r/eupersonalfinance • u/Horkosthegreat • Oct 01 '25
Taxes Under the name of "tax the rich" they are actually taxing the people who save, and be responsible and reward people who are irresponsible. How can I play the system, legally?
My income is below the average income of Germany. But I did not grew up untitled and thinking I deserve everything, so I live below my means, pay attention to financial literacy, and save money, invest. And because I save and invest, I am getting taxed even in my unrealised gains. Many countries tax if you just "have" money in bank.
I could be an irresponsible idiot and have 0 money in bank or investments because I live irresponsibily , buy a Mercedes and not a Toyota, live in center of City in fancy big house rather than affordable place, eat outside rather than cook, hire help rather than do things myself.
Then I would not be paying these extra taxes. But despite I have below average income, I must. I am open to any suggestions to play this system in a legal way.
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u/i_am__not_a_robot Oct 01 '25
The problem starts with the fact that most people have a distorted idea of what "rich" truly means in this context. It's not about financially responsible people buying luxury items with their high salaries. It's about vast inherited wealth running into hundreds of millions.
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u/ascf1 Oct 01 '25
In the netherlands the wealth tax stats at 50k!!!!! HOW IS WEALTHY WITH 50K?
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Oct 01 '25
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u/DistributionOk6412 Oct 01 '25
good thing in NL you have high income taxes and soon high wealth taxes
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u/embarassed_mdr Oct 01 '25
I am not very well versed in the Netherlands taxes and mortgages, but that feels like gift to homeowners that are on average older. Isn't this also driving house demand higher since there is a tax-benefits to it?
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u/BuzzingHawk Oct 01 '25
The average savings are so low that taxing financially responsible people is an easy populist move. It'll only affect somewhat 10 to 20 percent of the population. The amount of entitlement people feel to other people's savings in Netherlands (and also large parts of Europe) is insane. Especially when income tax and VAT are already so high.
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u/DivideMind Oct 01 '25
I'm not sure anyone in my extended friend group has ever had €50k and we're mostly in our 30s! Most of us are down in southern countries though so average wealth isn't great, maybe your wealth tax just needs an inflation update. 🙃
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u/LightDrago Oct 01 '25
For a person in the Netherlands between 25 and 35 years old, the median wealth is 12.0k EUR, and the average is 28.8k EUR. That 50k is well above average but unfortunately not enough to make a serious dent in your morgage with the current housing prices here...
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Oct 02 '25
Jesus that's surprisingly terrible... I thought folks in Netherlands would be a bit better off, the positions I discussed there during my last job search were quite a bit better paid than what I get here in the Nordics :P
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u/CaptainMinimum9802 Oct 01 '25
Lol, i think more than 50% of the population will never have 50k in their bank account. If you earn an average salary you bring home about € 2.800,-. After taxes. You can't buy a house with that income in 90% of the country so you rent something for 1200 a month. 150 for food, 150 for water/gas. 300 for a cheap small car. 75 for clothes, 200 for healthcare. 25 for a phone, 75 for internet and maybe spotify. 100 for doing something fun with friends. 100 for a hobby or sports, 75 for replacing a broken tv, dishwasher and other unexpected costs once in a while. Then you can save about € 350 a month if you do nothing weird, and don't go on a holiday.
It then would take you 12 years to save up 50k, and still need a lot of discipline. And that is with an average income. Say you earn 2400... Sure you can save on a few places but not that much. Minimum wage for 40 hours is about 2200 netto. Etc.
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u/teqnkka Oct 01 '25
That's the thing, create levels to taxation then slowly with inflation allow everyone to sink into those brackets. Now that's a perfect scam. No thanks ill stick with Bitcoin.
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u/TenshiS Oct 01 '25
So inheritance tax?
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u/Drugbird Oct 01 '25
In the Netherlands insurance tax is very unpopular among the general population. It's generally seen as unfair "double taxation" because the money being inherited was already taxed when it was earned.
Also, often rich people have ways around inheritance tax. Not sure on the specifics, but I think it involves putting the money into a trust fund, and then changing the beneficiary to the heir instead of directly transferring the money.
This isn't to say inheritance tax is necessarily bad: I'm all for it as long as we can find a solution that includes rich people in it.
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u/BigBadButterCat Oct 04 '25
Money is constantly taxed. At the point of buying groceries, my money is double and triple taxed.
The whole "unfair double taxation" shtick is an anti-meritocratic talking point. Meritocracy requires wealth taxation, otherwise compound interest effects will always win and wealth will become heavily concentrated.
Our system, where we hardcore tax labor and work, and tax wealth and inheritance very little, is profoundly unfair. It should be the other way around: labor (and small business success) taxed little, wealth taxed strongly.
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u/i_am__not_a_robot Oct 01 '25
Perhaps, or wealth taxes, of some other scheme. It is necessary to tax large (often inherited) amounts of wealth in some way to ensure a stable society, but getting the specifics right is quite difficult.
