Zen and the Art of the Six-Figure Linux Job (IT Management)

Posted Oct 1, 2008 7:02 UTC (Wed) by ekj (guest, #1524)
Parent article: Zen and the Art of the Six-Figure Linux Job (IT Management)

These are US-positions only, no ?

Over here there's nothing special about a job paying 6 figures (measured in usd), for someone with a bachelor in a technical field entry-level jobs generally pay from $70K upwards. $100K to $150K jobs would be about the average for someone with 5-10 years experience.

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Posted Oct 1, 2008 8:43 UTC (Wed) by niner (subscriber, #26151) [Link] (17 responses)

where is this "over here"?

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Posted Oct 1, 2008 8:58 UTC (Wed) by ekj (guest, #1524) [Link] (16 responses)

Over "here" is in my case Norway. We're kind of a special case I guess, top-salaries aren't specacularily high here (if you're a CEO you're better off financially in many other countries, including USA)

But we've got low wage-differences and a high average wage, thus the poorer you are relatively speaking, the better off you are in Norway.

The CEO probably gets poorer if he takes a job here. The McDonald burgerflipper, on the other hand, probably triples his/her pay by doing the same.

One could say, it's harder to earn a $300K/year in Norway. But it's much easier to earn $75K/year, if that makes sense.

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Posted Oct 1, 2008 9:26 UTC (Wed) by djao (guest, #4263) [Link] (4 responses)

Be mindful that Norway has much higher taxes than the United States, so you need a much higher pre-tax income to get the same level of after-tax income. By taxes I mean not only income taxes but your total tax burden, including the dreadful VAT which is a totally foreign concept to Americans.

In general, direct comparison of incomes across different countries and currencies is very difficult, because you do get more government services in exchange for your higher taxes, and the cost of living etc. is also very different.

VAT

Posted Oct 1, 2008 9:35 UTC (Wed) by simonckenyon (guest, #41836) [Link] (2 responses)

"including the dreadful VAT which is a totally foreign concept to Americans"

you call it "sales tax"

VAT vs. sales tax

Posted Oct 1, 2008 9:50 UTC (Wed) by djao (guest, #4263) [Link] (1 responses)

There is a significant practical difference between VAT and sales tax. The VAT system provides an economic incentive for businesses to collect the tax. For this reason, the tax rates for VAT can be well higher than anything that the public would tolerate in a sales tax. No country in the world has a sales tax higher than 10% -- it is unenforceable and leads to widespread tax evasion. But many countries do have VAT rates higher than 10%, including some countries like Canada which have a combined VAT (GST) and sales tax (PST).

My point was that taxes in Norway are high. In making this point, the distinction between VAT and sales tax is very important, because sales taxes simply cannot get as high as a VAT.

VAT vs. sales tax

Posted Oct 3, 2008 21:33 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

I don't know that "VAT provides an economic incentive for businesses to collect the tax". I think it's just that it makes evasion far harder.

In the UK, sales tax was collected at the point of retail sale. Business-to-business transactions were "exempt". So if, as a consumer, you could pretend to be a business, you could dodge the tax. Now that VAT is accounted for at EVERY STAGE of the transaction, you can only dodge it through fraud.

Either you're not registered for VAT and you pay it to your suppliers (and you are making so little it's not worth the effort of Customs & Excise to try and collect it off you), or you're registered and have to track it both in and out.

The only way transactions are exempt are either (a) the customer is outside the EU, or (b) the customer is abroad and you have their VAT number so you know they're accounting to their equivalent of Customs & Excise.

Cheers,
Wol

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Posted Oct 1, 2008 10:16 UTC (Wed) by ekj (guest, #1524) [Link]

Sure. That's part of the reason why low and medium earners come out ahead whereas high earners are unlikely to. Taxes are higher, and they are progressive, i.e. you'll pay a higher tax the more you earn. Which hurts those who earn a lot offcourse.

On the flipside a lot of stuff is *included* in your tax that is extra in many other countries, which conversely benefits low and medium earners. For example there's no such thing as health-insurance needed in Norway, full coverage is part of what the taxes cover.

