a fight i did not get into this past weekend

[jazzfish]

Uncle-in-law C--: "I really liked living in Vancouver, but, you know, you're paying like 40% of your income straight to the government, you never see it."

What I said: "Yeah, and I'm also getting full health care for two people for $110 a month[1]." At which point, irreconcilable differences having been expressed and acknowledged, we went about our business.

What I did not say: "You, with your giant house and your three cars, complaining about taxes while taking public transit to and from work, are half of what's wrong with this country, and the main reason why I will almost certainly never live there again if I have any choice in the matter."

What I also did not say: "There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody."

How sad is it that I cannot remember the last time someone prominent stood up and argued that in public?

---

[1] Fudging a bit: there are things (such as drugs, or chiro, or psychological outpatient counseling, to name three I've run into in the last couple of weeks) that the provincial[2] Medical Services Plan doesn't cover. I'm also enrolled in a supplemental insurance plan that covers a lot of what the MSP doesn't, and the supplemental is paid entirely by work.

[2] In Canadian this word lacks the same overtones of "backwards and country," as in Canadian "province" means "state." Note that "territory" also sort of means "state," except for the ways in which it doesn't.

Comments

[rbandrews]

Do you still pay US taxes? I saw an article yesterday saying that apparently you should; the U.S. is the only country that claims taxes on all income made by "U.S. persons" (not citizens, even) worldwide. The worst they can do in most places is arrest you if you ever try to come back, although in Canada banks are required to tell the U.S. government how much money you have, if they ask. It's all pretty insane.

I've been thinking semi-seriously about leaving this country.

[(Anonymous)]

Ish.
If you're resident in the other country then there's a fair amount (80 k or so, back in '96 at least) that's not taxed.

[rbandrews]

The article said it's $91k now. Still less than a developer living in the UK would make, with the exchange rate.

On the other hand, there's absolutely no reason I'd want to come back if Cassie and I moved to the UK, so I'd probably just ignore it.

[vvalkyri]

really? wow. When I was in the UK salaries were a whole lot lower.

[rbandrews]

No, apparently I'm completely wrong. Sorry about that. It's averaging more like 40k GBP, which is $62k. So wow, that kinda sucks then.

[jazzfish]

Oh god yes. I mean, I don't yet, but I will come tax time. We're going to have an accountant do it all for at least this first year because it's not worth our time to mess with it (partial-year nonsense, plus I own just enough stocks to make it a headache).

I don't really recommend the UK, but mostly because there's literally no freedom of speech. As I recall they very nearly didn't join the EU because it required ratifying the EU's bill of rights. I've heard good things about most of the rest of the EU. Canuckistan's pretty keen as well. :)

[rbandrews]

Well, England has this nice feature where they speak, well, English. My other top choice is the Netherlands, which I think I'd really enjoy living in. My only real argument against Canada is that it would seem like I was doing it just because you did.

But my thinking is, I've been unhappy with pretty much everything about this country since I've been old enough to understand what's been happening, and it'll only get harder to move the older I get.

[jazzfish]

Danish is kind of like English. I mean, their newspaper is "Het Daaly Niews." My understanding is that it's obscenely difficult to get into the EU, though.

[rbandrews]

Yeah, but once you do immigrate, you can live anywhere in there.

There are two other downsides to the Netherlands: very high population density, and if we're going to move somewhere, it makes sense to move somewhere where we know people. Which pretty much means Blacksburg, DC, or Vancouver.

I should elaborate some: because I get anxious around people, I like living in places like Texas, where everywhere is a long drive away and there's plenty of psychological room. I might do well in Sweden, I bet.

[jazzfish]

Right, the other thing is that while I do pay taxes in both places, a lot of it isn't doubletaxed, that is, foreign tax paid is deducted from US tax owed up to a certain amount. I have no idea how that works regarding state tax, as Virginia, like the US, thinks of me as a resident until I establish residency in another US location, so I'll be paying VA income tax for another few years at least.

[rbandrews]

Okay, sorry, but I have to comment on this again. He owns three cars and takes public transit to work? For god's sake why?

I can sort of see his point with taxes on the giant house. I'm not a huge fan of property tax; it seems like once I buy something, I should be able to own it forever for free. But I really don't see why "I got all this on my own" is an argument against paying taxes on it. So what? It doesn't matter how you got rich, it's still in everyone's best interest that we be able to have public services. The whole idea is that all of us together can do things that each of us individually can't, like build roads or win world war II or cure Polio or go to the moon. I don't really feel like I owe society much of anything; it's more that I like having freeways and tap water, so I don't mind paying taxes.