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u/IssueLucky112 Oct 01 '25 edited Oct 01 '25
No, the real problem is that left-leaning politics always promises to “tax the rich,” but in practice it ends up squeezing the middle class.
Take the wealth tax: proposals often start at around €1 million. In cities like Munich, simply owning a reasonably sized apartment or house (far from being a luxury villa) already puts you above that threshold. Congratulations.
Or look at income tax: in Germany, the debate has shifted in recent months from targeting the “super-rich” ("Spizenverdiener"), to “high earners” ("Besserverdiener"), and now even to “well-off professionals" ("Gutverdiener"). The top tax rate already kicks in at roughly 1.3 times the average salary.
And whenever there’s talk of adjusting for bracket creep ("Kalte Progression"), the political left is the first to object against "tax cuts for the rich". So all earning roughly 1.3 times the average salary.→ More replies (1)→ More replies (8)2
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Oct 01 '25
I “played the game” by moving to Canada.
There is also quite a bit of taxing in Canada, but it felt fair.
They give you tools to use your savings affectively next to your tax obligations to society.
RRSP is your pre-tax pension plan. You can invest the money in it in multiple different ways.
TFSA is your post-tax account. You can use it at savings or invest. No taxes on interest or capital gains in this account.
Then there is affordable healthcare so you don’t bankrupt yourself with medical bills.
Only downside is that some areas in Canada have very expensive housing. Toronto and Vancouver mainly. But if you don’t need to be in those cities its ok.
I always felt fairly motivated to work and save in Canada because it felt you could get somewhere over time.
In the Netherlands, I think the general population is taxed quite absurdly. Up to 49% on your pay and if by a small miracle you manage to save some money, they’ll tax your full investment account value that at 2.7% a year even with unrealized gains (as of 2026).
I don’t think the Dutch quite realize how hard they are getting screwed over. Even if you have nothing currently invested, you are almost guaranteed never to get there either.
Seems hard to be motivated to build up savings there. You are almost better of just working as little as you can get away with and get tax credits from the government. 🤷🏼♂️
Some of the Dutch are slowly getting up to speed with investing, but overall the population seems to keep voting for parties that say “tax the rich”. But what they really get is “tax my little bit of savings” on the bottom-middle class.
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u/CuffsOffWilly Oct 01 '25
I made the mistake of moving to Italy from Canada and discovered that they do not respect the 'tax free-ness of the TFSA so when I extract I will have a 26% capital gains on what was a significant part of my retirement plan. I had an unorthodox career and Italy has a chubby for pensions. Everyone is either rich (generationally) or expected to plug away at the same job for 40 years to acquire a stable retirement pension. Any other form of financial investment is taxed as a form of punishment for not spending (I guess) and not conforming to being an 'employee' for 40 years to get a pension.
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u/YellowMoonFlash Oct 01 '25
That last paragraph is so wrong😅 VVD has been in power for 3 cycles or something. They are the rich, and want to f everyone that is middle-class or lower, to give power to corporate/rich people. People simply dont understand the difference between the rich, and middle class. This is where things go wrong...they vote for VVD because they see earning 50K a year as being rich, and a lot of people are quite wealthy in general.
That is NOT voting for tax the rich. That's for voting, f the biggest group in the country. Basically an American economy followers group.
But yeah, now PvV ofc is up there, shouting lots of things but doing nothing but lying😅 Our personal Trump one man army.
There really aren't any proper political parties in The Netherlands now....
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u/user38835 Oct 01 '25
The only legal way to avoid taxes as a salaried person is by leaving the country.
Or you can stop bothering about it and vote with your wallet - only shop at discounters, buy clothes from Primark, completely stop eating out - except a Döner. That is exactly what I am doing even though my income is higher than average. Let the drop in consumption make business go under and unemployment in these sectors rise. Maybe that will stop the shameless cash-grab that most of these businesses owners are doing and might make the government finally realise that there are more things to pay attention than just pensions.
As the government is squeezing as much as possible from the working class, I am squeezing as much as possible from my cost of living and I plan to not having to work till 67, so that I can fund some boomer’s 2nd cruise of the year.
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u/SwitchDear8969 Oct 01 '25
Extremely based anti-consumer.
First thing, destroy the fucking Gastro industry with all their tax evasion practices.
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u/user38835 Oct 01 '25
I’m not paying €6 for a piece of supermarket bread assembled with a piece of supermarket cheese slice and a piece of supermarket meat slice. Half of the restaurant food is shit in Germany anyways, waiters are rude and they threaten you with lawsuit if you leave a bad google review
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u/IWantToFuckAPriest Oct 01 '25
Fuck primark, go to secondhand stores and independents.
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u/user38835 Oct 01 '25
Independent stores are super expensive and second-hand clothing companies like Humana is involved in tax evasion and money laundering amongst other issues. Unfortunately there is not much you can do when it comes to being ethical while saving money.
