We have state income taxes AND federal income taxes as well as county/city income taxes in some cases. All added together, it's about as high as yours.
Give our trickle up poverty some time to kick in and our welfare programs will make our taxes equal.
Sweden income taxes: from 31 to 55% depending on your income.
Well, income tax is only one of our taxes, in fact ..... let me give you a short example about our "happy taxes country"
Income tax, from 23 to 43 %, as in this way (yearly based calculation):
til 15.555 Euro - 23%
from 15.001 to 28.000 Euro - 27%
from 28.001 to 55.000 Euro - 38%
from 55.001 to 75.000 Euro - 41%
over 75.000 Euro - 43%
PLUS - Income tax for society: 33%
PLUS - IRAP :from 4,25 to 8,50%
PLUS - taxes on bank deposits (called "imposta di bollo" actually): practically on everything, variable amount.
PLUS - IVA (VAT in some countries) : 21% (planned to increase it to 23%) - About IVA, please note that here in Italy we pay it ALSO ON SOME TAXES (yes, you read correctly, if you pay 100 Euro of service AND 50 Euro of taxes, IVA is calculated on the whole 150 Euro
)
PLUS - I.C.I. (tax on buildings, locally based, vary from place to place and from types of buildings ..... now, also if you have a building in a foreign country and already pay taxes there)
PLUS - registry tax (is a tax that you must pay for every document you need to register)
PLUS - Accise - these are "war taxes" applied from the govern on combustibles, gasoline, cigarettes, alcohol, and so on, that had to be cancelled when the war ended (and, ofcourse, none cancelled them ..... they varies, but, as example, on gasoline they are 47% of the price)
PLUS - taxes on power (electricity), 2 different ones, erarial and regional, varies with usage typology
PLUS - garbage tax - varies with surface of the house - indicatively, a 60 m^3 shop pay around 250 Euro
Plus a lot of other different taxes, some of them are so absurds that, in any other countries, anyone that propose them will probably be hanged, eviscerated, burned and decapitated (all together
) ..... except here, ofcourse
..... just as example, "tax on shadow" (if you have a tent that do shadow on public street, you must pay a tax for this) ..... tax for advertisements includes the exposition of the national flag (an hotel had to pay 140 Euro when they exposed the Italian flag, as "advertisement tax"
) ..... tax on steps (if your house have an access on a public street that need steps, you must pay a tax on them) ..... Same for car exit (another tax) ..... tax on swamps (!) this is from 1904, but still valid ..... tax on tv (to be paid also if you don't use it, is a "possession" tax, and RAI is still trying to ask it for anything that is "adapt or adaptable" for receive transmissions, including PDA, cellphones, videoporters, computers, mp3 players, and so on
) ..... tax on nuclear plants (still paid, pity that in Italy we don't have nuclear plants
) ..... tax on debts ..... tax on students ..... tax on death (yes, is not a joke, here also for die, you have to pay a tax) .....
..... and so on ..... sorry, but i can't list all the 3900 taxes here, not enough characters in the post space
Here, an "average" (medium level) of pro-capite taxes/income proportion (here is called "global fiscal pressure", don't know the correct term in English) was, at 2011, at 67,6% (this for 2011, cause in 2012 the new "Monti govern" added few new taxes and increased some old ones ..... 29, if i recall correctly ..... so probably we go over 70%, or near it) ..... consider that in the rest of the Europe the medium level is around 45% (except Germany, where is around 35%) ..... and in the 2011, the total number of the taxes falling in a way or in another on any citizen was 694 ..... welcome in the country of the happy taxes
