I definitely would not give up amazon for free education, health care, etc... Those socialists implementations come at a very high cost. Yes, our current system is not well, but it's better than the government taking 60% of my earned income.

I agree with what you are saying, but my effective tax rate this year in California was ~40%. All of the above benefits for an additional 20% sounds like a bargain.

The effective tax rate in Norway is around 45% BTW.

The max personal tax rate is 47.2%, but that includes a 8.2% pension contribution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates

It's hard to directly compare though, since we have really high excise taxes/VAT, especially for things like cars.

> The effective tax rate in Norway is around 45% BTW.

But I believe your employer pays an amount equal to about 20% of your gross income as pension fund payments. I don't know if USA has similar "hidden" costs which makes direct comparison of grass salary difficult.

The maximum payroll tax in Norway is 14.1%. From a quick google it seems like the rates are about the same in the US:

"making the total Social Security tax 12.4% of wages and the total Medicare tax 2.9%."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Insurance_Contributions...

You wouldn't get all of the above benefits with our government, for the additional 20%. The US has an extremely inefficient government fiscally.

You might get properly funded roads; that is if they don't squander it between the time they lie and promise to use it for that and when it comes time to do road repair.

> The US has an extremely inefficient government fiscally.

I saw this old blog post recently, supporting your assertion: https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/us-r...

Basically, underground rail construction in US costs much more per kilometer than in other countries, and people in the comment section claim that the same holds true for other types of infrastructure construction, like bridges and highways.

I'm in Germany, my tax rate is ~40%, and we do get all those benefits.

To everyone commenting about their tax rates, that information is irrelevant without income levels in each area.

If Germany's tax rate starts at 40% from 40,000 EUR and California from $200,000; those are not equivalent.

Marginal or total?

My marginal tax rate in the UK is 45% but I take home 75% of what I invoice.

I've never felt I got so little for so much tax as when I lived in California.

I think this is actually ignorant of any real experience with those systems.

Yes, there's a cost, but tax rates in the US aren't ultra low compared to every other country in the world.

It's not so much how much money you spend, but what you spend it on that is the real difference.

The US tax system offers a lot of deductions. When I first moved here I was paying ~12% in total taxes (state + federal) on $60K worth of income once I took advantage of the 401k deduction, mortgage interest deduction, etc,etc.

I'm not sure where you came from, but the US system offers more or less the same deductions as other systems. On $60K, the tax rate in Canada for example would be about 15-17%, before credits.

Add your health care costs to that 12% and I think you'll find Canada has the cheaper rate, and you still get to take advantage of many (not all) of the same credits a typical American can.

There is no mortgage deduction in Canada. This is a big difference in the finances of many middle class families.

There's no mortgage deduction in US either. There's a mortgage interest deduction, which I'm sure while significant isn't a major variable in this eqaution overall.

Incorrect! Since most mortgage payments are >95% interest in the first few years, you could easily reduce your taxable income by 30-40% without a large mortgage.

You're also forgetting that the US doesn't have a national sales tax or high taxes on gasoline.

I would agree that the highest tax states in the US aren't that different than the lowest tax states in Canada (income tax only), my own person experience tells me that the US, on average, has a much lower tax burden than countries like Canada. And many jobs pay a higher salary.

Also the US brackets kick in at higher incomes. In Canada the highest bracket (29%) is over $136K. In the US, the highest bracket is 35%, but it doesn't kick-in until you earn more than $375K per year.

I don't think you actually have any idea what personal tax rates are in these countries and are just repeating Tea Party nonsense. If you live in CA and NY you are paying European level taxes and getting basically nothing in return.

Yes, this is a chocking fact I realized when I moved from Sweden to New York. In the former I payed ~30% in tax, whereas here in NY I pay the same. Because you have several levels of taxes in the U.S.: federal tax, income tax, state tax, and city tax, and in addition taxes like FICA, etc.

Don't forget to add your health insurance premiums to your tax rate before comparing. I pay less in Canada than I did in California when you add health care costs. And I and my kids can never lose insurance from a run of bad luck.

Income taxes aren't the only tax. Don't forget sales tax, gas tax, import taxes.

I easily have more disposable income in the US than I did in Canada, even after taking into account insurance costs. Even living in a high-tax US state.

I'm in Australia where we get all that stuff (and amazon sells books and not a whole lot else) and my tax rate (in a relatively high tax bracket) is ~35%, a chunk of which is paying off my (government run, non-profit) university debt. Judging by the sibling comments, it seems like that high cost is about -5% tax at best...

Fyi Amazon will ship televisions to Australia for about $130. Usually it still ends up cheaper than buying domestically.

Thankfully, these two things are not mutually exclusive and we can hope for all of it.

"I'm pretty sure most Americans will give up amazon for free education, health care, paid maternity and paternity leave and the many other social benefits Norway provides to its nationals. reply"

I would rather be paid enough and have the choice of where to put my money, instead of the government making all of those choices for me.

The disposable income in the US is not anywhere nearly high enough to justify the discrepancy in services you get: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income

There is something to be said about not being 100K in debt after getting your degree and not having to go bankrupt if say you were diagnosed with cancer in your early to mid 20's.

Sorry but i rather not to have parents have to work their arse off just to send me to college, or hope they have enough money to treat me if i get sick just as i fall of their coverage plan.

I also would like for my self or my wife to be able to go of work for a year and raise a child without having to be afraid of losing income or job security.

No thanks. I would like the freedom to choose where my money goes and not be forced by government or people lobbying government to allocate other people's hard-earned money to subsidize their preferences. Being able to withdraw money from something when it becomes corrupt, outdated, or inefficient is powerful. You don't have that power if government is taking your money by force. You are funding education even if the implementation is shitty, even if people are graduating with useless degrees.

In other words, you aren't entitled to people's money with no strings attached; you have to work for it. Using institutionalized violence to get what you want is lazy and immoral.

The fallacy in your argument is that it rests in the assumption that the US doesn't also take your money by force, when in fact they obviously do, so not having your money taken away isn't one of the choices.

Except Norway is an oil welfare state, so those social programs don't come from increasing the tax rate like we'd have to do in America (and suffer the negative effects of that).

Or live in the UK and get all of those, plus Amazon and ubiquitous online grocery shopping. On which point, I'd go for a button like this that added items to my Ocado basket.

Only Scotland has free higher education, higher Education in England and Wales is freaking expensive compared to continental Europe, and thanks to "free" student loans only goes higher every year.

At this point in my life, I definitely wouldn't, but that might obviously change in the future.

The statement "At this point in my life" doesn't make much sense unless you specify the point in your life you're at.

I'm in my 20s and I have no dependents or known health problems.

The idea isn't to "get social" only in your personal hour of need, though.

I've known people who used government assistance after losing their job, then just a few years later complain about people using welfare and unemployment income. Some of us Americans can be really weird when it comes to helping out our neighbors.

Don't worry, we Europeans can be weird too. There's always some group that doesn't really deserve it.

"free" education, health care, paid maternity and paternity leave and the many other social benefits