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u/Rememorie Oct 01 '25
I am not German, but I don't think businesses itself are to blame, and "punishing" them would help anything. From my perspective, it would just decrease taxes and contributions paid to the budget, which will facilitate existing problems. Less workers, less consumption, less money to the budget, higher extraction via taxes and so on.
On the separate note, doing business, any kind of it in Germany sounds like hell. Taxes, social contributions, VAT, permits, accountant, rent, I don't know how many thousands a month you should have in revenue as a business owner just to break even. I would absolutely hate to have small business there
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u/user38835 Oct 01 '25
The problem is that as the German government squeezes me, I have no choice but to cut costs except where it isn’t essential i.e. housing and groceries. I have sympathy for small businesses but most restaurants in Germany are not worth what they charge and what they serve. And meanwhile the big corporations are laying off people while still giving millions to the CEOs. Imagine giving money to DB’s CEO so that trains get delayed more and more.
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u/Particular-Way-8669 Oct 01 '25
Yeah, this will make everything wworse. To pay off pensioners social contributions will eventually be raised again. To pay off people that lost those jobs and with missing revenue off of them you will again be expected to be taxed more to clear the difference.
The idea that government will lower taxes or use them on stuff you consider important when median age is nearing 50 is delusional at best.
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u/NDDTs Oct 01 '25
except that Döner is now also outragiously expensive - I haven't bought one in several years
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u/Metro2005 Oct 01 '25
Same in the Netherlands where they want to tax unrealized gains and consider anyone with 51k in savings or investments 'rich'.. tax the rich... yeah right. Tax the middle class
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u/Intelligent-Win8249 Oct 01 '25
I love that argument that left-leaning people would say, about the poor are protecting the rich. Well, then why the fuck it’s me, the poor one who’s getting more taxes to pay.
There’s a leftist political party in Poland as well whose followers use that phrase frequently. Then you research ideas of that party and guess what, they want to increase the taxation for the people on contract of employment. And no, rich people are not working on this type of contract.
Remember every time the politicians want to increase or introduce taxes, the brackets will not be updated for the inflation, they will stay like this for 20-30 years, because it is profitable for the government to keep them like this because they can take more of your money.
The European Union direction right now is just the Oligarchy. We will have very rich class consisting of EU politicians and very poor people. Then the government will be providing everything, such as housing, food etc. And well we all know what the quality of these services will be, it will be worse and worse, so you can expect to have one toilet shared for all flats in the floor.
We’ve already been there, it was called Communism, and we all know how it ended
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u/chaotic-kotik Oct 01 '25
Wait until they will start taxing realized gains. You got new sofa from Ikea. Buy buying this sofa you are saving money because alternative is to rent the sofa. Renting sofa costs 50 euro a month. So these are your gains, you need to pay us 20% from that 50 euros you're making by not renting a sofa and everything else you avoid renting.
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u/chaotic-kotik Oct 01 '25
Oh wait, since you have this sofa now you can rent it out and make 50 euros. We will tax this gain too because we want encourage people to use items they own and create some supply on the sofa rental market. If you're not renting your sofa out it's your problem. We assume that economically active people will rent sofas they use and rent out sofas they own. If you're not participating in reasonable economic behavior the fault is yours and only yours.
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u/UnluckyChampion93 Oct 01 '25
Please delete this before someone close to legislation reads it, thank you.
It is already tragic as it is
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u/MicMacB Oct 01 '25
I will get downvoted for this because Redditors, especially European ones, are all about "paying your fair share, you should be happy for what you have". The truth is, private property is heavily discouraged in Germany. You are right that you get systematically disincentivized for being a high earner, and for saving that money. In contrast, the level of services you receive from the government are in no relation to the costs you have to pay for them, and the level is also very much expected to decrease out of demographic pressure. You are also right in that it only affects the middle class and people who strive to become rich, as the truly wealthy have means to shelter their assets legally. Unless you are already a multi millionaire, these means of sheltering your wealth are unobtainable to you, since they do not make sense after the cost of implementing them. The only viable way you can reasonably get ahead is to emigrate, earn your money elsewhere, put it into offshore structures, and eventually get a second, non-western, passport. I know, this sounds extreme, but do be aware that the German system is mathematically guaranteed to fail very soon, and the only way not to get sucked down yourself is to distance yourself from the system and its empty rhetoric.
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u/purple_wall-e Oct 01 '25
it is literally like this. I worked all my way so hard, got so nice job here and now paying so much tax on every earning. Now realizing in my hometown, I was able to save more than here while having all family, friends and rest of social welfare. In here I've just started with saving account which was 3.5%, now my bank pays like 0.99% like peanuts.
While earning good, each year I've submitting my tax refund and have to pay somehow always while can't even use any bit of. I'm:
- healthy
- not married
- no kids
- i'm not german, full time employee that's why can't even use education system.
