What we get for our taxes here in France

This comes from another thread about strikes in France but someone suggested I start a new post so here we go.

Out of a combined income of 42000 Euros per year for a family of 2 (last years taxes) we pay roughly 10 000 Euros in taxes on income and our payments to the retirement, health insurance, and unemployment funds (you get 80 percent of your wage in unemployment for a time equal to how long you worked then you are eligible for public aid with no time limit but it is less per month). We have a relatively high sales tax of 19.6 percent on anything paid for (I do not know about things like stocks and bonds). Small and mid sized business is still more important here than in the USA. Most people understand that work is not the most important thing in life but Sarkozy is trying to change that (the bastard already cut income taxes/fees from 60% of yearly income down to 50% of yearly income for the wealthiest classes). Workers have more rights here, it is harder to fire people or to do layoffs because companies have penalties to pay for doing such things.

I am proud to pay my taxes to help those in need. I am also an American by birth and I cannot imagine moving back to the USA. Luckily for me the woman I fell in love with and married happened to be French and works as a teacher (she like all full time workers for the state over here, has a life long job guarantee.)

When you go to the doctor over here you pay 21 euros and are refunded 20 by the state. You are also refunded roughly 90 percent of the cost of prescription drugs up to a certain limit then it is 100 percent. Only the health insurance is public. Doctors still work for themselves. Hospitals are public though, and great quality for the most part. Like in the USA for regular checkups and cleanings of teeth you need to take an appointment a few months ahead of time but for emergencies you rarely wait a long. Surgery does not entail long waits either.


PS I forgot to add in my last post that we pay about 2600 euros a year in property tax and 100 euros a year TV tax (just to watch a few football matches a year).
Also car insurance is for full coverage on 2 average sized cars here (Opel Corsa and a Peugeot 206) we pay 1 200 euros per year for my wife and I all combined (we are about 30).
My women are pregnant the pre natal health care is paid for at 100% after the 6th month, we save one euro per doctor visit but the symbol is great.

Our cars aveage 45 mpg in the gasoline Opel and 60 mpg in the diesel 206 gas is 1.28 euros a litre or 5.12 euros or 7.31 dollars a gallon (mostly taxes) and diesel is 1.08 a liter in euros or about 6.17 a gallon in US dollars. (again mostly taxes). A gallon of milk is 2.00 euros. 6 organic farm raised chicken eggs are 2.90 euros, we average 40 euros a month for electricity (publicly owned) and 20 a month for natural gas (to heat our radiator to heat the apartment and to heat our water) again the gas company is publically owned.

I would love to compare prices we pay for services and taxes with folks from any country in the world on this thread just to help give ourselves an idea of the world we live in.

My family pays over $800/month for health insurance. We would love to get that monkey off our back.

If they raised my taxes to cover universal healthcare - would my taxes really go up $800/month? Doubtful - I think we would actually pay less.

And even if they did - SO WHAT?! Our insurance premiums GO UP and our co-pay GOES UP and our coverage GOES DOWN ... EVERY YEAR!

Why would anyone want single payer?
:sarcasm:

You pay 800 a month for health insurance??? for how many people? we barely pay that much in income tax each year.

It is a PPO. It is taken out of DH's check. Doesn't include dental or vision.

:wow:

of three or four plans, and you choose. It is that simple.

A mentally retarded president who has trouble stringing together two related and coherent thoughts but thinks killing people for their natural resources is the American thing to do.

He just vetoed a children's health care bill because it was "a step to-wards socialized health care."

I am trying to understand the difference in costs. My parents never liked discussing their income or the price of bills with their kids and I do not really feel right asking my buddies what they earn. Seeing as we are on the net I figured we could talk money and bills more openly without the hangups we may have in "real life".

an obvious concern.

Typical summer electric bills are around $100 US. The average for the months Nov through March lets say is probably closer to $400 with Jan and Feb coming in at $500 +.

Mortgage around $1500/mo.

damn keyboard spewed all over! That certainly is a true description though.

and a military industrial complex that has EXACTLY the same benefits French citizens have...only morer! :grr:

Isn't Sarkozy a Russian?

If I'm wrong I'll stand corrected. Thanks.

thought that the people in France would like to keep what they are getting...I see him trying to take back some of your wonderful liberal things...

TF1 tv station and Le Figaro newspaper. He was on tv a lot. 53% voted for him.

I as wondering if you are a native English speaker (not that it matters). It was only my background in ESOL that made me ask. I get the feeling that French is your first language, English your second.

Your English of course is very good. It was just my first thought reading your post, based on my background with ESOL students...

Merci.

French is my second language, English is my first but I mostly talk with French people or Brits now so the words I use in conversation are changing. Mais ce n'est pas grave, je commence à apprendre le français. Ça fait quatre ans que j'habite en France. J'ai habité en banlieu de Chicago avant pendent une vingtaine des années.

for the last 2 years and speaking it as well as I could when I was in Italy, just as you describe doing in France. It is interesting that I was able to understand what you wrote, but that is not surprising given that they are both Romance languages. But I do remember starting out in Italian I would mix up the conjugation of "essere" with "etre" and "avere" with "avoir" and get the red pen from my professoressa!

in France are having "buyers remorse" now that he (Sarkozy) has been in office for a bit?

