dgildeh

Amazing! Turbo Tax Killer!!! :)

I'm not sure I agree with that statement just looking at our own tax bills...

Also, my point was I feel that I get nothing for my taxes in California already!

I will give California public libraries which I rediscovered recently after Covid, that's probably the only service I appreciate with my tax dollars currently!

> CA taxes get you the privilege to say you're progressive, and that you're not like that other guy. For everything else, use your Mastercard.

:)

I wasn't expecting CO to come up more expensive, thanks for sharing!

Thanks both - I actually did put a paragraph about this in the blog then took it out as the blog was too long, there are definitely differences between married vs. single in US/UK, but I wanted to look more at the worst case scenario.

Most of my friends/colleagues are not aware that for at least single tax filers, the difference between UK/California is less than 5%, I think its assumed Europe is significantly higher, and that's not the case anymore as the US bureaucracy has grown!

Thanks for all the info - I would add Prop C to the list and almost added it as an example to the blog, which was meant to solve the homeless problem in San Francisco by essentially doubling the amount of money spent per homeless person from $40k/yr to $80k/yr by adding another tax for companies inside the city.

Not only has the homeless problem gotten worse since they introduced it, its also driven a few companies out of the city like Stripe, and in my opinion its the policies, not the funding which is the issue.

These are all examples of the government raising taxes, expanding, and not being accountable for any results that the increased spend was meant to bring

Thanks for the info - funnily enough after I posted this I spoke to a tax strategist this morning who also laid out a bunch of things we could do to reduce our tax bill. The problem as you say, is this type of person isn't accessible to most people, and expensive!

Wow, didn't know that - but I guess it supports my point, that all Western governments are moving in the same direction!

Thanks, interesting point on WWII and the difference in outcomes

I know us Brits like to complain, but when I drove there last year the roads were all brand new and fantastic compared to what we have over here in California!

I did think to add some caveats about the NHS, my sister works there so I'm aware of all the issues there. However, I would rather choose that system, over the one here, which is extremely expensive, and doesn't even look after you if you lose your insurance for whatever reason.

I think overall, I would say the UK has a lot of challenges, and if I was still living there, I would actually feel ok to pay more taxes to support those services, because I'd be using them.

As opposed to here, where I pay almost the same rate of taxes, and feel like I get nothing in return!

Do you live in UK or US? I used to live in the country too - and was able to take regular trains in less than an hour from my house to London.

Compare here, we have a Caltrain that only runs once an hour during the day, is slow, and to get to city requires switching to the Bart, which is also slow, and so filthy too, its much easier just to drive into the city, avoiding the potholes, and hoping your car doesn't get broken into when you park late downtown...

UK has it way better without any cherry picking :)

Thanks, I did actually start work on getting that data but as the blog was already very long, and it would take hours to find and analyse the data, I decided against it. Maybe a future blog!

If you read the blog I actually explain that. However for middle class tech workers in CA, I can assure you they are

I’m actually a B2B founder with 2 exits. This is a passion project I plan to open source when it’s ready