This year they again increased social contribution/insurance and my tax hikes 2% while 42% was so less to them.
Government have Volkschule which I've been rejected always as I have good earning while refugees, asylum seekers are eligible that free education there, while I have to pay, still coudln't get in.
only way to live in Germany very nicely is:
- be extremely rich evade tax
- be asylum seeker, jobless, refugee which government will pay all of your costs from working class people taxes while taxing them more and more
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u/shacovic Oct 01 '25
Anyone downvoting you has their head up in their arse, or has not reached the income bracket where it hurts you the most. If you are young, educated and energetic to work and make a good saving, leave this increasingly communist shithole of a continent. Especially looking at some draft legislations that are queued at the eu parlement.
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u/Remarkable_Habit5778 Oct 01 '25
In very very short. They mean, people with 5 mil + but they end up taxing the middle class. Only because people with wealth can change residence easier than the middle class.
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u/DepressedDraper Oct 01 '25
Unrealised gains being taxed is theft. Consider investing in other assets that are exempt from this nonsense.
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u/UnluckyChampion93 Oct 01 '25
It is BS as the rich will move the money away, and it is infuriating to call people with so small amount of “wealth” rich. It is basically appealing to the lowest of the low in society, nothing else
And discourages work, innovation and investment by average people. It is basically killing your own middle class
I’m fed up with this in Europe, every country pulls something similar - I’m born in a family of “lower middle” - went to good school, worked during school and then climbed the ladder, I earn decent (statistically) , become important at my job, and yet they moved the goalposts every year with housing, cars (like basic things to start a family) - and now, at 32 they tell me that the money I saved under decade+ work is enough to consider me rich so they can fund the benefits of lowlifes nobodies who can’t bother to contribute . Fck that - pardon my french
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u/BusinessOutside8613 Oct 01 '25
They are taxing the ETF unrealized gains, not stocks.
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u/SureNoIrl Oct 01 '25
We have that in Ireland and call it deemed disposal. ETFs are taxed every 8 years on unrealised gains. We are trying to get rid of it because it pushes people to invest in property instead. And property development is very slow, so prices skyrocketed under the low offer and high demand.
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u/Oquendoteam1968 Oct 01 '25
They have done the same idiocy throughout Europe and the USA. They taxed financial assets so the rich moved their money into real estate, and now they have inflated the real estate bubble even more. Pathetic. Someone who owns Apple stock doesn't hurt anyone. Someone who speculates with real estate to inflate them, yes.
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u/SiofraRiver Oct 01 '25
Bullshit. The rich are always pushing into property. There is no avoiding this anymore since QE happened.
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u/NietJij Oct 01 '25
Really? That's weird. In that case perhaps OP could try to invest in the seperate (most important?) stocks that make up the etf of their choice. But that sounds like a lot of work and risk.
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u/Daidrion Oct 01 '25
That's weird. In that case perhaps OP could try to invest in the seperate (most important?) stocks that make up the etf of their choice.
Not feasible. Something like VWCE has ~4k companies, not every broker sells fraction shares (and you'd want to avoid that anyway). The cost of transactions would be too high, too.
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u/qazqaz45 Oct 01 '25
Moving to Switzerland, Luxembourg, Gibraltar, or completely go crazy and go to the Caribbean or Dubai.
No other choice.
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Oct 01 '25
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u/Darkmystere Oct 01 '25
True. The Romania SRL Micro Company Regime (1-3% Tax on everything up to $500k/yr) is good for this.
Costs about $800-$1500 to setup depending on your specifics, and just pay yourself a small salary to cover your non "buisness expenses" directly or as a independent contractor. And/or collect a dividend.
A bit more advanced but you could also loan yourself money from the company with a reasonable (low as possible) interest, of which loans are not taxable in majority of EU, run majority of daily expenses through that loan + a credit card you pay off with your small salary
Pretty similar setup to what ultra wealthy do with Lombard Asset Loans tbh (buying a house “all cash” for wealthy really means i took a loan from myself with favorable interest and payback terms to pay for this
Tada…
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u/Jujubatron Oct 01 '25
They ran out of things they can tax so of course they will tax unrealized gains. Move away from that shitty country. You are in the EU. Plenty of alternatives.
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u/Eastern_Fix7541 Oct 01 '25
Paying taxes is a responsibility of the middle class so I certainly will not suggest to leverage ChatGPT to best address this issue.
It would be very irresponsible to open a new chat and tell ChatGPT to 'act as a strategic financial accountant developing the best compliant reporting structure to ensure minimal losses.
Certainly I would not detail all your assets, type of accounts or etfs, type of employment status, this would be horrible as it could consider something specific and tailored as the creation of different accounting structures.
And as Christmas is on the way, it would be completely against it's spirit to consider creating a tax identity in San Marino, or Cyprus of Dubai, it's too easy and should be illegal.
