This is misleading. It's actually taxing 36% of _assumed gains_ of say 5% on all assets. So if you have $1M in savings, you'll end up paying 1.8% or $18K/annum, regardless of the actual investment return. I can see it would be painful during down years, but most of the time it would be ok.

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tasuki 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

No, that's not ok.

Many years ago, a friend of mine in the Netherlands had the same job as another guy, earning the same money, my friend being extremely thrifty, the other guy splurging. When they both found themselves out of a job at the same time, my friend got no support from the government as he had savings, while the other guy started getting a very generous allowance.

This goes directly against all that is reasonable. This is directly discouraging financial responsibility. My friend is thrifty just for the sake of it, he knows it's not in his interest. But he gets the short end.

	▲	retired an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Correct. If you go over €38.478 in savings, you immediately lose your renters benefit. No taper, just a hard drop-off. You can lose up to €5.000 in renters benefit a year. A legal tax avoidance is to just buy a €1000 TV if you are near the limit. Yes that is as crazy as it sounds but people do it.
	▲	rjh29 an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Same situation in the UK. Even a modest amount of savings (a few months of your salary) is enough to disqualify you from the majority of benefits, childcare etc.

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retired 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That is the current system. In the new system it will be 36% on all capital gains, no more assumed gains. And an €1800 a year tax-free threshold.

Also it's a bit more, right now you are looking at 36% on 6% or 2.16% per year with a €59k threshold. So a bit over €20k a year on that €1M.

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tasuki 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Actually that makes more sense? If you lose money on your investments, I suppose you can write it off next time?

	▲	retired 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You can write it off against future capital gains, but not against income tax from employment. So if the market is down a few years, you gain a lot of tax credits and you pray that the government doesn't get rid of those credits in the mean time.