the funny thing is actual ability to pay is varying from business to business. AAA development with in-house engine is simply inferior as a business compared to mobile gamedev or producing shitty battle royale clones with Unity. If some business can't compete with big tech or low-effort money grabbers, does it mean it has to go?

Right… to get at that wealth through taxes you would need a wealth tax or a tax on corporate profits along with outlawing stock buy backs.

No, you just need to prohibit forming 1-man holding companies. Want to have shares? Write them to your own name, not to a shell company's name. That's a first step to get this income at least tied to individual. Or get a hedge fund license, which ultra-rich will do, but they will find a way in any system other than full commie madness.

That’s not how a progressive taxes work.

I know perfectly well how progressive taxes work. In majority of cases bonus from employer will be taxed at source at higher tax rate regardless what you plan to spend it to. Even if your plans for these money would be fully deductible, you will still need to have spare cash to cover planned expenses until you get a refund. In case of wealthy person, there's a privilege to optimize your spending first and report/pay taxes later simply because there's no taxation at source involved.

Well, yes which is why I said I support sovereign wealth funds. That is the state owns portions of companies directly in the same way other shareholders do. This cuts out the wealthy people entirely.

No, it doesn't unless you propose nationalization. Even if shares in publicly-listed companies will be bought in some way said fund it's still possible to have billions in privately-held company. You can't get something that is not for sale unless you decide to rob.

So you support lowering incoming taxes and raising taxes on dividends, capital gains, royalties?

What I'm proposing is irrelevant, the topic was who is paying for European social security. And my point is that it's paid by poor and middle class, since they have no freedom in optimizing and planning their income. You can have tax brackets up to 99%, it's absolutely irrelevant before a discussion what is subject to this tax. However, works well for populism reasons.

Uhh… yeah we should close that loopholes, right? Even if we didn’t close that loophole I still think its a much better system for healthcare than in the US

It's not a loophole, it's perfectly normal to have a paying job along with your other income sources. If these other income sources would've been subject for same tax brackets as job income, there wouldn't be a problem.
US healthcare is a scam which siphons insane amount of money simultaneously from government and people, I don't think there's any valid argument in favor of it.

Not all that familiar with these kinds of tax dodging schemes within in the EU. But US corporations do similar things with the Cayman Islands.

Corporations could be established everywhere, corporate tax rate is another topic. In EU it's possible to dodge taxes on your personal income, not corporate, which is not the case for US citizens.

Perhaps that is how things are but how should things be?

Again, how things should be is another topic, my original point is that high income taxes and tax brackets with what currently considered as income is cheap populism to shaft middle class. When applied to wealthy people this will catch a few exceptional individual performers like sports players which have no case in declaring their individual ability as company activity (ironically, only on "salary" part of their income - brand deals and royalties will be optimized into oblivion).

As of what would be fair... Removing VAT, eliminating 1-man holding companies to get assets to individual's name then doing same tax rate and get any income to be subject for same tax brackets and social security contributions as everyday man's salary. Regarding taxation at source and deductions for individuals... well, that would be also fair, but it is operational nightmare.

this "overly simplistic comment" has everything you need and more, but I'll bite.

1. Wealthy people own companies. Companies are perfect tool for accumulating wealth, since you can reinvest profits forever and pay income tax (corporate rate) only on stuff you intend to extract to your own name, which is usually not much compared to total amount of generated income. Private person, on the other hand, is taxed on whole income and may qualify for usually laughable deductions. Got huge bonus from your job at the end of the year and plan to get few months off work to "invest in yourself" and learn a new trade? Tough luck, buddy, you are "rich" now - welcome to higher tax bracket, government will take their cut first and let's see what you'll be able to afford with what's left.

2. VAT is a scam to fuck people who have to spend their income for actual living. If you live paycheck to paycheck you'll end up paying VAT on your whole income.

3. Wealthy people don't get their income in salary, salary is for working class. Dividends, capital gains, royalties - in any jurisdiction it's possible to find something which will be less severe than income tax, which is also often not progressive or capped at something like 20%. Social security contributions are easily bypassed by employing yourself as CEO for minimal salary. Boom - now you have same healthcare as people who have to pay great chunk of their whole paycheck for it.

4. If we restrict ourselves to EU citizens and your particular country is really anal or maybe 20% or something tax is too much for you anyway - you are free to move to Cyprus, Malta or Switzerland, which will have 0% capital gains if you meet not too tough conditions. Or "move", you just have to get a residence there to declare as your primary one and be present at least sometimes - there's no border control, it's really hard to track if you spent there more than half a year for tax residency purposes, this is usually a matter of long legal battles and you won't even get into that territory if you're not doing anything too bizarre.
   This is a biggest difference with US citizens, they can't benefit from tax havens because of their passport, IRS doesn't care and is good equipped with lots of info, so US guys are left with real shady stuff with nominees and cash or traditional buy-borrow-die, which is sustainable only for ultra-rich.

I'm living and doing business in EU and it took me quite a lot of time to get from nothing into the position where I can utilize at least some of the benefits of the above - but you have to be completely fucking blind to not see that it's rigged and tax burden on people who don't try to game the system is completely disproportional.

• paid by middle class, which cannot afford tax evasion.

Wealthy people in Europe don't pay shit. It's much easier than in the US, where only ultra-wealthy don't pay shit.

yeah, in a few well-marketed cities you usually find on postcards. "Europe has great public transportation, I was in Munich last week...", right, because whole continent = one city.
In majority of the cities and countryside it's either get a car or get fucked.

that's just because the USSR ruined them...

Germans still pay solidarity tax lil bro... USSR was one of the most talented entities in fucking up entire countries for decades to come, politburo was producing most vile, scheming and backstabbing ruling class ever to imagine. The very same people were running privatization and scraping all the social security programs in place, your boys from the West in Yeltsin's team were simply lacking and couldn't keep up.