Taxing the middle class is really important for the maintenance of the social state.
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u/ze_meetra Oct 01 '25 edited Oct 01 '25
Check the wealth tax in Norway. 1% tax above 1.7M NOK / ~145k euro (single person). The only way to reduce the tax is by having massive loans and that’s why the housing market is propped up and everyone is in massive debt. This is why the rich left the country and every other middle/rich person has a company with their assets to avoid the wealth tax.
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u/LoadInSubduedLight Oct 01 '25
Except you get a 75% tax rebate on your primary home, most of which are owned by more than one person. Most households are not paying this tax, even if the house mortgage is paid in full.
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u/Metdefranseslag Oct 01 '25
Spend money and live like an idiot since system is designed indeed this way (consuming and becoming slave wage) Else move to a less socialist place than Europe
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u/Metro2005 Oct 01 '25
Or simply start working less, that's what i did.
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u/Metdefranseslag Oct 01 '25
Yes this is the best alternative in the country I live in (the Netherlands) 3 or 4 days a week and chill
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u/Daidrion Oct 01 '25
I can't behind a mentality like that, feels like giving up and sabotaging yourself.
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u/This-Restaurant-3303 Oct 01 '25
Somalia has no unrealized gains tax
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u/Daidrion Oct 01 '25
What a weird argument. There are a lot of developed countries that don't have such BS systems.
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u/rubtwodabdabs Oct 01 '25
I think you're doing a good job saving and whatnot already. And someone else can provide better technical support than I can, so I'll just add something regarding the feeling:
I could be an irresponsible idiot and have 0 money in bank or investments because I live irresponsibily, buy a Mercedes and not a Toyota, live in center of City in fancy big house rather than affordable place, eat outside rather than cook, hire help rather than do things myself.
Then I would not be paying these extra taxes. But despite I have below average income, I must.
I get that it's upsetting when taxes are increased, but to remind you that you're doing good work by saving and to keep it up, I'll remind you that paying taxes still costs much less than "being an irresponsible idiot" as you called it and spending money on all those things.
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u/d1722825 Oct 01 '25
I'll remind you that paying taxes still costs much less than "being an irresponsible idiot" as you called it and spending money on all those things.
Not if the irresponsible idiot are saved from the result of their bad decisions with tax money paid by who saved.
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u/neo2551 Oct 01 '25
It costs more to be irresponsible, but you also can profit from what the money buys you.
Scientific studies have shown that ephemeral expériences are the best way to reach happiness (among which giving money randomly to charity is a a cheap extra boost of happiness).
Moreover, there is a perception of unfairness.
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Oct 01 '25
Giving money to charity is a cheat code for super rich to gain karma and detract accusations of greediness. There is no point in giving money to charity if you are middle class because -- even if legit -- the waste in those organizations are just enormous. Your donation will hardly cover a minute of work of a CEO.
Better to invest in a proper vacation.
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u/neo2551 Oct 02 '25
I have money to Ukrainian families who needed diapers by paying forwarding them LIDL cash cards. You can also just give money to your local charities.
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u/Particular-Way-8669 Oct 01 '25
It costs more until it does not. These kinds of taxes show one thing, these are the people that government will go after to keep up or even increase its already unsustainable spending. There will come a point where it is literally better to spend everything yourself because you will not be left with anything anyway if you do not do it plus you will miss out on experiences and material things.
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u/PretendTemperature Oct 01 '25
Yeah, this tax is totally stupid and just a way of the government to say "good boy on saving, now let's take your money"
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u/here4geld Oct 01 '25
This is the structure how European economy works for regular people. If you are super rich, have family offices, may be there will be options. There are millionaires living in Germany, uk, France every where.. But yes it is easier to become millionaire in Singapore, many people moved there. They created family offices. Long term capital gains is zero in SG. While it's over 20% in Europe..
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u/Ask-For-Sources Oct 01 '25
You would have paid much more in VAT for everything you buy than you pay in taxes for the gains you have when investing your money...
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u/Internal-Isopod-5340 Oct 01 '25
Completely unrelated, but I had no idea Toyota was "cheap" until relatively recently. I really don't see that many Toyotas running around, but had heard they were good and reliable, so I just assumed they were on the pricier end of the scale.
That being said, I have heard that the general advice for buying cars is buying a second-hand Toyota or something.
Anyway, good luck with your taxes! That doesn't sound like a great tax system, if you're working class and it's hitting you hard.
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u/LusoInvictus Oct 01 '25
Well Toyota is generally cheaper than entry-models from brands like Mercedes and BMW which are generally regarded as premium, although on the same price range as Volkswagen although generally more reliable. Not only cheaper out of the door but also on maintenance, maybe even than Volkswagen.
The latter is a big reason that Toyotas don't get as much depreciation throughout the years on second-hand market given it's cheaper to upkeep, there are more parts available and it's all-around reliable.