Germany, for example, has somewhat lower taxes, but from your gross is subtracted not only taxes, but also health-insurance, unemployment-insurance, pensions, nursing-insurance etc etc, all of these are non-progressive. (i.e. a flat percentage)

This is getting seriously offtopic though; I was just wondering if the open source job-thing was only for US positions. Seems that it is.

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Posted Oct 1, 2008 9:38 UTC (Wed) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (10 responses)

It's difficult to compare salaries.

In the USA the quality of life per dollar is heavily dependent on what region of the country you live in. In the midwest a person making 45-60 thousand dollars a year can have about the same lifestyle as a person making 120K a year living on either coast. The house I have required me getting a mortgage of about 100K, which modest two bedroom house built in the late 1950's with a largish yard for it's size. A similar house in LA would easily be 3 or 4 times as much.

Also the tax rate matters heavily. If you add up the various different taxes you pay, sales tax, land tax, federal/state/local income taxes, etc etc. I think the average USA person pays about 30-40% of their wages in payments to the government. (average income is $38K, btw. In Norway average income is about $62K, I think.) But each region is different with different levels of state income tax and sales tax and whatnot. Also the more money you make the more taxes you pay. Having to make more money to sustain the same standards of living means you have to pay more income tax. So a person in the poorer parts of Iowa will probably pay 20-30% of their income tax and have a similar standard of living as a person living in San Francisco that would end up paying 50-60% of their wages in taxes.

Then there depends on how much you have to work. Typically speaking paid vacation in the USA, not including national holidays, is about 2-3 weeks out of the year. And hours is 40 hours a week, 5 days a week. Of course IT people tend to let themselves get taken advantage of more then average workers so they tend to work much more hours. I don't know how much vacation time is set up for average working in Norway, but I bet it's better.

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Posted Oct 1, 2008 10:31 UTC (Wed) by ekj (guest, #1524) [Link] (6 responses)

That actually sounds high for USA. Does it include sales-tax ?

My wife and I are fairly average bachelors (me in comuting, she in finance) with a combined gross of about $150K, this is sufficient that our tax-rate is at 28%. I actually don't think that's so ridicolously high when you consider that that rate INCLUDES all the extras like health-insurance etc. (i.e $150K - 28% is what we get in a year)

Housing-prices vary wildly in Norway like elsewhere. In some districts you can get an excellent modern house with a nice yard for perhaps $200K, in other areas like Stavanger where I live you'll need to pay atleast double that.

Working hours are 37.5 hours/week (i.e. 7.5 hours/day). There are 5 weeks of holiday a year. The holidays are actually paid at a sligthly higher rate than your normal pay, trough a historical fluke really. (for your 5 weeks of holiday you get 12% of your gross earnings in the year BEFORE the holiday, which has the main drawback that your first working year is unpaid holiday, but the benefit that this works out as more than normal pay thereafter) (5 weeks is 9.5% of a year, but you get 12% of the salary, plus no taxes are subtracted from the holiday-payment.) There's one week extra holiday pro year for those above 55. (not that that's many in IT)

Nobody who isn't a complete idiot works unpaid overtime. Not even in IT.

I concur. It's really hard to sensibly compare salaries. It depends a lot on WHAT you spend your money on, for example. Some items are much more expensive in Norway compared to USA. Other items are the same cost.

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Posted Oct 1, 2008 11:26 UTC (Wed) by aleXXX (subscriber, #2742) [Link] (1 responses)

> Nobody who isn't a complete idiot works unpaid overtime. Not even in
> IT.

Then at least in Germany we have MANY "complete idiots".

Alex

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Posted Oct 2, 2008 6:16 UTC (Thu) by ekj (guest, #1524) [Link]

Nope.

Germany has poor work-security, high unemployment, weak worker-protection laws and a TERRIBLE development in living-standard the last 20 years or so. (according to Spiegel the average worker earned MORE 20 years ago than they do today when you compensate for inflation)

This gives you as a worker poor leverage. You have to put up with crap if you like it or not, because the alternative may very well be that you're unemployed tomorrow. This is far from idiotic.

