Random Thread

[WeepingElf]

Works the same way here in Germany.

[Raphael]

Works the same way here in Germany.

Yes, and doesn't even the USA use that approach for income tax?

[doctor shark]

Works the same way here in Germany.

Yes, and doesn't even the USA use that approach for income tax?

Indeed (on multiple levels), as does (also) the Netherlands, though normally my withholding in the Netherlands is such that I owe nothing at the end of the year because of my partial tax exemption; most of my Dutch coworkers, however, get modest refunds each year of a few hundred euro. (And you can pay pretty substantial penalties if you don't have enough tax withheld: I narrowly avoided a state tax penalty one year due to under-withholding.) But, in contrast, normally utilities are paid monthly in the US based on actual usage (or they were where I lived), so I was at first surprised at the approach in the Netherlands (and especially the result for this past year being actually paying nothing net!).

[Raphael]

Thank you for the background info.

[Jonlang]

Does the whole of Europe use a PAYE system for income tax?

[hwhatting]

Does the whole of Europe use a PAYE system for income tax?

I don't know the rules for every country, but a lot of Europaen countries use deduction at source for income from employment. There are countries where you don't even have to submit an income declaration if your only income is from employment and your interest income e.g. from bank accounts is below the tax-free threshold; in those countries you only do that if you have deductions for which you can get a refund that are not taken into account when income tax is deducted at source. This used to be the case in Germany, but isn't anymore; nowadays everyone who has an income above a (low) threshold must submit a declaration.

[Jonlang]

Does the whole of Europe use a PAYE system for income tax?

I don't know the rules for every country, but a lot of Europaen countries use deduction at source for income from employment. There are countries where you don't even have to submit an income declaration if your only income is from employment and your interest income e.g. from bank accounts is below the tax-free threshold; in those countries you only do that if you have deductions for which you can get a refund that are not taken into account when income tax is deducted at source. This used to be the case in Germany, but isn't anymore; nowadays everyone who has an income above a (low) threshold must submit a declaration.

So Germany used to have a PAYE-like system but now doesn't? That seems very odd for a country which is generally regarded as being efficient and progressive.

[doctor shark]

Does the whole of Europe use a PAYE system for income tax?

I don't know the rules for every country, but a lot of Europaen countries use deduction at source for income from employment. There are countries where you don't even have to submit an income declaration if your only income is from employment and your interest income e.g. from bank accounts is below the tax-free threshold; in those countries you only do that if you have deductions for which you can get a refund that are not taken into account when income tax is deducted at source. This used to be the case in Germany, but isn't anymore; nowadays everyone who has an income above a (low) threshold must submit a declaration.

So Germany used to have a PAYE-like system but now doesn't? That seems very odd for a country which is generally regarded as being efficient and progressive.

I mean, the Netherlands has a deduction at source system, but tax declarations are still compulsory every year (also partly because the Netherlands has an asset tax), and France also required everyone to submit declarations (at least for the two tax years I lived there). Luxembourg is more like the UK in that you normally didn't have to submit a declaration if your sole income was from employment and fell below about €100K (though with some exceptions): out of the six (!) tax years I worked there, I only submitted declarations in three of them.

I think France was one of the last countries to implement a deduction-at-source system, and this was back in 2019.

[Ares Land]

I can confirm, deduction at source is a recent thing here. You still have to submit a declaration, but it's a pretty quick thing. (As it happens, I just submitted mine and it takes about a minute (it's mostly checking what they say they have is all right.)

I preferred the old system, myself, but I'm weird that way.

[hwhatting]

I don't know the rules for every country, but a lot of Europaen countries use deduction at source for income from employment. There are countries where you don't even have to submit an income declaration if your only income is from employment and your interest income e.g. from bank accounts is below the tax-free threshold; in those countries you only do that if you have deductions for which you can get a refund that are not taken into account when income tax is deducted at source. This used to be the case in Germany, but isn't anymore; nowadays everyone who has an income above a (low) threshold must submit a declaration.

So Germany used to have a PAYE-like system but now doesn't?

No, maybe I worded that the wrong way, the deduction at source is still there, it's just that now (almost) everyone has to submit a declaration on top of that - it used to be that you didn't have to if all your income was from one employer and your interest income was below the threshold.

That seems very odd for a country which is generally regarded as being efficient and progressive.

That's what we want other countries to believe. Poke anywhere and you find it's not the case - our government agencies still exchange most information via fax; when you have systems where you can put in data online they then get printed out, put in folders, and put in manually in the IT systems where they have to go because those systems are old and don't have interfaces to the online entry systems... it's a tragedy, and at the same time absolutely ridiculous for people coming from countries where they really understand digitalisation, like Estonia.

[Jonlang]

I'm going to bring back the word fax as in head-hair, animal mane. It's a travesty that this word was allowed to die.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Does it come from a machine?

[Ahzoh]

I'm going to bring back the word fax as in head-hair, animal mane. It's a travesty that this word was allowed to die.

So that's why Gandalf's horse is named Shadowfax...

[alice]

I'm going to bring back the word fax as in head-hair, animal mane. It's a travesty that this word was allowed to die.

So that's why Gandalf's horse is named Shadowfax...

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fax

[alice]

I noticed a strange thing near where I live: a concrete lamp-post had fallen over into the street. The street simply isn't long enough for a vehicle to build up enough speed to knock it over, and if it had, it would have fallen the other way. And since it's right next to a house, it's unlikely it would have been made of dodgy concrete. So unless someone was deliberately hitting it with a sledgehammer or something, what could have happened to it? Aliens with nefarious motives?

[Man in Space]

I had forgotten just how information-rich The Conlanger’s Lexipedia is. zompist, it really is an amazing resource on multiple levels. Thank you for writing it.

[zompist]

I had forgotten just how information-rich The Conlanger’s Lexipedia is. zompist, it really is an amazing resource on multiple levels. Thank you for writing it.

Thank you!

(Is it weird to note that I use my own books as reference? I have to pull it out myself pretty often.)

[MacAnDàil]

I'm going to bring back the word fax as in head-hair, animal mane. It's a travesty that this word was allowed to die.

So that's why Gandalf's horse is named Shadowfax...

Either that or Gandalf had the option of sending an email but refused lest Sauron and his minions intercept with a cyberattack.

[zompist]

I'm going to bring back the word fax as in head-hair, animal mane. It's a travesty that this word was allowed to die.

So that's why Gandalf's horse is named Shadowfax...

I didn't know that either. I always thought it was a weird name!

[hwhatting]

So that's why Gandalf's horse is named Shadowfax...

It has meanwhile been established that Tolkien recorded the name incorrectly.