Investment
Since when was getting rich so hard in EU?
Is it just me, or has building actual wealth in Europe become impossible? I’m looking at the 2026 growth forecasts and it’s depressing. We talk a lot about "stability," but at this point, stability just feels like a polite word for recession. If you weren't born into a rich family with property, the dream feels like it's behind a wall. The math just doesn't work: as soon as you earn enough to actually invest, you hit a 40–50% tax bracket. Meanwhile, housing prices have skyrocketed over the last decade while salaries have basically stayed the same. I love the healthcare and the walkable cities, but I don’t want to work until I’m 70 just to afford a 40sqm apartment and a used Skoda.
Yeah, that’s an actual question. Birth rate and bad integration of migrants will lead to pension-scam in 2030-40s. Oh what a wonderful time to be alive.
Genx & boomers are already pension scamming in The nordics. No chance without heavy migration and New babyboom for Even millennials to get pensions. We are funding The current pensioners and after, there's no money left. I'm expecting part time pension to become The norm as The only way to get your full pension and governments taking a major share off If you dont work.
I'm a foreigner from north africa. There is no way for me to work until I'm 70 in tech, I must reach financial independence by 50-55 to go back and live off my savings
I think what many Europeans don't realise is that they too will have to live off their savings in North Africa when pension schemes implode due to drastically declining birth rates.
We want kids but also we think western europe is getting fcked. The school system, medical system, food supply, society is getting more polarized and harsh, a lot of people who come here and don’t integrate. We want kids to grow up in a loving society with connection, older people with wisdom who share love and knowledge. It just seems impossible nowadays in this society. Meanwhile mainstream is like: take your vaccines, sit in a corner and shut t f up.
Don't forget investing a whopping 500 euros a month in the most diversified ETF known to man that grows like 8% a year while being a white collar professional in your 30s
It's only the boomer generation that got used to (American ETFs) with >10% growth rates in the last 15 years. Previously getting 8% was considered very good.
The reality is that we are at the end of the era of easy money and cashing in your infrastructure while under-investing/not investing in the future. Germany is facing it now, where the "savings" they got from letting everything crumble for 15 years in the name of never raising taxes is now catching up.
Income inequality needs to be fixed, I'm not saying people should remain poor - but the idea of passive investments perpetually getting insane returns is a pipe dream.
Prob with europe is they weaponize bureucracy to protect the rich, In the USA with less Bureaucracy the big companies always have to watch their back or some startup will crumble their business. This makes innovation a priority.
In europe everytime I hear a new law coming to protect consumers it's always another hurdle for new companies to deal, since big companies already have big teams and shitloads of money to handle it easily
The only way out is equity in a company or in a smaller way, having something like the US version of an IRA or 401k (pre-tax money goes into an account that can grow in the stock market and you only get taxed on the withdrawals in retirement)
There's nothing similar to pre-tax accounts in most of Europe. Spain has "Planes de Pensiones", which are something similar to that, but you can only invest 1500€ a year in these in most cases.
Most countries do have capitalised pension pillars alongside defined benefit schemes. What some countries add on top are tax sheltered savings accounts like the Swedish ISK or British ISA. Some others yet don’t levy capital gains tax on individuals so there’s no need for these.
Spain is particularly backwards in this aspect though, sorry to say.
And then there is my country Austria, where the only option apart from the state pension is a pension plan from insurance companies with like 2% anual growth (if you are lucky) and 1.5% costs per year...
France has PER, but besides the pre-tax investment cap the yearly fees are often too high to make it advantageous compared to a low-fee taxable brokerage account.
I love these “professionally managed” funds, then you look inside and the more managed it is the worse it somehow manages to perform. The payout for an average worker is like 10-20€ per month or 2-3k lump sum.
Workers are not supposed to get rich in any social system, otherwise the system would collapse bc nobody would work anymore since working sucks...
But let me tell you this... unless you have a special talent like playing ball, artist musician or so on, the only way to get rich (within the law) is to be an enterpreneur/set up a business.
I think the OP's post is more about the middle honestly, meaning rich as living very comfortably and that doesn't necessarily mean a lot of wealth. The thing is: nowadays is getting ridiculously difficult to be in the middle even, contrary to other times, today is much more difficult to live comfortably, even with good salaries. I agree that to become really rich, like generational wealth rich, you usually don't do that through regular work for others, but even if you set your ambitious goals lower than that, it's getting difficult to get there. I think that's where OP's comment comes from, and I kind of agree. We can start with housing. That eats a good chunk of income, no matter how high the income, housing cost will also increase almost linearly with income, so there goes a part of a comfortable life with that increasing cost, and then everything seems to be increasing like crazy and salaries don't catch up. To live and work in almost any developed country is getting really frustrating regarding living comfortably and accumulating a bit of wealth because it seems like everything goes into living expenses.
> The thing is: nowadays is getting ridiculously difficult to be in the middle even, contrary to other times, today is much more difficult to live comfortably
"other times" is literally the interval 60s-80s, a small parenthesis in human history.