[jazzfish]

He lives in a Seattle suburb, and there's nowhere to park in downtown Seattle. (Actually it's his wife that takes transit. I think that his current office is in a place he can drive.)

I've become a convert to the idea of taxing assets. I'm actually less enthralled about taxing income: why 'punish' people for doing something useful? Wealth is one way of determining how much you can afford to contribute to keep the state running, and property (in whatever form) is just non-liquid wealth. I think that at the point where you concede that 1) taxes are the price you pay to live in a civilised society, and 2) the rich are going to pay "disproportionately" more taxes based on whatever measure of taxation, arguing about what precisely gets measured and taxed is, to quote Apocryphal Winston Churchill, quibbling over the price.

"I got all this on my own" is an argument against point 2. I believe in point 2 because a) the rich get disproportionately more use out of government than the poor, even accounting for services targeted at the poor like subsidized housing or welfare, and b) not doing that leads to an aristocracy (much like we got now) and I'm fundamentally opposed to that. Which I guess makes me a filthy commie.

Shorter: eat the rich, because the poor are too stringy.

[rbandrews]

there's nowhere to park in downtown Seattle.

Sell one car, withdraw the money in quarters, park the other two in front of meters. Problem solved? :)

I guess I mind taxing income less because it means I just make slightly less income. If I owned a house I'd have to actually write a check for it, which I don't like. That, and it's very easy to have lots of assets and not be able to afford the taxes on them: inherit a house, or some farmland. Although at that point the taxes become incentive to do something productive with your assets, which I can see the point of.

I do have one argument against taxes that I think you'll agree with though: a lot less of my tax money goes toward improving peoples' lives than goes toward dropping high explosives on them. And although I accept that taxes are the price of a civilized society, I really don't understand how dropping high explosives on people I've never even met makes my society any more civilized.

[jazzfish]

heh. There's literally nowhere to park, though, not just nowhere free. Also, two spoiled tween daughters who will doubtless need their own cars.

I can understand the annoyance factor. To the left, the rich have people to write those checks for them.

Yeah, no argument here. I'd be happy to take an ax to the "defence" budget even if half of the savings was plowed straight back into tax rebates. Killing brown people is one of those gov't services I think of as improving the lot of rich people, since they a) seem to get more satisfaction out of it and b) own more military contracting companies.

[rbandrews]

Waitwait. They have three cars and two daughters below driving age? What's the third car for? To keep the first two company?

And I don't even have to ask, but how many of these cars are luxury SUVs?

[notyourwendy]

One is a serious old clunker of a truck, one is a mini-van, and I can't remember what the other is, but it's some kind of SUV. It was parked in in the garage the entire time we were there.

I think Eldest Daughter is getting the truck when she's of age. Not that it stops her from pointing out the BMWs she'd rather have.

[rbandrews]

Hey, I point out the BWMs I'd rather have too! I just, you know, have a job and don't mind paying for them myself...

[desfido]

The fact that $110/month for two people is a bargain reminds me that I am ungodly lucky with benefits at $current_employer.

That they are so generous and still nicely profitable (especially for such a small company) really makes me wonder what either $current_employer is doing right, or all those other employers are doing wrong.

[jazzfish]

I was only paying health insurance for myself when I was in the states, but I think that including the dental and vision plans (covered under the supplemental here) my contribution was around $110.

Is $current_employer a private company? I expect it's easier to be decent to one's employees when one doesn't have to justify it to one's shareholders.

[desfido]

Yes, $current_employer is private at present. & I expect you're right on that being part of why they can offer such good benefits. Perhaps that's the only distinction -- but I'm just curious if part of what allows the company to do well is that employees get good benefits, and that by giving no or expensive benefits, you actually are (overall and in the long run) hurting your company.

I suspect that giving good benefits to *everyone* in the company is actually just a good idea for both business & moral reasons, but it'd be nice to see whether I was right.

I was actually in an econ department experiment at GMU once that was investigating exactly that, but unfortunately, I don't know who was running it, so I have no idea what they found :P

[tulip-tree.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure I slightly offended a family friend of my in-laws at Christmas last year by going on at great length about how awesome the medical system in Canada is, in particular how it is so much more cost-effective and efficient than the US "system." Fortunately, he was polite, and I was smart enough not to say anything in response to statements such as "but how will the insurance companies make money?"

[jazzfish]

heh. Sounds about right. I'm... not exactly looking forward to my next dinner with my immediate family.

"but how will the insurance companies make money?"

WILL NO ONE THINK OF THE POOR BUGGY-WHIP MANUFACTURERS?!