The reason it would be idiotic to agree to unpaid overtime in Norway is that the situation is different. Unemployment is essentially nil, worker-protection is strong, and people therefore aren't used to accepting crap, which again means that employers wouldn't even expect you to.

There is -zero- chance you'll lose your job over refusing unpaid overtime. Why would you when 99% of the rest of the workforce would not only refuse it but actually laugh, stand up and leave the room if any employer would even suggest it.

Being let go ain't much of a threat when:

a) You could sue the previous employer for the unpaid overtime and win.

b) You'd have a new job within the month for sure, probably within the week.

c) Your previous employer would have a hell of a time finding someone to replace you, quite possibly your position would be open for months.

(I lived in germany for a few years and my wife is German, I do know the situation there. It's a damn pity is what, and idiots is the last thing I'd call people who are taken advantage of there...)

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Posted Oct 1, 2008 16:40 UTC (Wed) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (3 responses)

> My wife and I are fairly average bachelors (me in comuting, she in finance) with a combined gross of about $150K, this is sufficient that our tax-rate is at 28%. I actually don't think that's so ridicolously high when you consider that that rate INCLUDES all the extras like health-insurance etc. (i.e $150K - 28% is what we get in a year)

Well welcome to the top-end side of the income bracket. How does it feel to be the 'wealthy' folks that the Democrats complain about not paying enough taxes? :)

Taxes are like.. hotels.. If you go to a high end hotel they have charges for everything. Room, room service, television access, internet access, parking, etc etc. Even if your careful you'll easily run up at least 100-200 dollars in extra charges over a weeks time.

So adding up how much you pay in taxes is actually very difficult. Depending on your outlook at life and your view on how finances work then the amount of taxes you perceived you pay can be very different.

30-40 is probably very conservative. I don't know for certain, I am about as far removed from being a accountant as I can get (although my dad was a accountant for many many years)

So...

You get a paycheck.
You get a certain percentage withheld for federal income taxes. And again for State tax.

But then you pay social security taxes. There is a trick to that though... The amount that social security tax you see on your paycheck is only half of what is actually taken out... or more accurately only half of it appears on your paycheck. The government back in the day figured out a marketing scheme were it made it sound like they were forcing your boss to pay for your retirement. "Power to the people" sort of semi-scam. They say, paraphrasing, that your employer has to match your 'contribution' to social security. Well that's all find and dandy sounding, but all it means is that it cost your boss more money to hire you and it costs more give you promotions.

(in fact for you and your wife you may have a income of 150K, but it probably costs closer to 300K to keep you employed, but lots of that doesn't have anything to do with taxes)

So with social security you get half of it taken out of your income pre-paycheck, and then the other half you see is taken out 'post-paycheck' (for lack of a better term).

Then depending on your location there are probably various state and city regulations that require your employer to pay for different things based on the amount of employees they are hiring. (I don't know the details, having never hired anybody) So that is another cost that is taken out of your income that you won't see.

Then you pay sales tax whenever you buy anything. You also have to pay taxes on your mortgage, and then you have to pay taxes on your property. Then you have sales tax on your automobile, and registration taxes, and licensing taxes, etc etc.

Then on top of your income taxes, any money you reinvest into other things you have to pay a second tax when you cash in your investments.

Then if you want to into it further corporations in the USA pay taxes, (which I think Norway is much better about btw) The tax rate for them is about 40%.

Well corporations don't actually pay taxes in a national level. Taxes they pay only affects them negatively on a international basis(causing them to run to other countries in Europe and Asia with much lower tax rates), and maybe raise inflation at a more rapid pace in a national level. However if you only view things in a national level then mostly all it does is cause the corporations to simply mark up their prices to compensate for money they have to pay for the government. They want to maintain their profits and all their competitors are paying the same taxes so it's something that really doesn't affect them in a any noticeable way. (and yes there are lots of games corporations pay to 'get around' paying taxes, but it's just shuffling papers around. They'll have to pay eventually. Just because they don't pay taxes in 2007, doesn't mean that they don't eventually pay for 2007 taxes)

So if a corporate tax is 40% then that means you pretty much have a 40% markup on all goods and services you purchase. So that's a pre-sales sales tax, if you want to look at it that way.