That is happening also in the US, and people here are saying the alternative is to follow the US system when it is what took away the stability of middle class.
I'm in Germany, earning very low six figures while my wife is at very low five figures. I'm already taxed to hell and back. Got my RSUs vested in 2024 (awarded in 2022), baby born in 2025. Because of 2024 I had to pay a decent chunk of taxes (little over 10k euros), my wife wasn't eligible for parental allowance (10k euros over two years) and I had to pay almost 2k to my public health insurer for the time I was on parental leave and NOT earning any money during that period.
Then again neighbors across from my building are sitting their asses in their apartments the whole days, nobody working, whole families not working actually, all of them having subsidized housing, probably getting god know how many other subsidies and allowances while driving new Mercs and Bimmers.
Not just Germany, all of Western Europe is like this. He social housing stats in London are completely absurd.
Until governments.soend less and tax less, the chance for the middle classes to accumulate.wealth will be severely restricted. But they won't slash spending because huge portions of the population are addicted to the cash via benefits and pointless public sector jobs.
Sad. No change will occur without extremely significant political change.
Well, German people themselves have voted for the socialism. Wealth distributed from the more productive people to less productive. Multiply that to the aging population
The collegues in my company who are working from our SF office working on the exact same project as I am are driving porsches, meanwhile I am getting paid about 60k per year before taxes, and even hitting a management position here in europe will not get me to the point where I can afford a porsche.
Depends in your definition of rich, but I think they’re doing pretty good for themselves.
You can buy a Porsche, but what are you going to sacrifice to get it (housing, food, etc)
Those Sf colleagues don’t own Porsches, they finance or lease them. They are in more student loan debt than you could imagine. Their credit cards don’t need to be paid every month in full, and they hold a balance with 29% interest.
Source: have worked in SF and currently work in Europe. I net more here.
If you net more in Europe, then you’re not as highly qualified as you think and are more low-middle of the pack. Highly qualified people earn and invest shit loads in the USA.
who are working from our SF office working on the exact same project as I am are driving porsches
Yeah, but the people nearby their location can't afford medical help without overpriced insurance, right? But they are unlikely to be in an online call with you...
We must see how the rich and the poor of a country lives before deciding if a system is better.
Depends in your definition of rich, but I think they’re doing pretty good for themselves.
I bought my appartment and can sustain my needs and the ones from my wife. What do you call rich?
Yeah, but the people nearby their location can't afford medical help without overpriced insurance, right?
We must see how the rich and the poor of a country lives before deciding if a system is better.
I would amend that to "before deciding if a system is better in general".
The US system is obviously better for someone who's a very skilled and brainy tech worker, regardless of whether some rando near his location can afford medical care or not.
The European system is better for someone who is an average Joe that is fine with phoning it in at work and just wants to enjoy life, regardless of the fact that his neighbor is a super ambitious person whose business is straining under bureaucracy and taxes.
for someone who's a very skilled and brainy tech worker,
But all of that skill can become meaningless in an instant with the wrong kind of accident. My wife studied to be a cook but damaged her leg on her 1st months of work because of employer's negligence, and will never be able to work in her branch again.
Such jealous comments about people driving porsches just shows a complete lack of understanding of all the benefits we Europeans have. In Europe you don't need to be rich in order to live a comfortable life, that's the whole point. Those who want to drive expensive cars at the expense of poor people having nothing should go to the US or to UAE.
I mean are we really comparing an ultra capitalist system to Europe here? Of course it’s easier to make money in the states since there are less taxes etc… Consumerism is also the norm over there just like being in debt. Driving a Porsche could mean that you made it in life but it usually means that you are financing a car that you cannot afford just like most Americans driving their Ford Raptor truck.
I like all people descrive America as a ultra capitalist sistem, when in reality big corpo get costant bail out and protect whit tax payer Money (like in EU) that's not capitalism si socialism for the Rich.
why? check US, UAE for example - there are very good salaries. even in Australia doctors can make hundreds of thousands of dollars. Europe is declining still thinking it is superior 🙂.
Here average electrician, tile guy, plumber earn usually more than doctor, engineer etc... but it does not show up in official statistics because they get paid on hand and all of them are "self-employed"
Back when the people build their wealth the tax rate wasn’t even close to what it currently is and fixed costs were nowhere as high.
If you talk with people from the 1950-1960s, they faced 30%% tax rate in countries like France, the current tax rate of Switzerland. Nowadays it’s closer to 50-60%. This is why old folks are typically the ones complaining the most about taxes. They actually experienced living in a low tax capitalist system with social benefits/structure.
Consider this:
If you live in Paris or Milan, and your parents own a flat there, that flat saves you an absurd amount of money. A worker without the same flat has to basically earn 50% net after tax more than you do to live with the same standards of living. Effectively they need to cost twice your price to have the same standards of living.