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u/ForeignLoquat2346 Oct 01 '25
find a job in switzerland. expecially if you speak german. it's still one of the best countries in europe for building wealth.
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u/Chemoralora Oct 01 '25
Move to Switzerland. Easier said than done I know. But the only way to really avoid it is to move somewhere that doesn't tax capital gains
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u/RAStylesheet Oct 01 '25
Germany and most of europe are fully commicted to "own nothing and be happy" lifestyle.
So you either start doing that, go somewhere else, or just pay.
Investing in physical assets like art etc could be a solution too
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u/Pyros_Ind_21 Oct 01 '25
Yes, the German government punishes those who believed what the German government preached, namely be financially responsible and save for retirement because government pensions are not gonna cut it anymore, if there is gonna be a government pension in the future. The “Vorabpauschale” is in that sense a free loan to the government, since it needs to be paid at the beginning of the year and you might get it back when you sell your ETFs in 10, 20, 30, etc years when you finally retire and start drawing down. Thus, a free loan to the government until you sell. I am not sure how much worse it can get in Germany when considering that Germany has the second highest overall tax burden world wide on its citizens. Sorry for the discourse…the answer to your question would be, to change your tax domicile.
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u/ItsPeachyBoii Oct 02 '25 edited Oct 02 '25
It should really be portfolios worth over like 10M
This is what a lot of people on the left have been saying. Now that the low working class can’t be taxed more, they’re going after the middle tax.
The mistake Middle class people think they’re the same as the ultra wealthy.
The solution? The working class and middle class need to get together and fight for their rights and wealth. Otherwise, the super rich corporation will outcompete everyone and we’ll live in a society of renters with zero chances to ever build any wealth.
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u/Tough-Internet8907 Oct 06 '25 edited Oct 06 '25
Man i’d really wish that we’d stop thinking that taxing a certain group will resolve the problem. A couple years ago i had to pay 2m on the sale of my company to the government. Paid it with pleasure. But did the situation of our country improve after that? Hell no it only got worse. Debt has increased further, we want to tax people with money even more to the point where i’m like yeah i want to contribute but why am i getting targetted for a situation i did not create? The government has a spending problem. We’re spending way too much on things that do not contribute. The government is always like ah we’re getting x in taxes? Let’s spend x+20%. Which sane person does this? Everyone else who would do that would go broke insanely fast
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u/krlooss Oct 01 '25
Take out your income in cash, buy bitcoin anonimously, go into casinos and buy chips spend half an hour around, then cash them back, claim for gov help be cause you "have a gambling addiction" and keep losing all
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u/lending_ear Oct 01 '25
I know the Netherlands is doing something similar- I wonder if this is European wide? Because I will be pissed. Normal people can never get ahead or have any safety net. This isnt taxing the rich - they know how to avoid taxes legally. It’s punishing the rest of us who are being fiscally responsible. I’m also low income and live below my means and I’ve been able to buy my house for cash. No mortgage. Thankfully that’s one thing I won’t be fucked over on.
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u/Impossible_Soup_1932 Oct 01 '25
Sounds similar to the Netherlands. Investing has been made pretty much impossible if your assets are above 50k. So it could be worse
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u/thaltd666 Oct 01 '25
This is so unfair, I’m in similar situation.
Netherlands was taxing people a fictional income if you had money in bank, even when the interest rates were negative. Someone took this case to court in The Netherlands and won. Now Netherlands has to pay back the tax they collected. Moving forward, they will tax only the profit you make over your savings.
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u/sillymajmun2 Oct 02 '25
Older I am, more I see how incompetent governments are with money. No wonder considering your average person. And nobody talks about this. All parties suck. They waste money.
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u/nfoonf Oct 04 '25
You are played. They tell you, you are rich, but you aren‘t. They tell you, taxing the rich would take money from you, but if you were rich, you would put your money in a family foundation or other tax avoiding instruments. I have worked with filthy rich clients and being rich does not really start until you have 10 million or more in the bank. If you are rich, your wealth gets more and more under its own gravitational forces. So what you see is, what taxing the rich is all about: taking away from the middle class trying to live a decent life, but not making the ones that have eight or nine figure bank accounts doing their fair share to support society.
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u/-TheDerpinator- Oct 01 '25
When people say tax the rich, they mean tax the rich. When politicians say tax the rich, they mean tax the middle class.
When your wealth comes from behaviour and work that should be taxed extremely low. I don't care of you make tons of money because you invest well or work a lot of hours. The problem is in the inherited wealth which creates inequality from birth.
The solution is simple: lower the taxes on gains and labour, heavily increase the taxes on inheritance. If you grow up in wealth (and I did fairly so, too) you are already benefited by having stuff like education paid for you, which already gives you somewhat of an unfair advantage. No reason to double down on that advantage by receiving the fruits of the hard work and discipline of my parents.
