" If you aren't employed do you still get coverage?"

Of course. Nobody asks about your finances. But you have to pay a little something: Where I live it is 22 euros per doctor visit. Plus of course I pay a lot more in taxes. Then the unemployed person gets a 22 € bill by mail, and if s/he does not have the money, s/he takes it to municipality´s socail services who pay it. So one section of the system pays to another section, but the bill gets payed.

The original rant was really stupid, as PalQ has already realized. I pay VAT (or ALV as it is here) on every single thing I use, so how expensive would it be to have two different systems, one for locals, one for tourists? And how warm feelings towards tourists would that create? When I buy something I don´t get that 22% (as it is here, 17 % for food) back, the tourist does.

I am a freelancer, and when I write a bill I add (always separately, so that is clear just by glancing) 22 % VAT. And if I have that month bought someting WORK-RELATED I can reduce those bill´s VATs from the VATs I have payed that month before I pay to the tax-man the VAT´s that I have charged. Huh, was that a bit unclear?

PalQ
Until you look closely, Sweden has some VAT is well above the 20%-it was over 25% when i lived there.

The idea of VAT was creative in Sweden too. Example: A lawyer's fee is charged to include VAT. Oh yes, this was the VAT of 25% too.

There are a lot of states in the US wants to start VAT instead of Sales Tax. VAT is the worst idea a customer would want.

An example of California. If the sales tax is about 8% people really complain if this shifts the tax up to 9%. Each time a person buys something, he remains that this tax used to be 8% and now it's over 1% more. It keeps people from forgetting this up-change. In fact, at elections, the politician might get dumped for this shift in prices.

But, the VAT complains for a week or two and then everyone forgets. Certainly the politician is happy. He'll have new monies to spend and people stopped complaining.

So, when they try to pass in California, go ahead and sign up the VAT.

Blackduff

I'm a freelancer in Germany, so I can claim back the 16% VAT on anything work related e.g car, computers.

I don't pay into the social fund so I have a private health policy at about 140 Euro per month

I had a similar experience to many in the UK, my 6 month old took ill while visiting and we went to the doctor. I haven't paid in to the Natioanl Insurance scheme for over 16 years and after the consultation with the doctor, they wouldn't charge me, despite the fact I said I had private health care.

The doctor gave me a prescription for about 4 items and even at the pharmacy they wouldn't accept payment as they said all patients under 16 years are free for any medication.

It actually made me feel proud that the UK can still treat people in that way.

Geordie

UK NHS facilities don't really have a proper charging mechanism for healthcare, nor is it within their culture or work processes to act as gatekeepers to care. if you need emergency care, just go to the A&E and you will be seen.

I just went Thursday for another round of travel immunizations due to travel to less taxed parts of the world. It occurs to me that I may find some financial benefit from a healthy Europe, even though I may not be using the actual health facilities. Shots and malaraia meds and the like sure are expensive.

I may not be using the health and social services that European citizens may have available to them but they've set it up so that I may help pay for it. And why not? The locals did, after all, approve the rules to assist themselves, while creating an environment you still wished to visit, even with you knowing the rules that were in place. Brilliant, don't you think, for all the low tax vacation spots in the world you might have opted for instead?

Beyond the right or wrong of it, I do feel a taxpayer, local or visitor, can't possibly agree with all the uses applied to his money. Almost always that feeling is applied to the services he can't or won't use, regardless of how much it's used by others. But as tourists, we do use plenty of services ourselves - most of which are not called upon in the same frequency by locals within that 2 week stretch:

- Police availability for the duration of your stay, should you need it. Wouldn't want to show proof of residency in order to get that service, would we? At the very least, they've pushed the crime back to the burbs for you.
- Same with fire brigade, should you unexpectedly burst into flame during your stay. Or your hotel does (few locals asleep in there...)
- Air Safety inspectors, airport employees for airport readiness and your plane's safe touchdown
- Taxi regulators for your trip to the hotel
- Business licensing in the attempt to keep you from working with shady operators. Not always successfully.
- Health inspectors for restaurants and hotels. Osso Buco AND piece of mind.
- Public transportation subsidies so we can feel like we're living like the locals. Yes, the same locals who voted that we could pay taxes along with them. hehe. See? They do like us.
- Museums and most tourist places are usually heavily subsidized by tax. Especially the ones sought out as "off the path".
- And off again home. The euro version of the EPA still on the ground, discussing mitigation of the pollution left in our jet wake as we lift off and wave farewell.

So, we probably do cash out on <i>some</i> of that $400...

so what, wombat

As to hbrandt - I think that was a touch uncalled for!

well, PalQ posted his opinion about being ripped off with EU VAT. Even more, he complained about everything being so expesive in Europe, and even more, no free refills on coffee available.

So my answer was, why don´t you stay home, as an average All-American would tell me the same thing if I would start complaining about the American way.

If I would start complaining about your country, wombat, well, I think they charge taxes there too, and it isn´t there as cheap as in, well, where are most people poor, maybe Thailand or the Philippines - your answer would be the same: Just don´t come here, if you don´t like it, we don´t need you.

PalQ´s whining on high European wages is really disgusting, for me at least, if you know about the background of the posters here - just see these posts, about luxury hotels and restaurants. well, I do not envy other people, but as I have to work for the money I can spend, I do not complain about other people doing the same as I do. Or do you go into a shop and tell the attendent: This here is too expensive because your pay is much too high? Not more than once, I suppose.

PalQ´s post is, what in German is called Herrenreiterstandpunkt or Gentleman Rider´s point of view.

If I am wrong, if the general opinion is, that tourists shall be exempt of taxes and people working in the service shall do it for free, just for some visitor´s savings, just tell me about this.