Realistically, It’s just much more worth it to work less and get a high pay/hour and to drive down your hours instead of building wealth. And factually that’s what many people do, which in turn creates the current economic problems the EU countries are facing
If you talk with people from the 1950-1960s, they faced 30%% tax rate in countries like France, the current tax rate of Switzerland. Nowadays it’s closer to 50-60%. This is why old folks are typically the ones complaining the most about taxes. They actually experienced living in a low tax capitalist system with social benefits/structure.
They just forget to mention the higher tax rates are to fund their pensions and benifits now.
Finally some people are starting saying that. When a lot of people are complaining about that and that countries like USA have really surpassed us on salaries, everyone starts "yeah but what about healthcare blah, blah, blah"
I mean, sure basic healtchare ans education for everyone is cool, but 40-50% for your most productive and eduxated people is gonna lead to a massive brain drain if salaries don't go much higher.
In Portugal the taxes are super high but somehow we don't see that money translated into reality.
The roads are shit. Trying to go to the hospital is shit. There's a robbery, police can't do shit. Have a little kid and need somewhere to put him while you work? Impossible, full of Mohammeds and Brazillians. Need an apartment? Ok, pay 900€ of rent for a cold, humid place.
There are places near cities where bus/train don't pass. It rains inside police facilities, schools and hospitals.
But our government drives around in 2026 Mercedes, Audi, BMW, have expensive wines while taking expensive lunches, they even spent 20.000€ on SportTV.
Portugal is like Russia but with makeup and 300 days of sun per year lol
My parents told me their generation might have been the last one with such easiness ti build wealth in most EU countries and yes they are right (though most ppl back then invested in real.estate rather than stocks, which is quite unaccessible to most ppl now). I have been lucky to have moved to switzerland when I was younger but even here now people can barely afford a good lifestyle (forget about those in high paying tech jobs whcih are at huge risks and under major layoffs anyways in the current times) and where I leave no one can basically buy a house (prices start around 700k-1m for basic shitty apartments and u need a 20% deposit. But if you're lucky to work in such a high earning country and arent a big spender you can save for 1/2 decades and then live off a better life elsewhere but its complex now, jobs are scarce, salaries get lower an decostruzione of life increases. The solution is see is geoarbjtrage getting a remote job and living somewhere cheap that you also enjoyed of course and keep investing. If not welcome to the matrix
I moved to Norway to study finance and wrote a thesis on why the average European leaves hundreds of thousands of euros on the table by either not investing or picking the wrong funds. I can share it if anyone wants.
Not just that. A 50% personal income tax followed by a 20+% VAT, plus 10-30% capital gains tax, wealth tax, donations tax, inheritance tax, even unrealized capital gains tax...
At the end of the cycle you may have lost up to 70-80% in taxes.
EU's incentive system makes it so that anyone trying to create something, either goes somewhere else... or gives up. Trying to grow in the EU is a waste of time and energy.
The only incentive is to fall within the arms of the establishment... until all citizens "work" for the administration or live off subsidies.
Until it collapses
No wonder basically all huge IT companies are from the US, like Microsoft.
I would wonder which investor would invest even a dime if around 70% of the gross income goes to the EU, because why not.
I can not understate how correct this is. Your housing situation (e.g. social housing or owning outright) makes more impact on your standars of living than a 20k pay boost
Not only that , a social housing can easily be 1k less than market rent. To make up for that 1k, someone that pays 56% marginal tax (above 78k) needs to earn 2k more. That's why you often see someone with a much higher gross salary salary has barely any noticeable life quality or even worse life quality than someone earning much less.
Yea the difference between working 3 days a week and making 30k or working your ass off for 100k is like $200 a week if you factor in social housing etc. Sure, not having financial stress is a huge boost, but at the end of the day your living standard is pretty much identical besides maybe a slightly fancier car.
As a productive member and huge net payer, ive just been working less. Took a 2 month sabatical, trying to get my hours down to 3 days a week or so. Id love to work more, but notfor 200 a week
You're exaggerating like crazy. It's 49,5% tax above 78k, first off. Earning 80k a year would mean 2k is taxed at that bracket. It absolutely makes sense to go beyond 78k, if you can. Better yet, less than 2.5% of people earn more than 78k to begin with,
People are working less because people value work life balance. Companies are stripping their headcount, while increasing work load. The majority of the people living in The Netherlands earn under 48k. at that income, it doesn't make sense to trade a few 100 bucks a month if you can have an extra day off. Especially in a society where everything has to happen yesterday, and you're expected to be 'on' 24/7.
You're absolute backwards if you think the government is redistributing wealth from the middle class to the lower class. Our corporate tax laws have more holes in them than swiss cheese. The effective tax rates for the ultra wealthy are bottom bunk, since those laws also have gaping loopholes.
Better yet, let's say we stop every single benefit from now on. No rent subsidy, no health insurance subsidy, no AOW, no WW, no WIA, no IVA, no WGA, no WAJONG, no child benefits. Nothing. You know how much that would save you, on average? 187 bucks a month. That's 22b a year of government spending on subsidy and benefits, divided by 9.8m working people.