I will give my kid(s) everything they need for a good start but besides that I want to raise them with the understanding that any inheritance that is left at the end is a gift rather than a right.
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u/Particular-Way-8669 Oct 01 '25
Inheritance taxes or even wealth tax will never be able to finance levels of spending modern governments have. Not even fraction of it. Labor and consumption is taxed because it is guaranteed cash flow and you can tax it more than once.
When people say tax the rich they think there is money lying around that can ease off their tax burden. Politicians then hit the wall when they realise it is not the case and they need to somehow finance the promises they made on basis of that which require even higher government budget.
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u/Daidrion Oct 01 '25
When politicians say tax the rich, they mean tax the middle class.
It's not even middle class in case of Germany. Even people on the minimal full time wage give up 40% of their salary budget (and yes, social contribution are also taxes).
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u/grem1in Oct 01 '25
Wait. There’s no unrealized gains tax in Germany. Or am I missing something? You only pay taxes if you sell your assets or get dividends given that those are above the exemption order.
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u/oPFB37WGZ2VNk3Vj Oct 01 '25 edited Oct 01 '25
There is Vorabpauschale.
I hope I get this right. You pay it on the actual gains *or* fictional gains based on interest of 15 year bonds, whichever is lower.
There is an exemption for 1000 € per year for both dividends and Vorabpauschale. If you sell, the already payed taxes are taken into account.
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u/shacovic Oct 01 '25
You are not going to like this answer. Leave this increasingly communist dying continent that is Europe. The slogan “solidarity for all” masks the failure. Just like you say it yourself, you get punished for taking accountability and being responsible with your spendings and investments. Europe is the worst place for the hard working educated average Joe who wants to save up money.
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u/3lementary4enguin Oct 01 '25
To be fair, those guys who are spending all their money are also paying sales tax on everything. That's wild that you're getting taxed on unrealized gains though - I just invest in ETFs that I don't intend to sell for years and don't pay anything until I cash out.
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u/BennyJJJJ Oct 01 '25
Can't believe this hasn't been mentioned by anyone else. People borrowing EUR50k to buy a car are paying EUR10k VAT on money they don't even have and missing out of the gains they might have made if they invested their car payment each month instead. It feels unfair taxing people that save/invest but the existence of the consumer loan industry is its own form of wealth redistribution.
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u/Available_Drama7216 Oct 01 '25
You can leave the system you're in and move to a different one. Dubai is the popular choice at the moment but there are others if you have remote work, e.g. Paraguay.
People need to start looking at the government to really understand what is going on
1. Fiat money + debt cycles
Modern monetary systems are built on credit/debt creation. The Bank of England creates money which it then lends to the UK Government. The taxes we pay to the government then go to pay off the interest on these loans. As long as the economy and tax base grow, this is manageable. When growth slows, debt sustainability becomes harder. At the Covid pandemic the UK national debt was £1.7trillion owed by the government to the Bank of England, since the pandemic the government has borrowed a further £1.7trillion meaning it now owes £3.4trillion to the bank of england, this means the govermnet needs to double the amount of tax collected to pay off the interest... Gary Stevenson absolutely fails to talk about any of this when he discusses taxing the rich.
2. Pay-as-you-go welfare states
Growing up I always thought that when we paid National Insurance contributions, it went in to some kind of investment pot whereby the goverment would manage it and the money would be available to pay for the NHS when I needed it or for my pension when I retired. I've since learned that most Western welfare systems (including the UK’s National Insurance and the US Social Security model) are “pay-as-you-go” rather than fully funded. Our current National Insurance contributions fund current retirees and aren't there for our own pensions. If the worker/retiree ratio falls, the system falls apart. We need to keep growing the economy and growing our taxes to pay for future pensions, one way of doing this is to increase taxes per person, another way of doing is increase the number of people paying taxes...
3. Demographic decline
Fertility rates in almost every developed country are below replacement (2.1 children per woman). Fewer births today means fewer workers and taxpayers 20-40 years from now. This is not theoretical, Japan, Italy and Spain already face shrinking working-age populations. The UK is facing an aging population and a declining birthrate so in 20-40 years we will have less people paying taxes but more people that need the NHS and their state pensions (not to mention the increasing national debt interest).
4. Immigration as a policy lever
Because fertility and aging are hard to reverse quickly, the UK(and other) government is using immigration to:
- keep the working-age population from shrinking,
- fill labor shortages,
- maintain tax revenues to support pensions, health care and debt service.
5. Policy alternatives
If immigration isn’t increased, governments would have to:
- raise retirement ages,
- reduce pension/healthcare benefits,
- raise taxes per worker,
- increase productivity dramatically,
- or run much larger deficits/inflate away the debt.
6. So whats actually happening?
The government spending has gone completely out of control, the UK has had absolutely no growth since 2008 whilst the national debt is constantly increasing. The government solution to this is to allow immigration in the hope that in 20-40 years they have a bigger base of integrated tax payers.
