h*******u
发帖数: 15326 | 1 威斯康星的左臂教授写的，看样子是个三德子粉，谁来辩辩？
话说威斯康星左臂还真多呀
这篇核心思想是税率再上调20%说不定更好
I was visiting the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, a 23-island
archipelago in Lake Superior, when suddenly I found myself pining for
Stockholm. Why? Because standing on the boat dock in Bayfield, Wisconsin, I
realized that the 23,000-island Stockholm archipelago is more accessible to
me, an American, than my own 23-island national park.
These wilderness islands with haunting sea caves are accessible only by tour
boat at a cost of $151 for a family of two adults and three children. There
is no free 15-minute ride across the strait to Basswood Island closest to
the mainland, nor a $10 shuttle between the islands, as there would be in
Sweden where a heavily subsidized ferry system makes the Stockholm
archipelago available to all citizens — as well as to American tourists.
"Swedish taxes are easy to pay, rational, and efficient. Best of all, rather
than take away opportunities, Swedish taxes expand them."
It seems that Americans would rather have inaccessibility to public places
and crumbling infrastructure than pay more in taxes, right? After all, every
American seems to know that taxes in Sweden are high and that they want
nothing to do with high.
My wife and I have been dividing our time between jobs in Sweden and
Wisconsin for the past dozen years, and I'm here to tell you that taxes in
Sweden are not that high. To my surprise, I found that there are lots of
things to love about the Swedish tax system. Swedish taxes are easy to pay,
rational, and efficient. Best of all, rather than take away opportunities,
Swedish taxes expand them.
Here are six reasons I have come to love Swedish taxes.
1) Swedish income taxes are not much higher than US taxes — but they give
you an education
US critics say that Swedes pay 56 percent — so the government takes over
half of your money. This is not true — 56 percent is the marginal tax rate,
i.e. what high earners pay on income over a certain amount in both state
and local taxes. Only 15 percent of Swedes pay tax at this rate. It turns
out the average Swede pays less than 27 percent of his or her income in
direct taxes. As I've written elsewhere, my wife and I pay about 22 percent
of our US income in taxes. Our Swedish income tax was 31 percent. So, yes,
our income taxes in Sweden were higher than in the US, but we still paid
less than one-third in tax.
And you get far more for your taxes than you do in the US. In Sweden,
college is free and students get a housing stipend. A colleague's daughter,
Kerstin, just completed a five-year dental program. Her family paid nothing
for her education. The Swedish government gave her $340 a month to live on
when she was in school and the right to borrow $700 more a month, which she
did. After five years, she graduated with a debt of $37,153.
In the US, dental students graduate with an average of $215,000 in debt from
dental school alone.
2) Tax forms come already filled out
Our US federal and state forms tax forms were more than 30 pages long last
year, downloaded completely blank. During the two weeks we'll spend in
Wisconsin this summer, our main job will be to get our taxes done.
I'll wade through stacks of bank and credit card records line by line,
documenting all professional income beyond our wages and scanning for every
possible business or charitable deduction. Once this is done, we — like the
majority of US taxpayers — will hire a tax professional who charges us $
500 to review and co-sign our work.
More from First Person
Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture
Tax-preparation services cost American taxpayers more than $32 billion per
year. My wife, Betty, and I each have a PhD, but that's not enough to
understand IRS instructions. Finally, with a great sigh of relief, our
marriage still intact, we'll sign the forms and send them to the IRS.
Of course, despite our great efforts, we don't know whether the IRS is going
to be happy or not. We might get audited and have to dig up all this stuff
again, because the government has three years to check and revise our
returns.
In Sweden, the four-page tax form comes in the mail already filled out. On a
Saturday morning, Betty and I take our coffee to the couch and review the
forms. Seeing they look reasonable, as they always do, we "sign" with a text
from our phones. In 15 minutes we are done. We don't have to hire a tax
consultant, and we avoid fights about whether a print cartridge bought at
the drugstore is a business expense or not.
The Swedes expect their government to be efficient, and the tax authority is
. Only 11 percent of the Swedish taxpayers say it is NOT easy to fill out
their forms. I can't imagine what a similar survey question would show in
the US.
3) There is no property tax
Property taxes go back to the founding of the United States. They are
administered by local governments and most go to pay for schools, local
roads, and other services. They range from a high of 2.38 percent in New
Jersey to a low of 0.28 percent in Hawaii. Property taxes hurt older
citizens, whose incomes are not going up but whose property taxes are. In
our great American tradition of making taxes hurt, Wisconsin property tax
bills come in a lump sum just before Christmas. The envelope might as well
say, "I am from the government, and I am here to make you miserable."
When the conservative government, favoring lower taxes, came to power in
Sweden in 2006 one of its first steps was abolish the property tax and
replace it with a fixed fee. The real estate fee for services is 7,112 SEK
per house ($825 at current exchange rates).
This is the same for everyone no matter what the assessed value of the
dwelling. The fee is $12 a month for our co-op apartment in Stockholm. If we
owned the same property in Madison, our taxes would be $18,000 a year.
The author and his wife hiking in Sweden. (Tom Heberlein)
4) Sales taxes in Sweden are higher — but less noticeable
Swedes and many other Europeans are grumpy when they visit the US, buy
something for $10, and the clerk asks for $10.55. Just as we make our income
tax process miserable and the property tax bill shows up just before
Christmas, sales taxes are an add-on, which makes you notice them more.