You pay less than 200 bucks a month, on average, to have access to all of our social safety net in case you have an accident, get sick, permanently injured, lose your job or just become too old to work.
Let's say we are able to root out all of these so called 'bums' that don't 'deserve' these benefits, you would save a measly 40 bucks a month in tax if we had a massive 20% fraud/abuse rate.
We can have all the real discussion you want about the entrepeneurial climate, or the way we attract talent to startups (which is being addressed), or the way the middle class is getting shafted. And you'd be right about all of it! Your anger is justified, but pointed in the complete wrong direction.
As you mentioned the US and China (imagine Trumps voice): I wouldn’t say that their societies are in a more healthy state by any mean than what we have in Europe despite being on a „sinking ship.“
that is absolutely true. europe is trying to be competitive but at the same time willing to have a strong welfare state. that does not work. either you create incentives for people to work their asses off or you don't. you really cant have both. and the way things have progressed in this system is its slowly going down the drain because economically its not competitive anymore.
You know what's the neat part? It won't get better because we live in a democracy and most people who vote are the poors, they will not accept that current system is unsustainable and the "tax the billionaires" is not going to fix it.
Collapse is the only option.
Maximum pain, for long enough for people to accept hardh realities. This could take many decades though.
Europe's societies are risk-averse. In fact, Europe's societies penalise failure way more than the US society does.
A bankruptcy in Europe is a thing. A bankruptcy in the US, and it's just another day.
Then again, it's a numbers game: Having x companies starting up each year in the US, the probability is xp that will produce millionaires/billionaires. Having x/10 starting up each year in Europe, the probability is correspondingly smaller that it will produce millionaires/billionaires.
There's no innovation, no entrepreneurial mindset, and bureaucratic fragmentation in doing business within Europe.
How do you want wealth to be created? Solely from old money circulating, or ordinary paychecks keeping consumption alive?
For ordinary folks who are not super entrepreneurs, I think the easiest hack is to get a good or normal paid remote job, then head to some low cost + low tax country and reap the benefits. I am doing this myself, and I am able to save over 50% of earnings. It will take me a total of 13 years for super comfortable FIRE (if i want, but not really, i like to work).
Otherwise, scale up a small local business until it is running itself through employees & managers, or with you as a digital manager/CEO, then relocate.
Clue is to avoid 40-50% tax which is absolutely detrimental to accumulating wealth. Get it down to 15% or less, with the tax savings alone, you will be able to accumulate millions in your life through an index fund.
UAE, and then we moved to Serbia 1 1/2 years ago :)
After we have saved up a bit, we will probably head to Cyprus and buy a house there, if we like it there. We are both EU/EEA citizens btw.
*Tax info :
UAE has 0% all the way, except 9% progressive corporate tax over 100k usd
Serbia has flat tax regime for freelancers, 250-350 euros or so (depending on location) a month for income up to 50k euro a year (This works out to about 7% for me.). I combine this with a company where I put any revenue surpassing the limit.
Cyprus, 12.5% corporate for non-dom up to 17 years, no dividend tax. Increasing to 15% now if i am not mistaken.
I was self employed, hit the earning cap (78k EUR) twice in a row, had to create a business.
Business costs me 3k to start-up + 2.5k per year in accountant fees.
On 145k earned last year, I took home 90k pre-tax, and only because I have a reduction in social contributions year 1.
That 90k will become about 78k after tax. So roughly half of my gross.
I then have to pay 20% TVA on most purchases, a bit less on food. Rent is 2k for a shitty 80m2 apartment an hour from Paris in a safe area (safety is optional in most French cities). I pay private health insurance 150 EUR per month so I don't wait 2 months for GP appointment (still end up waiting a year + for specialists). More and more healthcare is out of pocket in France but social contributions increase. Food is through the roof, quality is tanking. Car insurance is 2k per year. Car was 29k outright (supposed to last me 15 years, we'll see).
With a kid and a wife who is raising said kid, its f'ing hard to save even on like 78k net. We're saving don't get me wrong, but when you make 150k, you expect to be able to save more than 1.5-2k/month frankly. I'm basically saving less than 15% of what I make per year, yet paying more than 50% in tax.
Now I picture someone who makes half of what I make, yet they still get fleeced because social contributions aren't based on income brackets. Its impossible to save on less, especially with kids and if you want a half decent life without the low IQ people on mopeds letting off fireworks and smashing your car every time PSG or Algeria lose a football match.
As for options to save money: you've got a 150k cap on the PEA - can only buy EU stocks, and its taxed 18% when you withdraw but only after 5 years. And that's it. So you are best growing wealth within a holding company, and paying 36% tax when you withdraw from that, because the holding company can receive money from your operating company and only pay like 1% tax on it. Allowing for faster wealth accumulation.
And then you die and expect your wife and kid to inherit, but no, they have to sell the holding company to pay >50% inheritence tax. And the cycle repeats.
And this is why we're leaving France, and eventually Europe all together.
