[ninininino]

> In Spain it happened with the Work Tax which from >60k EUR (68k USD) goes to 45% as if earning 3k EUR (3.4k USD) per month made you rich.

Sounds worse than it is since it's progressive taxation meaning the effective tax rate for the entire 60k EUR is somewhere like ~29%, not 45.

€0 to €12,450: 19%

€12,451 to €20,200: 24%

€20,201 to €35,200: 30%

€35,201 to €60,000: 37%

Source: Gemini so it could be complete bullshit.

To be fair, VAT is heaver in Europe than for example US, so the overall tax burden might still feel more onerous.

[leugim]

It's progressive so the first 10k are not taxed as the last 10k. I do not deny, the problem is that 60k is the highest bracket* so >60k you are considered rich.

In Spain if you earn more than 60k you are considered rich.

* There's one of 300k at 47% but even that one does not change so much as the <60k to >60k.

[yokaze]

> In Spain if you earn more than 60k you are considered rich.

No, you are high earner. It puts you squarely in the top 10%.

[spwa4]

60k euro per year in a city like Barcelona or Madrid does not make you wealthy. Not remotely. And in the other cities rent might be better, but jobs are a lot harder to find too.

60k euro gives you 33k after tax (2800 euro per month), and everything you do with that is taxed at minimum another 25% (that's the VAT)

[yokaze]

The numbers are simply wrong. The VAT is 21% tops and in the highest taxed region the 60K are effectively taxed at 32%.

And you miss the point that wealth is not determined by how much you earn, but how much you have.

Various super rich are nominally earning one dollar/euro.

I know doctors that have trouble finding a flat and others that complain about being classified as big renter because they only have six flats. The discriminator is not the income. (When we talk about the Ultra-Rich).

[spwa4]

> And you miss the point that wealth is not determined by how much you earn, but how much you have.

That IS my point. Earning is how you become wealthy. That is heavily taxed, because it's easy for the government to do. These taxes prevent anyone becoming wealthy.

They are, however, protecting people that already are wealthy. Cross the threshold where you make more from owning stuff than from income and Spanish taxes look a whole lot better, because you can determine yourself how much income you have. In other words: you only pay tax on the income you actually use for living. Any income used for wealth-building is not taxed (acquiring the actual assets still is but 20% in the worst case. Also investment gains are not taxed, if you structure things right). Cross the next threshold: where you wealth not only pays for living but actually lets you acquire more assets and it's even better. For that ("reinvestment") you pay ZERO percent taxes on the money used to grow your assets.

The very wealthy get richer in Spain. You just can never join them.