<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>Try1275</author><text>I live in Austria. I pay 48% on everything above 60k € and 50% above 90k. Our VAT is 20%. Most people who can afford it pay for private doctors because it‘s almost impossible to get an appointment with one that‘s covered by normal health care.&lt;p&gt;So I guess at least for my country the statement above is somewhat true.</text><parent_chain><item><author>vidarh</author><text>The vast majority of people in Europe pays nowhere near half our salary in taxes. Only a few countries have &lt;i&gt;total tax wedges&lt;/i&gt; (including &lt;i&gt;employer&lt;/i&gt; payroll taxes) that reach that level for more than small minorities of the population.</text></item><item><author>jiofj</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s more like we pay half our salary in taxes and then we get terrible education and a healthcare system where you can&amp;#x27;t even get an appointment.</text></item><item><author>mschuster91</author><text>Society, at least in the classic European model, works just the same: everyone (yes, I know, there are exceptions, that&amp;#x27;s not the point) pays their share into health insurance, LTD insurance, unemployment insurance, workplace accident insurance, pension systems and a ton of other social benefit systems. And &lt;i&gt;everyone&lt;/i&gt; benefits from this kind of collective solidarity - our societies are far less combative (both in the literal and the proverbial sense) than the US are.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Pooling and Sharing of wealth makes everyone&apos;s wealth grow faster</title><url>https://ergodicityeconomics.com/2023/08/29/for-to-withhold-is-to-perish/</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>yardstick</author><text>In the UK once you reach over ~120k GBP the total tax wedge is above 50% [1].&lt;p&gt;At 90k GBP you are paying 45%. I guess it depends on what “nowhere near half” means. 45% is close imo. Especially with VAT added in on purchases. Yes the average London wage is more like 50k GBP, but from that perspective it’s also only double the average wage before you hit 45%+ tax take.&lt;p&gt;The top UK tax rate (including employers NI etc) is ~59%.&lt;p&gt;1. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;listentotaxman.com&amp;#x2F;?year=2022&amp;amp;taxregion=uk&amp;amp;age=0&amp;amp;time=1&amp;amp;ingr=120000&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;listentotaxman.com&amp;#x2F;?year=2022&amp;amp;taxregion=uk&amp;amp;age=0&amp;amp;tim...&lt;/a&gt;</text><parent_chain><item><author>vidarh</author><text>The vast majority of people in Europe pays nowhere near half our salary in taxes. Only a few countries have &lt;i&gt;total tax wedges&lt;/i&gt; (including &lt;i&gt;employer&lt;/i&gt; payroll taxes) that reach that level for more than small minorities of the population.</text></item><item><author>jiofj</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s more like we pay half our salary in taxes and then we get terrible education and a healthcare system where you can&amp;#x27;t even get an appointment.</text></item><item><author>mschuster91</author><text>Society, at least in the classic European model, works just the same: everyone (yes, I know, there are exceptions, that&amp;#x27;s not the point) pays their share into health insurance, LTD insurance, unemployment insurance, workplace accident insurance, pension systems and a ton of other social benefit systems. And &lt;i&gt;everyone&lt;/i&gt; benefits from this kind of collective solidarity - our societies are far less combative (both in the literal and the proverbial sense) than the US are.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Pooling and Sharing of wealth makes everyone&apos;s wealth grow faster</title><url>https://ergodicityeconomics.com/2023/08/29/for-to-withhold-is-to-perish/</url></story>