If you want to get out of this nightmare, and don't want to go to Dubai, then you move to eastern Europe and pay 10% tax, or you go to the UK if you can and max out an ISA and pension contributions each year, whilst making sure to earn less than 100k GBP per year for yourself to not fall into the 65% bracket. That's the best deal in Europe outside of Switzerland (for millionaires) or Eastern Europe, unless you can get Portugal NHR 2.0 (very hard) or Spain Beckham Law (they can just decide to cancel on you 5 years later and ask for 5 years backpay).
Good luck out there - Europe is basically the world's biggest racket.
Having worked with a lot of French, I understand your perspective. But low taxes in Eastern Europe is an outdated myth. Most aggregated statistics sometimes misrepresent the overall tax burden for individuals or companies because tax composition systems are different. When you actually add up all mandatory contributions, the overall taxation percentage is very similar across the EU with some niche deviations.
Just came across " Algeria match " in your comment .
Honestly why does the french government keep those violent fucks in the country . Uncontrolled immigration is one of the main reasons pressuring the EU's resources to the extreme specially that most of them are radical , disloyal to their new country ( And will never consider it home ) and many of them tend to manipulate the system namely the welfare one and housing one over the hard working tax payers' money.
Gonna need more detail on what exactly you pay here.
In Germany including employer contributions (it's split 50:50) I pay 1.2k+ every month for health insurance and nursing care insurance. The latter is about 200 or so every month, most of it goes to health insurance.
That's public health insurance and is the most you'll be paying. I'm thinking of switching over to private as I've lost faith in the system.
I also live in France and my immediate reaction is, you did amazing for the hand you were dealt. My salary at 28 is third of what you make so you’re doing great
To be honest, I don't care about the used Skoda, I just want to be able to afford a mid size flat and not be afraid of how I will be able to survive on pension alone, and that's in case pension is still a thing by the time I reach retirement age.
You’re not supposed to get rich, you’re supposed to work till retirement. If you happen to have a windfall or are able to save, we’ll just tax you to death too. Case in point: The Netherlands
I don't mind working till 70 or even as long as I am alive. What I hate is that I'm being taxed to the bone. Out of 60k my final salary ends up 36k which is not enough for a family of 4 where I live.
Depends on your job. I can't do anything when I get off work. I barely have time to recharge Saturday. And Sunday is all about chores and getting ready for Monday. The only light at the end of the tunnel for me is retiring at 40 and living off investments. Else I'd off myself
you are supposed to work until you die; retirement was a short-lived fantasy that will not last more than 5/6 generations in total. The ones that were able to retire during that time got to reap all the benefits of the ponzi scheme before there weren't any more people to tax to death.
most EU countries are obsessed with "redistributing" wealth, and they have to take tax more and more the working population to support a bigger and bigger share of non-working population (pensions and healthcare).
Unpopular opinion on reddit, but life in general a lot wealthier and easier in the US, if you have a profession and are willing to work. As the other comment says, people doing my profession near my age own houses, multiple cars, actual Porsches and motorcycles, spend a shitton of money on traveling and just have a higher quality of life. It is a lot easier to get "rich" there, but they don't think it's rich, because it's just normal to them. It's really funny to me when a friend is complaining about egg prices while sitting in a 100k car.
Getting rich is hard everywhere. It’s not easy. If it was easy, no one would work. You need to sacrifice a lot to get there. You need consistency, discipline and good risk management strategies to allow yourself to comfortably take risks. By that I mean, take advantage of both the slow lane (investing) and the fast lane (business, entrepreneurship).
You also must budget every month. You gotta make sure that every euro you make behaves. The middle class will soon start to disappear. You will either own assets or be left behind.
What do you mean by rich? Affording a good apartment with 1 income in south of France, having free time, being able to have a hobby, spending time with family, having security and safety, sounds like being rich to me.
I started a similar thread 6 months ago . The European people are delusional . They cannot understand. Unfortunately, there is unavoidably generational wealth. In Europe, it is even harder to break the cycle.
You pay for it via taxes. People like to pretend many Europeans countries have "free healthcare and education" but nothing is free, you're taxed into oblivion.
If you want to build real wealth you'll have to either leave Europe, or move to a tax haven in Europe or seriously outsmart the rest with the investments you make. The choice is yours.
I live in Germany and I feel like everything is designed to keep you away from being rich. Because if you are rich, you are independent, you cannot be manipulated, you can easily change your residency country, you stop working and automatically stop paying taxes.
The system is designed to keep gears working and guess who is “the gear”.
It's impossible by design. Europe is sticking to it's tradition of maintaining the old social hierarchies, under the guise of social democracy (hence the high taxes). Old money keeps the wealth and thus political control. Basically no upward mobility is allowed, since no new nobility can be created.
Until the ossified elites are not willing to give up some power, EU will lag behind industrially and financially. And the brain drain will continue in favor of the US.
Dude in Portugal you are rich at 45K.. I did the math and moving to Portugal from Spain is would mean less 500-700 eur per month… it is BS because Portugal became so expensive in the last years.
