Welcome to International Economics!

Welcome to the International Economics Wiki! This is a page created by the students of Mr. Cory Wanek's

CoryPic

Economics class at Waukesha County Technical College and Ms. Corina Horn's students at the Hans Boechler Schule in Frankfurt Germany.

This page is created to discuss the different taxes that are paid in each country.

also welcome you from Germany!!! If you would like to take a look at our school, you may click on
http://www.schulserver.hessen.de/frankfurt/hans-boeckler/
Corina Horn

corinaklein.jpg

Tax-Chris

Hello. My name is Chris and I also want to welcome you from Germany. I am one of the spokespersons of the topic: taxes.

First of all a short introduction of myself:

name: Christopher Witte
age: 20
nationality: german
occupation: traineeship as a tax-clerk at Strätz & Partner (http://www.straetz-partner.de)
more information about the traineeship (english version) http://www.bibb.de/en/ausbildungsprofil_2296.htm

I want to discuss with you the income tax. This is a very big topic. Because of this I want to split the whole thing in smaller parts to discuss the diffrences and parallels.

The first question is: Who has to pay income tax?

Mary L

Hello. My name is Mary Lawman. I am in the instructional assistant program at WCTC in the U.S.

Short introduction of myself:
I am 25 years old and I am a single mother with three kids. I go to school part-time and work part-time.
I currently work at a day care center.

To answer your question, I think pretty much anybody who gets a pay check or any money has to pay income tax. I need to check that out more.

**There are personal exemptions and other exemptions (i.e. if you have children). The personal exemption is about $7000 and additional exemptions (for each child) is $3,300. Most individuals don't pay income taxes unless they earn about $15,000. All workers pay payroll tax (social security) of 7.65% for the first $90,000 earned. After that amount it is only 1.45%. The employer must match these taxes.

There are other exemptions such as if you own a house (the mortgage interest is not taxed).
I, Cory, have a business on the side. All expenses for the business are exempt from taxes (including payroll taxes). This includes the cost of my home office and the miles I drive on my car. But I must pay self-employment tax for my business income (up to $90,000) of 15.3% - CAN YOU TELL ME WHY? - This is in addition to any income tax.**

Tax-Chris - !!! Information to all members !!!

To follow the history of our discussion more easy we should write our name and the topic on the top of every article we edit. Thank you.

Tax-Chris - Who has to pay income tax in Germany?

To answer this question I tried to figure out the most important criteria.

The income tax law distinguishes beetween limited (1) and unlimited (2) tax liability.

(1) Inividuals whose domicil or habitual abode is outside Germany are subject to limited tax liability. -> parts of their is taxable

(2) Inividuals whose domicil or habitual abode is in Germany are subject to unlimited tax liability. -> Their entire income is taxable

more information is coming soon

Sana

Hi my name is Sandra and I also want to introduce myself:

name: Sandra Lehmann
age: 22
nationality: spanish/german
occupation: traineeship as a tax-clerk at Wedding & Partner (http://www.wedding-partner.de)
more information about the traineeship (english version) http://www.bibb.de/en/ausbildungsprofil_2296.htm

I want to take part at the topic income tax too.

My question is:
Where do you have to pay your income tax? (In each state or for the whole United States)
And do you have diffrent percentage rates for each state?

In the U.S. all citizens must pay the Federal Income tax no matter where they live (as long as they earned enough money). Some states such as ours, Wisconsin, have a state income tax. Ours is about 7%. Others such as Florida don't. So people with high incomes, such as Tiger Woods, have moved to Florida to not have to pay these taxes.

Tax-Chris, Sana - Where is income tax payed in Germany?

Here in Germany you have to pay the income tax only where you live at. It doesn´t matter in which district you work at.

Class 10S06B

Dear International Economics, we are a little disappointed about the whole situation here at wikidot. We only had two weeks to have our online exchange with you. It seems to us that you are not interrested on this. We´ve written a couple of articles and questions but received no answer. If it´s possible please let us know something about your tax system so that we can discuss it in class.

Anyway we wish you nice holiday´s and we are looking forward to hear from you!

Firstlady

Hallo my name is Nadia, first of all a short introduction of myself
name: Nadia Bousrouf
age: 20
nationality: maroccain
occupation: traineeship as a tax-clerk at DBB Data for more information (www.dbbdata.de)
hobbies: meet frieds, relax in the sun and i love it to eat=)
Thats me!

