What level of taxation do you have in your country?

RE: What level of taxation do you have in your country?

i see the merits of various systems , and ours is defintley nor perefect. just kind of scary to me that in the US you may be dying of a prevetible deisea but cna’t get treatment due to the fact you have no money.

🙂

rabie :9

RE: What level of taxation do you have in your country?

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 12-10-02 AT 02:15 AM (GMT)]Vortex

As I mentioned in my original post, Australian taxpayers pay income tax at varying levels, according to salary, plus what is called the Medicare levy if their salary exceeds a certain amount.

This levy is currently 1.5% of your taxable income, but increases to 2.5% if your salary exceeds $50,000, you are single, and don’t have private medical insurance.

Medicare is a basic medical insurance scheme which covers about 70% of the range of medical treatments the average person requires. It doesn’t cover ambulance transport, dental, optical, physiotherapy, chiropractic, and a multitude of other specialist services. For those, you need private insurance.

To operate, Medicare re-imburses around 80% of the “scheduled fee”. This is where your Medicare refund can be pretty ordinary. If you go to your local doctor for a checkup, and he charges $50, but the scheduled fee for that service is only $40, Medicare will reimburse about 80% (can’t remember if its 75 or 85%) of the $40. You pay the balance, so that the visit cost you about $18 after reimbursement.

Our system was based on the UK National Health Scheme, but was always funded by taxpayer contributions over and above normal income taxes.

Medicare is free if you income is less than about $20,000 per annum, you are on a disability or aged pension or are a war service veteran or widow.

It is basically a good scheme, but does cost the Federal Government a bomb. Still better than a lot of other countries, though. It’s the fact that this levy applies on top of what are already very high taxation rates, that makes me angry.

Regards

Wombat

RE: What level of taxation do you have in your country?

No Rabie, i don’t think you quite understand the situation. Anyways, although the US don’t have universal coverage, the emergencies are universal in the sense of irregardless of situation people will get treated (ie from a car accident). Its a complex issue and seems like like always when Europeans think others should be like them it’s called the “right or moral” thing, while when Americans want others to be like them it’s called “arrogance and ignorance”. Universal coverage have pluses and minuses. There’s really no superiority about it, at least that’s the way i see it. What the US need is coverage for basic things such as annual checks and other preventive measures and consultationgs, which i believe are all free. Please don’t tell me how great the UK health system is…last time i heard, universal coverage was cited as one huge problem, but people favor it so much (which is your choice, i have nothing against) that the problem gets bigger. Maybe that was old news, hope it’s better now. By the way, in certain countries, universal coverage still means you have to pay a basic per visit fee (very small amount), i’m wondering if there’s such a thing in UK..or elsewhere from members here? $300Billion isn’t going to solve everybody’s health problem…prevention will and ironically prevention is rather cheap in the relative sense. But seems like everybody is too stressed already to deal with health now than health in the future.

RE: What level of taxation do you have in your country?

yeh vortec your (USA’s) alck of ppublic health care is ver scary to me – at least i know i’ll die awaitng treatment, not that i died cos i couldn’t afford it. i’ld have to admit your hospitals have a great reputation for being good but that becasue you have the moen y in your private health care system

i supose this is why you can afford to have a military budget of $300bn + out of the budget of around $1 trillon

rabie :9

RE: What level of taxation do you have in your country?

We have so many different taxes here in Brazil that I dont even have a clue of what is the level of it. But I´ve already seem many economists saying that it’s highest of the whole world!

Regards,
Primer55

RE: What level of taxation do you have in your country?

I know Austrailia has different provinces (or is it states?) anyways, in the US the sales tax is both state and city tacked on. Meaning, in different parts of the same state, the sales tax can be different. Then there’s all sorts of other tax, like luxury tax, anything above 30k. But on the other hand, if you have a child and earn less than 30k, which is something like almost twice the poverty then you are eligible for food stamps for your kids which usually there are enough for almost the whole family on basics such as milk, bread, cheese, etc…So, it’s not all that bad in the US, except we get criticized sometimes as having no universal health coverage.

RE: What level of taxation do you have in your country?

>Whilst posting on another thread, I thought of this subject.
>
>What levels of personal income taxation apply in your
>country?
>
>An article in our Sunday papers this week indicated that we
>Australians are taxed at the highest level of any developed
>nation in the world. Our top personal taxation level is
>47%, which comes in at $60,000 (about 22,300 sterling,
>$31,000 US) In addition to the normal tax rate, we also pay
>a further 1.5% for the national health scheme (Medicare) and
>if you earn over $50,000 as a single person, or $100,000 as
>a couple, and don’t have private medical coverage, you pay a
>further 1% tax. In other words, our top rate can go as high
>as 49.5%
>
>The same article showed that in the UK, the top rate is 40%,
>which comes in at the equivalent of $84,000 AUS, and the US
>top rate, of 37.6%, doesn’t cut in until your salary reaches
>$558,000 AUS.
>
>We also introduced the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in 2000,
>which is 10% on all goods and services except basic foods,
>medical and education.
>
>So, what tax rates apply in your country? Is there a
>feeling in your community that tax rates are too high?
>
>Regards
>
>Wombat

The Australian Tax account explained well in summary here, but IMO – still too much!!