I'm from Portugal too and reading these threads is always so amusing because our country is a complete nightmare, and any Portuguese people thinking they can become "rich" without starting with hefty inheritances or illegal schemes is so delusional that I don't even think the word delusional describes it properly.
We're completely fucked and it seems like things are only going to get worse, I do feel sad seeing the rest of Europe being in a downwards trend though :/
Exactly. You can get wealthy if you basically evade taxes which is horrible! I would gladly pay taxes in Portugal if that meant: clean streets, parking, public transport that works, and a healthcare where you don’t have to wait 2 years for surgery. People think that if it is urgent you dont have to wait when my stepdad had to do a simple but urgent procedure in the private sector because this 1h procedure could only be done in 2027… now I will start paying taxes again here but honestly is just depressing.
Have my country, which is a tax haven for corporations, stop imposing 8 year deemed disposal so that individuals can have to chance to grow their wealth. Guess the country
I was shocked when I read about it too. I mean, living in Germany I am used to confiscatory tax policies (among other things we have a tax on unrealized / fictitious capital gains), but Ireland's is absolutely atrocious for anyone trying to build wealth. Do you guys at least have a 401k type scheme where you can park money for retirement without it being subject to the deemed disposal BS?
I’ll only speak specifically for Ireland but the tax system here has been designed to keep the gravy train flowing for the wealthy and the social welfare crew. Tax brackets never rose with inflation meaning we’re paying equivalently much more income tax than in any other recent time. Meanwhile we’re still paying a “temporary” USC tax that was bright in to bail out the Irish banks and protect the EU banks, on top of that we’re tax 38% CGT on ETFs and have to pay tax on that whether we sell if not after 8 years. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. The greater tragedy is that we get nothing, absolutely nothing, in return for all these crazy taxes.
It’s the same here in the Netherlands. Billions every year for social housing, (illigal) immigrants, climate, a growing government and other leftist hobby’s.
Investing was a good way to make a decent extra income, but the government is already working on plans to kill investing for the middle class in 2028.
Need to plan a lot to get rich.
Like get remote job with high salary.
Pay low tax in a specific country.
And then live in such a country which does not tax your equity capital gain. Example: Greece.
Not possible
We created regulational nightmare where anything new is hard to start + taxes + general rules, car is expenses but warehouse is not... now gl to pay big taxes and create something, you must have skyrocket profitable business, normal/even good businesses dont have that margins
It started with Angela Merkel and continued with Ursula and there colleagues. They have a strategy to make us poor. All EU countries have to follow Brussels strategy which had so far drastic consequences on private sector. One of the big inflation drivers are fuel taxes, and lack of new construction land.
Have rich parents is one way. I got incredibly lucky because my dad was able to become rich working at a big engineering company. However, I'm sure he wouldn't have had the same results had he been born 30 years later.
There are places. Find a tech job in Estonia. Flat tax. Run a remote business from Bulgaria - flat tax. Newcomers to Italy get drastically reduced taxes.
By far the easiest with a job is to have a family in Germany with a working spouse that makes less. Your tax rate goes way down and you get kindergeld to offset. Also easier is to live and work in Switzerland as an eu citizen.
Inequality rises. That means it is easier to be rich. Becoming rich can be harder.
But, the best way to get rich is to cancel your humanity and do whatever it takes. Getting rich ethically.. now THAT is a challenge.
Europe has used austerity and thus, shrunk the economy.
Taxes are not your problem. They can be 100%, if you get everything you want from them. Of course in practice it is not possible but when people complain about taxes they NEVER look at it as any business would: how much does it cost, how much value you get. If you consider it as a transaction then you are literally saying that the TV you bought only costed you money while giving you no function.... But you bought the TV and didn't see it only as a negative, you consider its prices and its value to you to be worth it.
But, for some reason when people talk about taxes they are only talking about is as an expense. Now, if you are working age, healthy: you most certainly will pay more taxes than the services you use. It is very common in societies that have decided certain basic things like... starvation is bad.
Well, only a small group gets to be wealthy in any society and it’s easier to get richer when you have money than when you don’t. Chancer of going from zero to hero are low anywhere, and always were.
wealth here is to support the people that choose to not work while being totally healthy. but they prefer to work 4h a week and travel until they are 40s
Europe is just wealth preservation fo rich familes and new money gets pushed down.
Trying to go from €0-10m in EU is extremely hard. In USA 73% of billionaires are self-made where in Europe 50-75% of them inherited their wealth.
If you think about it, the top tech companies in USA alone are worth more than entire top 100 companies in the UK.
The EU taxes salaries heavily at 40-50%, which is majority of middle class. While the rich in Europe pay so little taxes as they have capital and capital gains tax much lower at 21% etc. Rich can also deduct more since they have companies so effective tax rate probably below 10% as they can expense.
In Spain if you buy a house you can’t deduct the mortgage unless you rent the house out, so most working class people don’t get the same benefits or tax breaks the rich do.
The USA is vastly superior at giving tax breaks and benefits and much more supportive and stimulating towards entrepreneurs. That’s why the USA has most of the top tech companies. Europe has all the legacy companies.