I am no accountant and the whole tax system in the USA is very bewildering, but the government has a tendency to nickel and dime you for every little thing you want to get done.

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Posted Oct 2, 2008 6:08 UTC (Thu) by ekj (guest, #1524) [Link] (2 responses)

You babble. Yet you refrain from reading that to which you are responding.

Hint: We're not in the "top-end side" of anything. "Democrats" aren't relevant to our life. There is nothing "federal" in my life. Nor is the government of USA particularily relevant, except parts of their foreign and trade-policies.

There are no "city regularions", there are no "taxes on my mortgage" (infact the reverse is true, I get a tax deduction equal to 28% of the interest I pay) There are no "social security taxes", nor are there any personal taxes where the employer has to "match" my contributions.

Infact that's the main thing to like about the tax-system here; it's simple. Very very simple. Few exceptions. No nickle-and-diming. You pay tax, that's it. Gross minus tax equals net. (full stop)

The world -- and Lwn -- is bigger than USA. Not *everything* you read here is automatically US-centric, I spesifically said I'm from Norway. Your answer migth have been relevant -- if I was from USA.

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Posted Oct 2, 2008 16:38 UTC (Thu) by jalan (guest, #45659) [Link] (1 responses)

You're misunderstanding drag's use of the word 'you'. Please substitute the word 'one', or 'I' and his intent may be more clear. People (here in the U.S., at least) often use 'you' colloquially when they mean 'people in general' or 'me'. I'm certain he didn't not mean you, ekj, personally.

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Posted Oct 2, 2008 16:55 UTC (Thu) by ekj (guest, #1524) [Link]

Don't think so. When someone says "for you and your wife" I assume they mean you as in the singular, not as in the plural, general, especially when he also included the income-figures I quoted for us.

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Posted Oct 1, 2008 19:47 UTC (Wed) by rahvin (guest, #16953) [Link] (2 responses)

Your tax rates for the US sound way out of wack. Living in the Rocky Mountains I'm in the combined (married) gross income area of about 90k, TurboTax said my effective rate (what I actually paid) for Federal Taxes last year was 11%, tack in a 7% state tax on modified gross after deductions and it's probably 4% effective, a 7% sales tax and 2k a year in property tax, vehicles taxes and other local taxes and I would be shocked if I'm over 20% effective taxes. I'd put my combined total taxation at around 16-18% tops.

Taxation in the US is demonstratively lower than almost every other industrialized nation. Removing medical expenses alone from taxation (no state provided health care) more than likely automatically makes taxes significantly lower than any other nation that does provide health care through the tax system.

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Posted Oct 1, 2008 22:59 UTC (Wed) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link]

It also means that you have to pay for those services yourself. You will know that there is a huge debate about which option is less expensive: state-sponsored or private health care. But the fact is that, in those countries with public health, most people are not willing to give it up.

I think that the best option is probably a combination of the two: private services backed by state services -- that way expensive treatments like transplants are completely subsidized, while those with money can pay for their private care. (For reference, private health insurance with full coverage here in Spain can be as low as 30/month.) But then there is a big risk that public services can slowly rot until only the really poor use them, and then there is little point to them.

Just to avoid going completely off-topic, tech companies here can pay anything between 30k and 60k for a developer with 5-10 year experience, with the average probably around 40k.

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Posted Oct 2, 2008 6:20 UTC (Thu) by ekj (guest, #1524) [Link]

This is true. And it's a great benefit if your income is high -- in USA you get to keep most of it.

In many other countries, taxes are higher, but stuff like healthcare is included. This is the better deal if you're poor/medium income, because taxes tend to be progressive whereas the cost of paying for stuff yourself isn't.

On the other hand low income-tax doesn't help you much if you ain't got much income to start with. Besides, taxes on *low* incomes are low everywhere, it's mainly taxes on higher incomes that vary wildly.