I am really curious of your answers, because I have a lot of questions and I hope you can answer them.
But before I ask my question I will give you a short information how it is in germany, so we can compare it with your system. In germany we have a progressive tax system. Till 410€ you can earn without paying taxes.
Do you have something similar or maybe something especially for students?
Students need all the money they can get their hands on - and one of the easiest ways students can waste money is by paying too much tax.
Do students pay tax on all they income?

Hi, This is Jim from WCTC in the U.S.. I believe if you have a family with 4 kids and make under $40,000 you don’t have to pay taxes.

For the chart…
1. Wage income (How much you make)
2. Allowable deductions
3. Taxable income
4. Income tax

$40,000 $200,000
$8,450 $51,430
$31,550 $148,570
$4,445 $46,725

The more you make the higher % of tax you will pay. The top 10% of income earners in the U.S. with incomes above $251,400 will pay 56.2% of their income in federal taxes as of 2006. So if you make $255,000 in income, you pay $143,310 in federal taxes.

Just about everyone has to pay taxes unless you aren’t doing well off. So it all depends on much income you make for what level of tax bracket you will be in. Students have to pay taxes too

Though they can deduct some of their school expenses.

Tammy2007

You don´t have to pay for tax,when you recieve a gift under 35 € (47 US$)here in Germany. How about it in your country?

In the US any individual can give or receive a gift up to $11,000 a year without any tax consequences!

Aki

How many % is corporation Tax in your country ? In Germany is 25 %.

The rate depends on the income of the company. Here is a site with the information
http://www.smbiz.com/sbrl001.html

Nathalie

Hi, my name is Nathalie Löw and I´m 18 years old. I´m in a traineeship as a tax-clerk since september 2006.

At first I have a question about the VAT in the USA. Is there the same VAT in each state of the USA or exist different VAT for each state. In Germany we have two different VAT. One about 7% and another about 19%. 7% VAT you pay for things you need for living, for example food. But for 19% VAT you pay for all the other things.

In the US we don't have VAT. We do have sales tax in most states. But that tax varies from state to state. Here in Wisconsin it is 5.5%. In Illinois it is 6.25%. In Chicago it is over 8%! In Wisconsin there is no sales taxes for food (unless it is in a restaurant) or medicine or other necessities. But the tax is always added at the time of purchase. If I buy some shoes and the price on the rack says $100 when I check out the cost will be $105.50. Sales taxes are not include in the price. This becomes quite confusing to those from outside the US. All taxes are included in the price of gasoline though.

Hi. I'm Matt. Um an example of taxes that I have is how much they took out of my pay check. I make $8.10 an hour and worked 18.40 hours this last week. That equals $164.11 including sunday premium. The Federal With houlding this check was $11.31. The Federal MED/EE was $2.38. The Federal OASDI/EE was $10.17. And the Wisconsin withholding was $4.01. This leaves me with a check of $136.24 for the week.

Firstlady

Prices in Germany “cellphone tariffs”

Tariffs:

O2 Genion
Basic charge per month: 21,25€ Cellphone: incl. for 1,00€
Terminalconnection:21,95€ Contract duration: 24 Months
Fixed-line network per minute: 0,00€
In other mobile networks: 0,19€
Mailbox checkback: 0,00€

BASE
Basic charge per month: 25,00€ Cellphone: incl. for 1,00€
Terminalconnection:25,00€ Contract duration: 24 Months
Fixed-line network per minute: 0,00€
In other mobile networks: 0,25€
Mailbox checkback: 0,00€

T-Mobile
Basic charge per month: 35,00€ Cellphone: without cellphone
Terminalconnection:25,00€ Contract duration: 24 Months
Fixed-line network per minute: 0,00€
In other mobile networks: 0,29€
Mailbox checkback: 0,00€

Vodafone
Basic charge per month: 34,95€
Cellphone: without cellphone
Terminalconnection:24,95€ Contract duration: 24 Months
Fixed-line network per minute: 0,00€
In other mobile networks: 0,29€
Mailbox checkback: 0,00€

I especially represent BASE, because that’s my favourite. All my friends have got Base and of course me, too. So I can talk everywhere I am with my friends. And I can talk a lot=)
In Germany you pay 25€ and you can phone into the fixed-line network in Germany and to all people who have base or e-plus, the SMS is for free, too. To all other networks you have to pay 0,25€ and for SMS 0,19€. Including 19 % turnover tax.

Connection from Germany to foreign countries
Fare zone Minutenpreis*
EU-Countries: 0,69€
USA: 0,69€
Rest of the World: 1,79€

Including 25 % turnover tax, because that is affected by the european (EU) tax law.

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 License.