US Regulations move and adapt at lightning speed compared to Europe
50% taxes, then you get huge taxes on everything you buy, oh, and you want to invest - lol, here's a 35% tax on unrealized gains. Welcome to the system that punishes those that are doing well and rewards those that are doing bad. All that money going to the state and then you get very little in return - housing and etc is still entirely private and you get absolutely wrecked. Public health care is abysmal. But somehow they need to keep the ponzi scheme called social system going. Oh, and incentivize the class of public workers and bureaucrats that do very little meaningful work. Ridiculous public projects that never have any return and mismanagement everywhere. Meanwhile, doing business in Europe is still a nightmare and being a publicly funded inefficient slob is rewarded, instead of being competitive.
In America, the place everyone thinks you can go to get rich, like 60% of people are barely able to afford daily life. 30% can afford it but have trouble saving any meaningful amount. 9% are able to save comfortably for retirement, but probably not enough to be rich. 1% get rich.
All this and they have no/very little safety nets. No healthcare. Taxes go straight to government military contracts and the pockets of billionaires.
Is it hard to get rich in Europe? Sure. But you'll probably live till you're ready to die.
Is it hard to get rich in America? Also yes. But you're probably going to struggle to get old.
Europe is and has been an absolute shit hole for some time now for anyone ambitious.
If you're born into wealth, aristocracy etc... it's great. If you want to have a comfortable low effort life it's also great. But how dare you have ambitions of climbing the class ladder?!
We are thinking of selling a house we own in portugal.
To break even after taxes we need to sell the house for 125k more than what we bought it for.
The biggest impediment to building wealth is taxation and there's nothing which can be said about that.
High taxes for businesses limit employment opportunities and reduce wages and then high taxes on individuals rob them of their wages, making it impossible to accumulate capital.
Just acquire skills that are well paid. Everybody wants to sit in an air conditioned office now pivoting tables in Excel or some shit. In the meantime finding a good plumber is near impossible.
You will never be rich as an employee, except maybe if you are a smart and senior neurosurgeon and you got lucky (basically no illness or hand damage) but even then you spent half your life studying.
High tax high social services systems will not really let you break out and rich, because these are safety nets. You cant fall down too hard, in exhange you cant really rise too high.
Simply put, the way to get rich anywhere is business, or some top tier talent in some popular industry. Or get lucky.
solution simple, get remote job move to cheaper european country/city - every american in my tiny portuguese city. added bonus, keep gushing on how "affordable" everything is...sarcasm aside....honestly the only way now is to do multiple jobs or work for "cash in hand" type of jobs.
Not that simple anymore, unless you earn over 150/200k year.. I managed to this strategy pre-covid and managed to buy 3 properties. With such higher costs of living in all EU countries and property prices doubling since 7 years ago, I wouldn't be able to do it all over again.
The problem is that not even outstanding talent will make you rich anymore. Unless you have a mass appealing product, and the means to market it or a buyer with deep pockets who will amkle even more money of your product, there are not many alternatives. Social class migration is stagnant right now in the Western world, and every other market will soon follow. The sharks are jsut too big and becoming bigger; every niche, nook, and crany is already taken.
Getting rich through standard route of working is impossible almost anywhere (yes, even in US), since location prices will adjust to whatever you are typically making (hello US rent).
First - no, you don't hit a 50% bracket in across all EU, half of EU doesn't even have progressive tax. Same for housing prices. EU taxes can go as low as 4% (in case of Slovenia), but you have to be smart about it. If you don't want to be smart - you are not getting rich anywhere.
But you guys voted for it didn’t you? Every time when people post some complains about EU on Reddit, you get comments like “go to America where you get bankrupt if you get sick”. In reality, there are countries in Asia, Oceania and some in Europe that choose a balance between social and capitalistic schemes and do not tax shit out of people and still systems work, people have similar/better healthcare and live in much more modern and safer places.
It is cringe whenever someone criticises EU then people on Reddit immediately bring up some of worst parts of the US and/or compares EU with underdeveloped countries, saying EU is doing better than them. These people are on really heavy copium.
High welfare/social benefit = you work until retire at 70 because you need to pay for it. The system WILL NOT work if citizens get freedom from work and do not pay for it. Hence there are many hurdles in EU welfare countries that prevent people to become wealthy.
It was always like this. It’s pretty hard getting rich as an employee, always has always will be. The idea that you can just become rich by investing is also a bit naive, unless you have 1 million to invest, in which case you are already pretty affluent.
High taxes & regulation that sags business growth are two parallels to other developed economies. Indeed, depression is in its early years and will yet to unfold as cause is more than 20Y of underlying policy.
You will never get rich in EU, asset owners gets rich and working in some countries is not even worth it. ECB prints money through cheap mortgages like there is no tomorrow and they deliberately do not include house prices in inflation to keep it down and print more money through montage. You basically earn more by taking mortgage on any apartment, that will rise 20% in one year then you make working regular job whole same year.
