A guy from London said that "the tax system is quite straight-forward although you do have to pay a (small) council tax also". OK, I thought. And it did seem quite nice when I did the calculations based on info from Easyexpat.

But then I read this: "This does not cover employees national insurance, which is essentially another tax. This is taxed at a rate of 11% for money earned per week between £84 and £645 per week. For most incomes this tends to work out around an additional 10% to the tax rate."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_bracket

The guy from London also bragged about healtcare being free saying "we have just gotten used to take it for granted". But is it really FREE?

Is there any extra taxes he forgot to mention perhaps? Give me an idea of the realistic tax burden.

He also said an average salary is around 25000 pounds a year and the annual leave "legal limit" is 21 days "including Bank holiday". Is he right?

(btw is it just me or is the tax information about Australia on this site completely wrong? and not as "heavy" as claimed?)

Greatful for help!!

 

But what about the "national insurance tax" as described at Wikipedia? Does that "extra 10 % tax" not exist or what?

Are there any other taxes apart from the income tax, council thingie and 2% national contribution?
- ?

 

OK so there are realatively low income taxes which for the average worker rarely exceed the 22% bracket, then there is a council tax fee and a healtcare tax called national contribution of 2%.

And there is no such thing as national insurance as stated at wikipedia...

And there are no other extra taxes, so it works out pretty low - like around 25% or less total of the salary for the average worker when the full calculation has been made.

No buts about this temporary conclusion?

Thanks for your advice!

 

Thanks for your reply.

I still don´t get it though. If normal workers are taxed say not more than 20% if you are lucky in normal income thax.
Then they are also taxed 10% in "national contribution".
And then they are advised to spend 10% on pension, which I thought was the government´s job! If they don´t, they are screwed or what?

Ehm, doesn´t this actually add up to 40% real-life TAX!?

If this is what normal workers are taxed (more than 30%), then I wonder how the high salary workers are only taxed 35-40%?

If I made 10 thousand pounds a month, I wouldn´t care if they taxed me fifty percent though...! Who makes that kind of money anyway! You?!

I am not a contractor, just interested in what a normal worker would pay in taxes totally in real life.

Btw, is this pension thing sponsored by the government using tax money in Australia? Or are there extra hidden SUPER taxes down there too?

The more I dig, the more surprises come up so I never really know what I should believe.

 

Did you first write that the national contribution (which is also called national insurance I guess) was at 2%, but afterwards change that number to 10%? I am very confused... I think you also said that there wasn´t any 10% tax, but is there??
What kind of tax is the "2% tax" you were talking about?

How is the pension stuff in Australia and are there any extra hidden taxes down there?