Great post from
@Bucknutz above. A couple points.
This is where I lived with my family for a year or so, granted not a lot of time, but we encountered multiple health issues that brought the effectiveness of their system into stark relief against the utter **** of our own. My wife had a 20-year running bad diagnosis corrected which dramatically improved her quality of life. Our medication was suddenly reasonably-priced, thanks to the US for subsidizing the rest of the world since we refuse to regular medications necessary for life and qualify of life, such as my son'd epilepsy med which in the US were several hundred $$ per month and in germany all-in less than $50 per month, etc. And we calculated that year against the previous 2 years we had experienced in America and even with the higher tax rates, we were thousands ahead due to nearly no out-of-pocket expenses, which is what kills most Americans and drives many to bankruptcy here. The spouting off about increased taxes to pay for universal healthcare is all panic-mongering ********, if the system is built right. Germany did it right.
This has to be carefully constructed. Germany has a similar system, where everyone buys into the social pension system, but if you are over a given income range you can reroute some of that to private investments. You are, of course, simply free to invest all you want as well, nothing stopping that. But they do not have 401k and IRAs and the like since their social pension system is so robust. I can get behind this idea, but first we need one more thing all developed nations, almost literally except ONLY us have....TAXATION TRANSPARENCY.
Most of the developed world do not know what a tax return is. Except usually the mega-rich and maybe small business owners to a degree, the vast majority of, say Germans, do not file a tax return at all. The government sends you a tax statement on what was collected. You review it, if there are mistakes or specific exceptions you want to claim then you can file an amendment, but 98% of the time the statement is just correct. And so if it is correct, next you have to....DO NOTHING. That's it. Tax season is over. Unlike here where we pile all kinds of **** up and smokescreens and fake roadblocks to support a multi-billion-dollar industry for the sole purpose of....EXISTIING. That's it. We pay billions each year, oh yeah and millions if not billions in penalties to the IRS when we **** it up too, for the privilege of letting the tax return industry exist. That's it. The government already has exactly the info it needs, and the capability and means, to do exactly what Germany and literally EVERY other developed nation does right now.
For an example, I got hit up by the state of Utah for some thing I left out of my tax return 6 years ago. It turns out it was a statement for an IRA I had transferred to a roll-over account, but I had failed to add it to my tax return since it got lost because the company changed hands during that time. I went back and forth for MONTHS and finally, guess what, the guy on the other side, SENT ME A COPY OF THE FORM and I added it to my return, and resubmitted it, and then got PENALIZED $700 for the "mistake" when he HAD THE ****ING INFO ALL THE GODDAMN TIME!! Seriously, what the ****? You know what the net change was to my return at that point? Utah owed me $35 more than they did originally. But I owed them $700 in penalties. In a civilized developed country they would have just amended it and sent me a ****ing check. **** the way we do taxes, the worst in the world.
So let's fix that before we add another burden of keeping track of tax implications for mixed social retirement vehicles that will undoubtedly end up in a new way to garner millions in penalties and make more tax accountants rich on the backs of people who SHOULD NEVER HAVE TO PAY FOR IT IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!
But it will never change. Briber....uh lobbying is a powerful motivator for government to give big business whatever they want after all.
