Re:Beyond Spotify and iZettle: How Sweden became Europe’s ca...
by toxik on Saturday September 08, 2018 @03:00PM
(#17942227)
No, I posted about this in another comment thread. Here's it quoted:
> One thing that should be emphasized when comparing salaries between Sweden and other countries is how there is a secret tax baked into the Swedish salary -- arbetsgivaravgiften.
> Basically, in all other nationalities (to my knowledge), you are quoted how much the company will pay for your salary. Then tax is applied, and whatever is left is what you take home.
In Sweden, you are quoted an in-between number. If you are offered $100k before tax in Sweden, that means the employer is _actually_ paying something like $143k. You will still not be getting $100k, but rather that is the "taxable income", so you end up with about $70k, but your employer paid $143k, but you agreed on $100k. Makes no sense.
I used to think like you, with this idea that Swedish salaries are substantially lower -- but if you use the true tax, salaries are actually comparable.
> One thing that should be emphasized when comparing salaries between Sweden and other countries is how there is a secret tax baked into the Swedish salary -- arbetsgivaravgiften.
> Basically, in all other nationalities (to my knowledge), you are quoted how much the company will pay for your salary. Then tax is applied, and whatever is left is what you take home. In Sweden, you are quoted an in-between number. If you are offered $100k before tax in Sweden, that means the employer is _actually_ paying something like $143k. You will still not be getting $100k, but rather that is the "taxable income", so you end up with about $70k, but your employer paid $143k, but you agreed on $100k. Makes no sense.
I used to think like you, with this idea that Swedish salaries are substantially lower -- but if you use the true tax, salaries are actually comparable.