You already pay VAT in the states if you buy gasoline or cigarettes. People do forget what percentage of their money is going to tax, the same as they forget how much services are being supplied. Human nature to do so, but it's not hidden from people.

And even if I am presented with the cost of the tax separately, it's not like that still provides me the &quot;real&quot; cost of the item. It's still an arbitrary figure, with all sorts of incidental company costs, variable profits and just whatever the market will bear. It's just a number that reflects what it's going to cost me to walk out of the store with it, minus a math calculation that has to be done at the checkout. To the manufacturer, it makes sense - leave him out of it and his goods look more affordable. We can beef with the gov't while we may not set the item back down once we've gotten all the way to the register with it. Yet HIS taxes are built into that product, aren't they? Meaning we're double taxed when you get right down to it... his and ours. But I'm thinking that he doesn't want that broken out anywhere on the receipt. Curious the differences in places, fun to analyze.

I have the perfect (American) expression for this...

suck it up!

&quot;if i get sick in Europe i don't get free health care though maybe i should because i'm paying the VAT - these are benefits i don't get to use.&quot;

Have you ever gotten sick in Europe? I did and was charged 50 euros to see a specialist (in France) and less than 3 euros for the antibiotics he prescribed. If my US doctor says hello, you're doing fine, come back in six months, in a 3 minute OV it's $175 and when I do need a prescription it's a small fortune.

PalQ´s whining on high European wages is really disgusting, for me at least

another case of reading something into what i didn't say - you may have thought i was criticizing high wages but no, i'm in favor of a very very high minimum wage and feel wait people, etc should get a decent living wage and benefits - like i said i only wish the US had these things.
You can attack me for some things i said but not for things i did not say - i was merely explaining, not lamenting the reasons for, $3-4 cups of coffee. And when i pay that much for coffee i do not regret in the least the decent 'living' wage the store clerks, wait people get, etc. Sorry you thought i felt that way.

PalQ, your statement was

&quot;Have a coffee in a cafe and it's often 20% or higher - one reason, along with higher wages and benefits paid to wait people that coffee costs $3-4 a cup in Europe (and no free refills!)&quot;

so, when I have mistaken you, it was my fault.

when you say

&quot;another case of reading something into what i didn't say - you may have thought i was criticizing high wages but no, i'm in favor of a very very high minimum wage&quot;

I would still not agree concisely to you. But you continue

&quot;and feel wait people, etc should get a decent living wage and benefits&quot;

this is what I feel. Those people earn a wage they can live on in a comparable way above a minimum wage.

PalQ, if I have mistaken you, I ask your very pardon.


Maybe this approach is helpful: Consider taxes to be similar as the weather - you have to live with it. Well, an umbrella maybe sometimes helpful, but you cannot change it.

Oh, and the cup of coffee: You can get one (no refills, I admit) at places like bakeries or places where they sell coffee for a good price. Consider also to visit places like university cafeterias for the same reason.

When you sit and have a magnificent view on a place, a landscape, beazutiful buildings, you just pay your rent for this place and you even get some coffee with it.

Also, there is a fairy tale of a century ago, when you could sit for hours, for days in a Viennese cafe, with your cup of coffee and a glass of water. you even got another glass of water from time to time.

wombat,

PalQ explained to me his point of view.

I asked him for his very pardon, if I had mistaken him.

So, please consider my post commeting your post as inexistent. Thank you very much.

hhildebrandt: I don't begrudge the price of coffee or restaurants because i feel the wait person is getting a decent wage - unlike in the US where the minimum wage in many places is an incredible $5.15 (4 euros) an hour - not even enough hardly to buy a cup of coffee here in a Starbucks.
And though i'd buy a lot more cups of coffee in Europe if the price were a bit lower I do cherish the European cafe or caffe idea and do like to sit there and oogle the passing parade. But as Fodorites go, i believe i travel necessarily on an extremely low budget this is one pleasure i must often pass up. But make no mistake and i can see how you would have read my coffee comment as my lamenting high salaries - the contrary is true - in the US i'd gladly pay more at places where currently wait people either get minimum wage (fast food places) or in cheap restaurants where they have to hope for tips. As a committed socialist i'm always for raising the minimum way to a 'living' wage.

Everybody pays VAT. The tourists can have part of it reimbursed. Who gets ripped off? The locals.

When Europeans come to the US, can they get any tax refund?

In some places in the US the locals can have discount admission to the museums. Who gets ripped off?

By the way, if you listen to that money lady who tells on TV how to manage your finances, Suzie Orman, she thinks the whole travel business is a rip-off and she's against all kinds of travels.

So let's not travel not to get ripped off :))

PalQ

now I see your point. You are against a taxation on consumation, as it is unjust, consifereing the fact, that poor consume most of their income, rich just a little part of it. So, the real thing is taxation of income and an added one on property.

Remember George Henry, who said, a single tax on the raise of real estate value would be sufficent?

Taxes on consumption, as the ones on tobacco, spirits, gasoline (these are real discrimiating and never indicated) and VAT are easy to collect and easy to administrate.

Income tax is more complicated, and a tax on your personal property or wealth even more. It has been said in Germany, that a Verm&ouml;gensteuer (tax on wealth or better property) would have an administrative cost nearls as high as its revenue; German taxation laws are known to be complicated.

So, a tax on consumption is every minister of the revenue´s darling. And it will be even more so in future.

I've also heard in the case of Italy that the high VAT and petrol taxes were in part because of the Italians reluctance to pay their income taxes thru whatever means - under the table work, etc. and that the petrol tax and VAT was one way of insuring everyone paid - i don't know whether this is true or not and was explained to me quite a few years ago.