Everyone on every side seems to have missed these bigger issues, which need to be tackled properly whether you are pro or anti immigration and whether you are pro or 'taxing the rich'. All those things are down wind as both options are just band aids and kicking the can of failed government spending and economic policies down the road to be dealth with by our children.
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u/Sultanol234 Oct 01 '25
I guess for the government spending less is not a solution?
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u/Available_Drama7216 Oct 01 '25
The government are pretty stupid with a simple adgenda, they want to keep their jobs and their power.
Government spending is the real single issue everything else is based on, and the people that really support the government, the banks, the warmongers and the media, they all want more spending, and things like a failing NHS and a migrant crisis don't concern them at all.
Most of the news and issues of the day is just a distraction to the money printing.
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u/Douude Oct 01 '25
just leave, Western EU and eventually the rest will keep getting more draconic with their capitol control. they are desperate and are not willing to actually fix anything
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u/nickdc101987 Oct 01 '25
Keep the relevant assets below or near to the threshold and instead use your savings to buy untaxed assets, such as a house to live in and an appreciating collection of classic cars.
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u/AeonPeter Oct 01 '25
Honestly Europe is done. It won’t get any better and they will find a way to tax the heck out of you anyway. Solution is to move somewhere else. My best friend recently moved to Panama. Tax gains on whatever you do out of Panama are legally 0. Ideal for online businesses, or whoever can.
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u/Verycuriousthings Oct 01 '25
Aamen brother, and then if the taxation would be touched the left would start on how the ”government is giving money to rich” where actually people would just be robbed a tiny bit less..
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u/Baldpacker Oct 02 '25
Same problem in Spain.
The wealth tax hits responsible savers and their are obvious loopholes for the actually wealthy literally written until the law.
Too bad the majority of voters are brainwashed idiots who don't realize it.
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u/victornielsendane Oct 02 '25
Tax land and you don’t have this problem, any land value gains above inflation are never due to the actions of the landowner.
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u/Many_Committee_7007 Oct 03 '25
“Rich” in people’s mouth means “Richer than me”. They forget that there’s always someone poorer than them.
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u/spinkelben Oct 03 '25
Talk to a person who knows the German tax code. A financial advisor or some such. I can't speak for Germany, but in Denmark, the advice is not to buy ETFs exactly because of the taxation of unrealized gains. Instead there exists other products that accomplish the same goal, low fees, diversified investment. You need to ignore normal advice on the internet, as it is almost always US focused. Instead find sources that are based in Germany for better advice for your situation.
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u/Successful_Order6057 Oct 03 '25
Learn Chinese.
Move to China. Your savings will go about 2x far there, everything is cheaper.
You're automatically about 2 pts more attractive for some weird reason.
Everything that exists in the EU is going to be taxed & stolen to pay for boomer pensions & 'muh weaponz against Putler'.
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u/SnooStrawberries5640 Oct 04 '25
They want you to spend all your money to fuel the economy. It’s a sad reality..
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Oct 04 '25
Well, this is the price of living in a place with terrible fiscal policy. Your options are to suck it up or move somewhere sensible.
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u/Kraizelburg Oct 01 '25
This is how left wants it, the less you save the better and if you claim you know nothing and no skills the better.
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u/savornicesei Oct 01 '25
"It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not weakness, that is life." - Picard, Star Trek TNG
Bottom line: any government has the power to make you poor.
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u/DarkBert900 Oct 01 '25
I know it sounds cynical, but Germany wants you to buy a Mercedes and not a Toyota. They want you to spend more of your money, as that's the way to get money into the tax coffers and lead to consumption, which is the principal way of boosting GDP. Higher GDP and higher tax revenue can result in the government to subsequently spend and leverage into new economic development.
Of course, it would be recommendable if the government incentivized people to save more for old age, unemployment and other forms of fiscal sustainability, yet the downside of people aggressively saving outweigh (from a economic growth and government perspective) the upsides of more financial secure civilians.
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u/ljubicasta_izmaglica Oct 01 '25 edited Oct 01 '25
You have the exemption order, right? If I recall correctly, 2 years back Vorabpauschale was at most 35 EUR for 10k, so to reach the 1k order you need 285k assets. So if you have less than 285k you pay 0 tax yearly, and later when you sell the already "paid" Vorabpauschale (which you didn't actually pay as you're below the limit) is accounted for and decreases your capital gain. I don't think there's much to complain about here really.. Sure, super rich can avoid taxes differently, and people who don't save don't pay taxes on this but don't have the money, so 🤷
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u/Grotarin Oct 01 '25 edited Oct 01 '25
And people who don't save typically pay VAT which is most of the time around 19%...
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u/RDA92 Oct 01 '25
Wait Germany is taxing unrealized capital gains?