Sales taxes are high in Sweden, but you don't see them, and that makes them
easier to pay. If something costs 100 krona, you pay the 100 krona! Only
when you look at the receipt do you see that it costs 80 krona and 20 krona
for VAT (value-added tax). Many things are taxed at lower rates — 12
percent to have dinner out or buy groceries, 6 percent (only half a percent
higher than our sales tax in Madison) for books and tickets to cultural
events and in-country travel. Health related items: zero percent.
It is true that sales taxes are regressive; poor people pay a higher
proportion of their income in this tax. In the US, a 25 percent sales tax
would have to be offset with some kind of subsidies for our many poor. But
because Sweden has a narrower income distribution, its sales tax is less
regressive than in the US.
5) We get cash instead of deductions
One of the reasons US income tax preparation is so awful is that we try to
reward certain activities by providing a tax deduction. If you do some good
deed (like putting in a solar panel) and if you can find the receipt and
documentation (I am thinking ahead to our summer "tax vacation" in the
Wisconsin), then you can list a number on Form H, line 36, that will lower
your taxes.
Does this feel good? Do you feel rewarded for your solar panel? Or is it
just another damn number on a tax form?
If the Swedish government wants you to do something, they give you the money
. For example: Having children is good for the society and costs parents
money. In the US, you get a deduction on your income tax for dependents. In
Sweden, you get a check every month and you can use it to buy shoes. For one
child you get $120 a month and up to $620 for four children. Every parent
gets a check.
The process is simple, fair, totally clear, and you don't have to do
anything on your tax form. The money comes when you need it —not a year or
more later hidden in a tax refund check.
"In Sweden, the four-page tax form comes in the mail already filled out. In
15 minutes we are done."
Another example: To stimulate the economy in 2008, Sweden's parliament
approved a "rotavdrag" as a temporary job stimulus paying up to 50 percent
of the labor costs for household repairs. As a result, the Swedish IRS paid
its share of our recent remodeling bill — and I didn't have to do a bit of
paperwork. When I got the final remodeling bill, there was a deduction of 50
,000 krona for my wife and 50,000 for me (the maximum allowed). I asked if I
was supposed to pay this. "Oh, no," the contractor said. "Just pay the
remainder, and the Swedish IRS will send me their share."
6) High taxes give more me more choices and freedoms
David Brooks, in a New York Times editorial, argues that if Americans paid
European-style high taxes, it would "weaken the ability of members of the
middle class to make choices about their own lives."
Maybe Brooks needs to live abroad. Guys like Brooks seem to be proud that
tax revenues in the US are only 26 percent of GDP (the third lowest of all
countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development)
while in Sweden they are 43 percent.
But tax dollars are not burned — they are used to provide collective goods
that are beyond the reach of any individual and that benefit everyone. These
collective goods give the middle class more choices, not fewer.
Not having to pay for college gives the best and the brightest the
opportunity to attend any school they choose — equalizing opportunity on
merit, not parents' wealth.
No matter how rich Bill Gates is, he cannot buy a hiking trail system in
Seattle like those we take for granted in Stockholm. I get to use it for
free and have more choices for hiking than I can ever enjoy in Wisconsin.
The family of five I witnessed waiting on the dock to visit the Apostle
Islands was powerless to see them. Our national park, accessible to the few
but not the many, is but one casualty of our low taxes.
Like this video? Subscribe to Vox on YouTube.
Another casualty? Our public transportation system. Betty and I used to live
the village of Lodi, about 25 miles from Madison. This being America, I was
free to travel to Madison however and whenever I wanted, as long as it was
by private automobile. There was (and is) no bus service to Madison. Even
though railroad tracks run right through the village, there is no commuter
rail service either.
If this were a suburb of Stockholm or any other European city of 250,000,
there would be train service and bus service several times an hour. These
are the choices Europeans have that we don't, because they devote more of
their income to collective goods.
If we value freedom, those of us who drive cars should pay higher gas taxes
so that those who are old, infirm, too poor to have a car, or want to reduce
their environmental impact can have fast and efficient bus and train
service. Besides the moral issue of providing freedom of choice, there is a
great economic value. If we had bus and train service to Madison, the value
of all of the real estate in Lodi would shoot up, and our crumbling downtown
would have a shot at a future.
The 33 million Americans who are still not covered by health insurance don't
have much choice when they get sick, unless you think, "Your money or your
life?" is a choice. Paradoxically it turns out the bloated, heavily lobbied,
privatized US system spends more tax money ($4,437) per person than Sweden'
s socialized health care ($3,184).
This is due to Swedish efficiency rather than poor service. I do get to
choose my doctor, have high-quality care a short walk from my home, same-day
appointments and short waits when I walk in unannounced. And one day my
physician himself phoned to tell me I had left my gloves in his office — it
was my choice to walk back and get them.
I am not burdened by Swedish taxes. In fact, paying more allows me to
increase my quality of life in a big way. That's why I believe that if we
all paid higher taxes with less pain in the collection, more of us would be
granted the American version of freedom we have been promised.
Tom Heberlein divides his time between Wisconsin and Sweden, where he is
working on a book, Falling in Love with Sweden (One Mistake at a Time). He
is a professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin Madison. | a********r
发帖数: 4013 | 2 还好就是光说税了，不能算左文，不提黑幕三lives matter的都不是左文 |
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