Mr. Gelliebeans pays for our health insurance(HMO) out of his paycheck. I have a chronic illness so we couldn't afford to do a PPO. We shell out about $7500 a year including dental (HMO also) and vision for a family of three. I still have to pay an additional $1200.00 dollars per year besides my regular office visits and prescription copay for my specific medication (and that is just one of the many meds I take). My husband has had to take on more side work in order to pay for these medications.

Too me, the choices I am given with an HMO are so limiting and the headaches that result from wading through the red tape are unbelievable. I can't for the life of me understand why people that are so paranoid about "socialized medicine"? The chief argument against single payer healthcare is that we would have to wait for treatment or that the red tape would be overwhelming and disorganized.
Don't most of us on private insurance plans especially HMO's have the same complaint now? I mean we need prior authorization for any procedure and we can't go to any doctor out of our network (unless we have unlimited funds) and we must use the facilities set up in advance by the contracts between the insurance company and the medical groups that represent the doctors. Elective surgery still requires authorization which can be a wait time upward of two months. To add insult to injury we pay for that pleasure of being treated like shit from an HMO. :crazy:

I just think we as a nation are so behind the rest of the world because of the idiot-in-the-chief and healthcare isn't just for the people that can afford it.

I almost forgot the new voting machines that a few million voters used. Electronic ones. Made by the Diebold company.....Diebold is in the INTERNATIONAL election "machine" building and "fixing" market.

and a DOJ that makes fighting pictures of consenting adults fucking it's #1 priority.

Woo-Hoo! :eyes:

surrender monkeys :silly: :banghead: So frustrating! :argh:

I'd love to live in France ... even the Jura. :evilgrin:

Here, we, "live to work," as they say.

5 weeks vacation--on top of having pretty much free health care.

We're considering moving to Ireland.

Certainly, there have been efforts all over Europe -- Thatcher/UK -- etal to try to
destroy your social systems -- have there not?

New attacks on the French system -- ???

Hang on!!! and show us how -- !!!

Sorry I didn't explore European living long ago ---
but my sister is now living in Euorpe.

Someone making 60,000 dollars here would pay about 20,000 fed, state, local taxes and soc security, unemp, medicare. Unemployment is for 6 months max (if I recall correctly) and pays a max of about $400 a week (i.e. less than 40%, if you're at $60k). After that, too bad, you starve. Sales tax is state and city run, so varies, NYC is 8.25%. Big business generally squeezes out small business, since the 'American way' is, apparently, might makes right. Thus, large corporations gain monopoly control of their market, squeeze out competition, then bribe the government to get favorable regulation to keep their market control, as their quality and wages go down, and their prices go up. Work is considered so important a part of life that we keep on working to 65 or 67, at least. Top income bracket used to be 89%, but now is 39%, I think. Workers have fewer and fewer rights. It is considered heroic to buy up a company, lay off most of the workers, and then sell the company to someone else. Most jobs that I know of start with 2 weeks vacation. After many years of work at the same job, some people get 3 weeks.

Doctor care varies by whether you have health insurance and what kind. No health insurance (about 47 million of us) means many doctors are reluctant to even see you, if they do most procedures (blood tests, xrays, biopsies, small or large surgeries) cost astronomical amounts due to inflation of costs to cover huge insurance company overheads. For example, standard 'check-up' type blood test costs about $800. Removing a benign skin cancer (5 minute operation) costs about $450. A day's stay in a hospital can cost from $500 to $4000. If you work for a large corporation, you may have top dollar health care that pays for a lot of things. Don't think about changing jobs, though--a lot of things won't be covered by your new job's insurance since they might be 'pre-existing' (this helps keep silly workers from asking for more money or complaining about work conditions).

Property tax I don't know anything about. TV I think is about $50 a month, but is mostly right-wing propaganda as far as I can tell, with a few neo-liberal type stations for 'balance'. We don't generally get 'football' (i.e. soccer), since no one could figure out how to fit the commercials in.

Gas is cheap, about $2.00 to $2.50 a gallon, not counting $200 billion a year plus untold gallons of blood to keep it that way. Most cars get, I think, from 20 to 30 miles to a gallon, but cars that poorer people can afford probably get 20 miles max to the gallon. Mass transportation is rarely an option, except in a few large cities. Bus and train travel is not very practical in most rural areas. In other words, most Americans must have a car and drive it all the time to survive.

A gallon of milk is $4.00 or more, butter lately went up to $5.00 a pound, organic eggs 4.50 a dozen (in NYC).

What we get for our taxes is the illusion of greatness masking a slow descent into squalor, seasoned with a vague sense of guilt and shame.

Vive la difference!