Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:a license to watch TV? That makes no sense. Are you pulling my leg?

As for the flat tax, I am not sure I agree with that. 20% for someone who earns $20,000 a year is a much bigger bite out of the paycheck than it is for someone who earns $100,000 a year. Doesn't seem fair when it's for necessities. I have no problem taxing luxuries, eating out, junk food, clothes over a certain price point, cars etc. But a poor person shouldn't have to pay a big tax on milk, cheese and meat.

It's not a much bigger bite of the paycheck. It's still 20% no matter how you slice it.

Earn 20k? You pay in $4k
Earn 100k? You pay in $20k

I think it's rather fair. A much fairer system than we have here in the US wear low-income workers pay net negative tax, and very high income earners - depending on whether or not most of their income is long-term capital gains or investor - pays a very low % of taxes. It's everyone in the middle that pays most of the revenue into the system.

You really want someone who earns 20K to pay 4K in taxes? So they have to live off $16,000 per year?

Anonymous wrote:a license to watch TV? That makes no sense. Are you pulling my leg?

As for the flat tax, I am not sure I agree with that. 20% for someone who earns $20,000 a year is a much bigger bite out of the paycheck than it is for someone who earns $100,000 a year. Doesn't seem fair when it's for necessities. I have no problem taxing luxuries, eating out, junk food, clothes over a certain price point, cars etc. But a poor person shouldn't have to pay a big tax on milk, cheese and meat.

It's not a much bigger bite of the paycheck. It's still 20% no matter how you slice it.

Earn 20k? You pay in $4k
Earn 100k? You pay in $20k

I think it's rather fair. A much fairer system than we have here in the US wear low-income workers pay net negative tax, and very high income earners - depending on whether or not most of their income is long-term capital gains or investor - pays a very low % of taxes. It's everyone in the middle that pays most of the revenue into the system.

Anonymous wrote:Erasmus program. It's an EU program where you can study at other schools in the EU and pay only a fixed fee equivalent to your local tuition at your home country. In many European countries, university education is free or very heavily subsidized.

This is not correct, is not the Erasmus program. There is an EU law that states that students from outside the country cannot be charged more in tuition than students from within the country. For this reason Scottish universities cannot charge students from the rest of the EU more than students from Scotland.

The loophole is that England, Wales and Northern Ireland are all part of the United Kingdom along with Scotland. The EU law does not therefore apply to them, since they are counted as being from the same country, so the Scottish Universities can (and do) charge them much more than they could charge the Scots or the other Europeans.

Anonymous wrote:I've just spent some time looking at the college forum and talk about how to afford college on college confidential, holy moly! I think I'd prefer to just pay more in taxes, and have everyone else pay more in taxes, and have free college.

We almost do here. First, remember that at most univerisities, 70%+ of all students receive some form of financial aid. Second, at the state level, we do have nearly-free universities, just like in Europe they do at the country-level. I like living in MD, but one thing I miss about living in VA is our kids could go to top schools like UVA and Virginia Tech on in-state tuition. UVA is $6200/semester in-state, which is not $0 of course, but when you add in financial aid, it's quite affordable especially for the high quality of education they offer.

I've just spent some time looking at the college forum and talk about how to afford college on college confidential, holy moly! I think I'd prefer to just pay more in taxes, and have everyone else pay more in taxes, and have free college.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's a license to own a tv, not to watch it.

No, it's a license to watch the programming. You don't need one to simply play DVDs, for instance.

Yep, second poster is right, and this is coming from someone currently living in the uk. You need a license to watch any live broadcast television, even if its on the computer. So for instance the BBC airs everything online simultaneously to the television airing, you need a Tv license to watch that, but not if you watch the programme online after it's finished airing live.

As for Scotland's tuition, I bet its a bit of comparing apples and oranges. Erasmus is the equivalent of taking a semester abroad, I expect most Uk students doing a semester abroad are going to want to go a little further than Scotland. So the Uk students the article is talking about are full time degree-seeking students, thus they're paying the non Scotland national fee. I'm sure there are also EU students paying this rate thus why it says "many" EU students, not "all"

Anonymous wrote:It's a license to own a tv, not to watch it.

No, it's a license to watch the programming. You don't need one to simply play DVDs, for instance.

Anonymous wrote:Here's an example. My friend has a company in the EU and if he wants his employee to receive 1,000 euros a month in his pocket (after tax), the total cost to the employer is about 1,700 euros due to all the taxes and so on.

Hmmm. Don't we have to do about the same to account for income tax, FICA, etc.?