lesley
Drama Llama
My best friend Turriff, desperately missed.
Posts: 7,298 
Location: Scotland, Scotland, Scotland
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Post by lesley on Aug 19, 2014 21:44:48 GMT
In the most recent thread about healthcare, I was shocked to read how much some of you have to pay for premiums, deductibles, co-pays, etc. Someone mentioned on that thread that in Denmark, people pay 50% income tax, and that that would be worse. But given how high some of your premiums are, in addition to whatever tax you pay, some of you can't be far off 'losing' 50% of your salary.
So can I ask approximately what percentage of your income is given over to tax and health insurance?
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gsquaredmom
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Posts: 4,092
Jun 26, 2014 17:43:22 GMT
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Post by gsquaredmom on Aug 19, 2014 21:52:55 GMT
My insurance is partly paid by my employer. With that subsidy, my "tax" would be about 25 percent. Without the subsidy, about 65 to 70 percent of my income would go to taxes and insurance.
Eta. I did not count all taxes, just federal. Both percentages would be higher.
Eta again. My husband's employer does not subsidize. Their insurance is more than some peoples' checks, so THEY write a check TO the employer to cover insurance. I think these are typically folks who have a self-employed spouse and it is cheaper this way than a private plan.
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Post by christine58 on Aug 19, 2014 21:56:17 GMT
I have no idea....but I pay 15% of my Health Insurance. We are a PPO and the costs barely rise from year to year. You'll never hear me complain. That 15% is also pre-tax
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Post by eebud on Aug 19, 2014 22:02:59 GMT
When you ask what % of your income do you pay in taxes, do you mean all taxes? I prefer to look at ALL taxes regardless of whether it goes to the city, the county/parish, federal government. Here are some of the taxes I and most others, pay:
Federal Income Tax
State Income Tax (No state income tax in my state so I don't pay this)
Property Tax (high to make up for no state income tax)
Sales tax on all purchases except food to prepare from the grocery store (6.25% state and 2% to the city/county)
.18 in Federal tax and .20 in State tax on every gallon of gas that I buy
All of the fees that are nothing more than a tax that get tacked on to all utility bills
These are the ones I can think of off hand. There are probably more that I missed. It is all tax dollars going to one government entity or another to pay for the things governments pay for.
I won't give a specific % because I don't talk about that on the internet.
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Deleted
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Oct 10, 2024 0:24:09 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Aug 19, 2014 22:09:13 GMT
I have employer provided health coverage. My portion of the premium for myself and my DS is about 7% of my base salary. We have low co-pays and there is no deductable. My state and federal employment and income related taxes are another 30ish percent.
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Post by cropaholicnora on Aug 19, 2014 22:30:31 GMT
43% of my income goes to taxes/deductions and insurance for myself and my 2 kids. If I didn't get child support, there's no way I could keep a roof over our heads at this point. I am very blessed to have good insurance coverage with a relatively low deductible after having no insurance at all for 6+ years, though so at this point I am not complaining.
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Post by fuji on Aug 19, 2014 22:54:45 GMT
My school pays my insurance, but DH is self-employed and pays well over 50% in taxes and insurance (for DH and our two kids).
People think we have much more disposable income than we do. Being self-employed sucks.
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Post by PinkPrincess77 on Aug 19, 2014 23:22:00 GMT
We are fortunate enough that DH's job pays 100% for our health insurance. We have $20 in co-pay for all visits and our deductible is $1500 (I think) but we haven't had to pay anything towards it yet because everything we've done has been fairly routine as we're not sick, although I've had to pay out quite a bit in co-pays because allegedly, each procedure (annual, ultrasound, over 35 biopsy, etc) has to be done separately, although I'm going to research if that's true or not. IF we had to pay for health insurance, plus our taxes, we would be paying out about 35-40%.
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Post by iamkristinl16 on Aug 20, 2014 0:07:59 GMT
I wonder if people who have responded so far are only going off of what is taken from your paycheck, or are you also factoring in any refund or pay in at the end of the year?
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gsquaredmom
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Jun 26, 2014 17:43:22 GMT
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Post by gsquaredmom on Aug 20, 2014 0:41:26 GMT
I wonder if people who have responded so far are only going off of what is taken from your paycheck, or are you also factoring in any refund or pay in at the end of the year? I used my gross and my effective federal tax rate, then calculated and added the percent of my gross that goes to health insurance. Since I used rate there, it is not based on only gross, but also accounts for deductions like mortgage and charity. Those deductions serve to lower my overall tax rate. If I had used gross, refund, etc without accounting for deductions, my percentage would be even higher. |
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Post by Darcy Collins on Aug 20, 2014 2:05:55 GMT
I thought the Denmark number was surprising - sure I know taxes are higher in Europe, but I that's a damn high marginal rate. The article below actually lists the top rate of local+federal rate for Dennark at 60.2% I was even more surprised that it kicks in at $55,000. Denmark has a median income lower than the US - so we're talking about much, much higher rates. For comparison. The federal marginal rate at $55,000 is 15%. Even using tax heavy California - the local tax would be 6% For comparison - I looked at the average premium to cover a family in California (this is the actual charge from the insurance companies, so takes out who pays for it) It's $13,189 per year - which would be an effective "tax" of 25% So the average family making $55,000 in California would pay a top MARGINAL rate of 46% versus 60% in Denmark (please note these are MARGINAL rates, not effective) CNN Money, top rates around the worldNCSL.ORG premiums by state |
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lesley
Drama Llama
My best friend Turriff, desperately missed.
Posts: 7,298
Location: Scotland, Scotland, Scotland
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Post by lesley on Aug 20, 2014 14:48:33 GMT
Thanks to all those who answered me. I found it really interesting. As someone who has benefited many times from the UK's free health service (free at the point of use) it has always scared me to imagine living without that facility. Every year when I'm on holiday in the States, people I meet always want to talk about our healthcare system. Those who disapprove of it always talk about how our taxes are much higher to cover the cost for those who don't pay into the system. It's quite enlightening to see what that actually boils down to in income terms. While we may end up paying a bit more of our salaries in tax, the difference isn't as great as I would have anticipated. Plus of course, we don't have to deal with all the bureaucracy surrounding insurance!
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peppermintpatty
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Post by peppermintpatty on Aug 20, 2014 15:10:53 GMT
We pay approximately 3% of my dh's salary for our health insurance. His company picks up the rest. We have a $200 deductible and pay 10% of the contracted rate. They used to cover 100% with no deductible (until last year). We have $10 copays. The VP's at his company throw a fit whenever they try to raise the premiums. We are very lucky.
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