Comment by nickpp

> i guess you're on benefits?

Actually I've been lucky to practice what I preach all my life. Early in my career I realized that salaried employment is a rip-off: you pay through your nose for an illusion of safety and stability you don't want nor need. So I embraced risk and switched to contracting.

Having leftover income this way, I looked into investing. That's when I realized that being financially prudent, saving and investing was actually punished in the USA, taxwise, while borrowing and spending was encouraged. So I left the USA and returned to Eastern Europe.

Understanding that selling your time is much worse than selling a product drove me to entrepreneurship. Luck threw a little success my way and turned me financially independent.

Now I am semi-retired living from investments and small gigs and spending time with my family. My tax rate (income only, not consumption or VAT) is well under 20% on most of my income. I didn't do any effort to optimize it further, but I could if I must. I actually do not mind paying taxes, but I do respond to incentives and I am not afraid to relocate.

> If you manage to get rich enough to be able to optimize your taxation

Actually I did a little research and you don't need to be rich, you can do that with very little money. But then the gains for a few percent reduction aren't that great anyway so...

> you pay more taxes overall than people holding a few companies

I probably do, but I don't mind it. I think the rich are a net positive to our society because capitalism ensures they contribute to the society orders of magnitude more than they manage to keep. Also I lived under communism pre-1990 in a world without rich and I've seen how bad it is.