Quote: "I believe we pay about 25-30% of our income in taxes, then we also pay 25% of everything we buy as "VAT". In the end it does not come near 68%"
To be precise, people like me, that are employed for a company, pay about 30-40% of their salary in taxes (including the future pension).
But that's not all. The company pays a similar amount (I think even more), but that is not shown in the payroll. So the total amount of taxes (paid by the worker and by the company) goes up to 60-70%.
For people who run a business on their own (self-employed), they have to pay directly all the due to the state.
Our VAT is now 21%, probably will be raised to 22%.
But even if Swedish people pay more than us, they have high quality services, so what they pay is turnt into value for the citizens.
@george++: I am very proud to have the same face and the same race of Greek (and Spanish) people, but we have done a lot of mistakes in the recent history that lead us to nearly ruin ourselves. We have to imitate some good habits of Northern people, as pay the taxes without evasion, respect the laws, work honestly, respect our environment and, above all, compete for jobs, businesses, etc, without using recommendations or "friendship". You understand what I am saying...