Regards, Glenn (another Aussie)

RE: What level of taxation do you have in your country?

yeh vat exemption for a comapny turning over less than £50,000.

its hard to adminsor for small comapies but builders are always fideling their tax 😀 😀 😀 – they pay their income tax like they do in the USA (yearly lump sump i think) as opposed to salery earners who have their employers deduct it at source – PAYE – Pay As You Earn

rabie :9

RE: What level of taxation do you have in your country?

This is quite a bit more interesting than I initially expected…

Here in NZ we have had GST for quite some time and it is very simple.
As its name suggests (ie Goods and Services Tax) it is a tax on all goods and services.
Everything the consumer buys has a 12.5% GST tax on it.
If you are a builder you of course get your GST back on items you are buying for a job as no one pays GST except the final customer.
(The offshoot of this of course means the builders can get away with not paying GST for building materials and tools etc, as can electricians, plumbers etc etc… ie work related materials… but that is not new… get a job at Cadbury’s and you can get cheap chocolate at the staff canteen…)

Income tax is about 33% though I think it can get higher the more you earn.
Lower income groups can get cards that reduce health costs.
We also have a government department called ACC (Accident Compensation Commision).
This means if you have an accident either at work or at home or playing a sport then your medical bills and any rehabilitation you might need is either fully paid for or very heavily subsidised.

I would be happy to pay more tax if it meant we had a decent Health and Education system.
Unfortunately I have a sneaking suspicion that most tax money goes to maintain the roads around NZ’s biggest city (Auckland).
Fags and alcohol are heavily taxed. (a pack of 25 cigs costs more than $10… glad i don’t… }>)

RE: What level of taxation do you have in your country?

Quite similar in France

RE: What level of taxation do you have in your country?

in the uk you have direct and indirect taxes – you can’t aovid the first and its pretty hard to avoid the latter

these numbers are rough (oh and BTW a , in the uk is the equivilant of a . in europe)

direct

you are aloud your first 4,500 tax free
then you pay 10% of the next £1,500 you earn (starting at £4,500)
you then pay 22% (23% in scotland) (starting at £6,000 and all the way up to aroound £30,000)
everything above £30,000 is taxed at 40%

you then pay 10% in natioanl insurance which cuts inat around £250 per month (s opposed to per year for the rest of these figures)

indirect

we pay 17.5% on all good exceptt food, books,nespapers, etc
womens hygen stuff is 4.5%
beer, petrol, cigs, etc all have extra duties

there are laods more little taxes but tha cover it i think

rabie :9

RE: What level of taxation do you have in your country?

Garry

GST is probably just the Aussie version of VAT, but at a lower rate.

GST is currently levied at 10% on top of the cost of the item or service. GST does not apply to medical, most education costs or fresh food. It was to have applied to everything, but the minority parties in opposition veto’ed the three categories. There has since been discussion to also exempt rent under certain circumstances.

Prior to GST, we had a number of “indirect taxes”, at varying rates, such as luxury tax (27% on cars costing above about $55,000, perfumes, jewellery for example), sales tax, which was levied at between about 5 and 20% according to the class of item, and various other taxes. GST replaced most of them.

To make GST acceptable to the electorate, personal income taxes were reduced by lowering the tax rates which applied at differing income levels. We used to have a top personal income tax rate of 60%! Who the hell wanted to earn anything when you were being taxed at that rate? As I said in my original post, the top rate is now basically 47% plus Medicare (1.5 – 2.5%) Unfortunately, as our income taxes are levied at five different levels, promotion or national wage increases see peoples’ salaries exposed to “bracket creep”, where you go from the 30% marginal rate to the next rate, which I think is 40%. As the GST was introduced over two years ago, bracket creep has seen most taxpayers salaries increased to the point that the salary cuts of 2000 have now been wiped out. Wonderful system, this. (Not!!!)

It isn’t until you see GST amounts on receipts (which are now called tax invoices), that you realise the effect GST has on your everyday purchases. I buy a train ticket cosing $12.00, and of that, about $1.10 is GST. In other words, I pay a tax for the privelage of going to work. That wasn’t the case prior to GST and it makes you think just how much money the government is raking in with GST.

GST is applied thoughout the supply chain, but the consumer only pays the one lot of GST. Suppliers/manufacturers are able to claim rebates/offsets for GST expenditure against operating costs. Ultimately, the consumer still loses, as the GST applies to the final cost, which is of course, the greater of all costs incurred during the manufacturing/supply cycle.

Hope that help understand GST.

What are your tax levels in NZ?

Regards

Wombat

RE: What level of taxation do you have in your country?

VAT is a tax that you pay on each item you purchase (e.g. in Belgium, it is 21%)

So, if you but an item 100€excl VAT, you add 21€ and you end with 121€…

In germany, it is 17 or 18%, so, some atricles can be cheaper abroad, and ppl who live at the border use this 😉

The system is simple: you manufacture something, and decide to sell your goods to a merchant, so you pay a global VAT ammount to the state from all what you bought minus all what you paid to the state (You recieved the sum for this tax from the merchant).

The merchant will sell it, but he’ll gain some more money, so, he’ll pay more VAT on the same item (in the same way than the manufacturer: profits – expenses).

The customer will buy, and pay all the VAT to the merchant. So everybody is happy 🙂

RE: What level of taxation do you have in your country?

Sorry Wombat this is related but not quite on subject…

Could you explain your GST to us?
We have GST as well but I have heard that yours is quite complex…

(Also to add to this what is VAT? for you posters in the UK and what other local “extra” taxes do you pay where you are?)