other similarly sized group? Or what's the quantification you're using?

The OP is presumably pointing out the discrepancies between taxation of wealth vs taxation of income. Your top 1% stat is presumably income.

For instance, I pay 52% marginal, but only 33% on capital gains. So if I am capital income heavy, I will pay less tax than someone on the same money but getting it as income.