On Taxes

For those of you not too familiar with the insanely complex German tax system I’d like to shed some light on this matter. What the above (click the pic!) basically means is that in Bavaria, and Germany in general, you pay taxes to separated and sometimes private institutions, unlike at home where a lot of it is still centralized. I. e. the social insurance; in Sweden it’s state-run, more or less equal to everyone and included in your total %. In Germany, you get to choose between different private-run social insurance companies and between their different products respectively in order to find what suits your own special needs best.

All in all, I pay like 35 % of my income in taxes, which might not be a big difference to home. But once you’ve managed to decode the cryptic abbreviations and ciphers above you begin to realize that you pay shitload of money for nothing if you’re unmarried and childless.

I honestly think this is pretty goddamn ridiculous.

Of course, there’s some background to it; Bavaria and it’s capital, Munich, are the most prosperous parts of Germany and they are anxious to stay rich, so they also want you to stay right where you are. It’s like this: if you have less bonds to the region, like (well, quite) young and lost people like us, you’re more likely to move to search your luck elsewhere – you are taxed higher. If you instead choose to settle down and form a family and all that shit – you are taxed lower. And as the true God fans they are here, they marry.

To me, that’s not all fair play. Why through unjust means force youth, newly graduated students, international labour, etc, to more or less permanently give themselves to this place? Why not welcome them with somewhat reduced taxes? They obviously need it.

I hold nothing against taxes in general – I hail them; our taxes are the foundation for our welfare. Just look at the parts of the world where the taxes are the highest: the Nordic countries and western Europe, Canada and (at least a few states in) the US and other territories where society is built on similar welfare state-models. In terms of materialistic wealth and health most of us here lead good lives.

After all I didn’t come to Bavaria neither make money nor work my ass off so maybe I shouldn't be bitching too much, but still I can’t help to think of the greed of the city of Munich like a nail in the eye.