Saturday 27 February 2016

Denmark's standard of living

The Other 98% 
This inaccurate graphic has been making the rounds on Facebook. As ever, the facts are either wrong or misleading. About 180,000 people have shared this on Facebook, without checking the facts. "THE OTHER 98%" is generating much web traffic and attention for it.

 This is both misleading and wrong. Yes, this country, with a population of 5.6 million is a different story than Canada, with a population of 35 million, or the US's 319 million.

However:

Danes face the world's highest tax burden

Denmark is the most taxed country in the world with nearly half of its GDP raised through taxes, giving it a tax-to-GDP ratio that towers over the other OECD countries.

Denmark has a VAT of 25%.

Forbes: 
By basically every measure, Denmark taxes its residents more than most countries – filling its state coffers with higher revenues from taxes on income, profits and capital gains than the OECD average. In fact, the income that Denmark raises by taxing income, profits and capital gains accounts for 62 percent of its total tax revenues, nearly double the OECD average of 34 percent.
 The Danes do not have a minimum wage. The average minimum wage for all private and public sector collective bargaining agreements is approximately DKK 110 ($20) per hour, exclusive of pension benefits. The Danish “minimum wage” of $20 or $21 is actually an average of all minimum wages across a variety of sectors.

There's 180% tax on cars. (25% sales tax on everything else)
Dental care is only free for children, as an adult you gotta pay crazy amounts of money for dental care that it's scares me everytime my tooth aches a little bit
Plus we can't even get dental insurance! Many of us go to Hungary for dental work (higher standards yet cheaper costs).

1 comment:

William Kendall said...

Something to keep in mind!