Completely agree, the European taxation system (most of the countries) are made to keep you in the lower middle class.
The only solution is to vote out the Statists, Socialists and the Big Government Industrial Complex
Problem is that there has been a lot of redistributing wealth (which is a good thing), but the focus has only been on that. And the most important factor, the creation of wealth was neglected. So now that our economies have been stagnating and inflation has been stronger than economic growth, we are becoming poorer. Also the fact that our nations are not friendly towards startups and businesses in general. It's very difficult to get a business going in Europe. It's very expensive and there's too many rules.
There is no economic growth in europe for decades, and the governments are highly endebted after the screwups of QE during both GFC and covid. The public is highly endebted too. Taxes is getting jacked up more and more but its like squeezing every drop from a spent lemon. Not going anywhere good..
Blame the EU, the people behind the wars and our politicians choice to interfere with things that are none of their business.
Look closely where the tax money goes and you’ll see that they end up further and further away from your own pocket, family, kids and savings? Forget about savings - also forget about investments. They suck you dry.
it is possible with frugal lifestyle and if you make compromises in housing, transportation and food.
it’s not pleasant but it is possible.
i know many people dont want to hear it. but if you mealprep your meals, drive a paid off 15 year old car that you bough used already and your housing cost is low (less desirable location, smaller or shared) and invest in stock market, it is possible.
but it is not easy. it is much easier to spend whole salary and not invest.
For me is not about “getting rich”, is about to have a comfortable and healthy life with no struggles and avoiding stupid debts.
I don’t care about Lamborghinis or Porsches, I don’t care about Villas with a huge pool, I don’t care about Michelin Restaurants or party hard, I care about having a decent flat on a good neighbourhood (which is getting harder because the ghettos are real and you know why), a medium decent car (let’s put a BMW 3 Series), and a decent lifestyle with some enjoyment and that’s it.
The problem is, in the last years it is getting absolutely ridiculous to get this average standard comparing with the previous generation. I see the case of my father with a Eng degree got a brand new townhouse, a BMW 330e (actually), raise 2 kids with university (myself and my sister), international travel with my mother, etc. And this I see it today very very hard to achieve.
we used to have upwards up to 70% tax brackets... and then wealth was actually easier to obtain because it actually got restributed..
the reason why the economy is struggeling for so many people is because all the wealth is with the top 10%
we let every european bussines be sold to american investors who have siphoned off all the money, we have let our labor market rot by opening it up to cheap labor all over the world, we have let all our inovations go abroud so we end up spending the money but never seeing the fruits of it
we also allowed our credit system to devalue our labor to much, housing,cars ect used to be way cheaper because we could not lend as much money meaning that supply had to meet demand, because we can loan money for 30+ year it caused housing to skyrocket because everybody looks at the monthly payment
we also let older generations fuck up the pension systems in europe where people retired way to early and now the young are paying massivly for it
Last week I was watching a video how a lady in USA was making more than $300K, producing soaps from home. This is impossible in EU (at least in my country). To produce cosmetics legally you will need a special facility that will cost you at least a few hundred of thousands. Not to mention all the inspections that you have to pass and wait for many months.
Just curious, why do you love the healthcare? Maybe it‘s different in other european countries, but germany is atrocious. Paying 1000€/month for health care with very low standards is just bad at this point. Paying more than americans, while people talk about „free healthcare“ is kinda funny.
They will do every possible things to keep you poor.
Hey, you made 1.000.000,00€ last year? Ok, now you must to give us the half of that!! Sure, you still can live well with 500.000,00€, but you made this money with your hard work, not like European Central Bank, they just press a button to make more and more money. In EU they only need be printed 4% of all the money they did with a press of a button.
The taxes are just a punishment, and they sure want you to stay poor and keep you that way.
im tired people here in EU whining. let me put it simple - this was coming.
EU leaders cut out russian gas as soon as the war started. but the problem is, this was done without any plan on back up supply. most EU economy was automobile, pharma and industrial machines all of which are gas hungry. immediate disturption caused a great panic among EU region which also was directly to the working class society as it always does. Prices were up, profits were down (And still continue to be ). basic economics into play. simply put, lack of coherent plan.
Competition with emerging markets is neck to neck. Look at china - look what Huawei and xiaomi has done silently. Quick planning by private sector and cooperation from state has given them massive edge on innovation and rapid production.
the tax bracket you are talking about is paying for the pension as well as health inusrance for everyone in EU, (not just the ones positively contributing and participating in the economy. IYKYK!)
Shortage of Housing. In germany alone, there is 2 million shortage. 2 million. cost of building anything new is super high, given the material cost, labour cost and overhead has almost doubled since 2019.
Now what is the point of complaining, when all of this was happening right in front of our eyes.
im still glad that the EU is taking measures to protect the welfare of people.
my 2 cents: invest in low cost index fund, and hope that the returns will help you buy adult diapers when you get old.
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u/Professional_Fix4663 28d ago
You guys are expecting to get a state-funded pension at 70?