Actually, folks are underestimating what they pay in taxes in the U.S. The rate of taxation for Social Security is 15.3% and the rate of taxation for Medicare is 2.9%. Although your employer pays for part of that, in reality it’s coming out of your pocket. It’s part of the employer’s expense to employ you and without that tax, you would be keeping that money. So the feds are taking more than you expect.
The same is true for the UK and Ireland, where NI and PRSI respectively have an “employer’s contribution” component.
That said, since one takes a job on the gross salary quoted, I find it difficult to believe that the employer would quote a higher gross salary for a given position because they’re not getting fucked in the ass too.
These comparisons are not that meaningful unless you take into account sales tax, duty on things like gasoline and alcohol, property tax etc. Overall, tax in the US and Ireland is below 30% of GDP, while British tax is getting on for 40%.
Yes, “overall tax burden”. Not just Income taxes. According to Forbes, the USA
ranks 27th lowest of 30 nations they surveyed, with 25.5%. Ireland comes in @#25 and 30%(not bad at all, but they pay much higher sales taxes that us Americans do), with the UK @#14, and 36.1%. Highest is Sweden with a total tax burden of 50.7%! :eek:
I pay 25% of my paycheck in various taxes and such-like.
Fed: 14.5%
FICA: 3.8% (but going down, since I’ve hit the maximum)
Medicare: 1.3%
California state tax: 4.9%
But the actual tax rate is a bit higher, since I’ve got a good chunk of 401K that isn’t taxed, and a good bit of a health care reimbursement account, which lets me use pre-tax money to pay medical bills insurance doesn’t cover.
For my family as a whole it is worse, since my wife is a freelancer and pays self-employment tax.
All the numbers from the US, at least, are actually witholding, not tax, and the real tax rate could be a bit different. Is that true for Ireland also?