> I, the middle class engineer get fucked by the taxes, and I get fucked hard, and not in fun way.
And predictably, the responses are whether or not you are actually middle class. Because somehow if you're not, you deserve to be f**d hard I guess...?
I'm talking about earning 2x-3x national average pay and getting fucked by that here, in a small EU country.
5k(eur) gross monthly here (current gross average is ~1950eur), after taxes and social/medical (they're a "tax" here, divided between worker and employer) gives me 2922eur net, and I cost my employer 5805eur. With VAT (22%) our customers pay 7082eur, for me to get 2922eur, and the government gets 4160eur. That's without any actual cost, my chair, my computer, toilet paper, office rent,...
Otherwise known as "the people who employ and invest".
In the same way corporate taxes trickle down to the consumer (otherwise known as "everybody else"), the same is true of taxes on wealthy incomes.
And even our discussion over who pays taxes and how much they pay is moot since the problem is actually spending. The best thing that could happen is that everyone has a real tax burden and everyone pays it directly (not via payroll deduction). Because then more people might be interested in how their taxes are being spent.
And predictably, the responses are whether or not you are actually middle class. Because somehow if you're not, you deserve to be f**d hard I guess...?