Telegram Isn't for Sale
bloomberg.comFIY: While they claim being hounded back in Russia, and that they will be instantaneously jumped upon by 3 letter services if they were to run there, they were proven to have a huge office there as well as their main server infrastructure.
Another red flag, is that they were never blocked in Russia.
They look suspicious.
Got a source for the first claim?
Second would've been a red flag if the Russian gvmnt would've been routinely blocking other chat systems.
Russian government is routinely blocking other chat systems. LINE, CacaoTalk and WeChat are currently banned.
>LINE, CacaoTalk and WeChat are currently banned.
No they are NOT banned, I just tried Line & WeChat.
Maybe you got lucky with your ISP, or the apps learned to work around the block. My home ISP definitely blocks Line website. There are plenty of news sites reporting on the blocks, such as [1]
[1] http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/08/technology/wechat-blocked-ru...
I have checked blocklist, indeed line.me is blocked[0]. I have tried to run application.
>Got a source for the first claim?
Here:
https://medium.com/@anton.rozenberg/pavel-durov-sued-senior-...
In the very end of the article, there are photos of the Telegraph LLC, the company behind Telegram, just a floor below the currently government owned VKontakte
Re: servers - there are several paragraphs in the middle detailing Telegram's DC move to London. So your server farm claim is still unconfirmed.
Re: the office - from what I gather, they maintain a shell company in Russia that sits in the former Telegram office. The photo merely shows that they may have a large office space, which may have been inherited by this company from their VK split for all we know. I really can't tell from this post if they do any development in their Moscow office.
Their office is in St. Petersburg, not Moscow. Googling for a few minutes will give you plenty of evidence that they do.
The first claim? The "hounded by Russia" one? I'm not familiar with the story, but some quick searching reveals this:
https://www.engadget.com/2017/10/16/telegram-fined-by-russia...
The prime source seems to be founder Durov's social-media posts, retelling his communications to/from regulators.
No, the OP's claim, not theirs.
Re: a huge office & a server farm.
As far as i remember, the only large system that were banned in Russia is Linkedin, because they didn't follow the law to keep data of Russian users on Russian soil.
And given the fact, that vk.com were taken away from Durov by Mr. Sechin (RosNeft CEO), close friend of Mr. Putin, i highly doubt he is in bed with 3 letter service.
Yeah, I agree. Other red flags: he's leaving Russia with 2,000 bitcoins; Julian Assange endorsing Telegram; Telegram popular in Iran (close Russian ally); end of article says that Putin's Kremlin staff uses it. (edit: formatting)
> The locations of his servers are a secret, as are many of the names of his employees, several of whom he’s said are fellow millionaires.
How is that possible? Are the servers behind an onion network?
A service like Cloudflare proxies requests through them, hiding the real servers and their IPs. I expect something like that here.
The public gateways could communicate to some unknown network of servers behind the scenes.
So... Like any other cloud infrastructure?
If the locations of his servers are merely a secret, isn't that just security through obscurity? Isn't that a serious weakness? Or is there a more advanced way his servers are kept secret than merely being a secret?
A common misconception with "Security by Obscurity" is that it's always a bad thing.
It's only a bad thing if the obscurity is critical to the security of what you are protecting. For example if you make your API completely open, but obscure it inside an app and make the domain hard to discover e.g a random string that's obviously not good.
However if you use obscurity as an extra layer in a system that is secured by other means such that removing the obscurity would not have an adverse effect on the security of the system that's fine. Hence there's no reason not to obscure things to make it more difficult for an attacker as long as that's not all your security.
I’d counter that the security benefit may be so small as to underweigh the hassle and bug potential of those obscurities.
... and counter myself by reminding that all computer security is obscurity, just varying levels.
I think, in the end, we do need to measure things :)
You might very well be correct that it's not worth it, but it doesn't counter my point.
But sounds like the entire telegram network could be taken down if the locations of the servers were comprimised. Then the message app wouldn't function anymore, so it wouldn't provide any security.
I guess the issue when your potential adversaries are nation states is that if they know where the servers are and that area is within their jurisdiction they can have your servers shutdown/seized. This obviously kills at least parts of the network, however I don't think it's implied that the network can be compromised as a consequence of this, that would truly be security by obscurity.
Outside of a mesh network or some peer to peer solution this doesn't seem like a problem that's solvable.
I think it is against physical seizure and tampering. A good part of security against that is obscurity, don't you think?
I wasn't just thinking about security against seizure or tampering of messages, but rather that since the servers could be taken down if discovered by a powerful adversary, then the network would no longer be functional. So it is not a very secure messaging tool to use if the threat model is to provide a reliable means of communication against a powerful adversary who could identify and take down the servers.
How do you know the lack of location info is to stop you knowing if its distributed or not?
Why would you assume it's "just security though obscurity" and not "security plus obscurity"? Or that "obscurity"" as a security measure is a tragic weakness.
This is a trap a lot of people fall into and I don't know why.
If the compromise of the secret servers causes the entire network to go down, then that secret is a weakest link, so it's not "security plus obscurity".
I don't know much about Telegram's system, but if it is run on centralized servers, then that is a serious weakness...adversaries who have the capability to find and disrupt can exploit that so even though the communication may be end-to-end secure, the entire system however is not resilant against such attacks.
I think it's safe to assume that obscurity is not the only security feature protecting the secret servers. A good defense-in-depth strategy might include some amount of obscurity, along with other measures.
Do you really not know why? Or is the obvious answer just too offensive?
I haven't used telegram for a while, but the last time I used it e2e encryption was only an optional feature (secret conversation) instead of the default option. How does this compare to Signal or Whatsapp which both have e2e enabled by default?
They have opted for user convinience on this matter. Fully searchable history of all communication synced on all your devices. A nightmare for a dissident attacked by state, but convinience 90% of the population should not be stripped of.
Is it technically impossible to have end to end encryption with full history, even synced? As long as you have the decryption key, you could have synced encrypted history, the best of both worlds, right?
It's not technically impossible but it is tricky. Signal hasn't figured it out yet but a university research group has a fork of Signal that claims to support it in a privacy preserving way but it hasn't undergone a thorough security audit.
A good encryption doesn't let you decode old messages even if you know the key. That's to prevent "the enemy" from recording everything in the hope of getting the key someday.
Consider you’ve lost all your devices and logged in to a service. It either can decipher your history or it can’t. And if it can (which is convinient) - why have a e2e in the first place?
Revoke the key, so the lost device won't be able to read the new messages. What the device already knows - it just can't be helped.
This is irrelevant to E2E or even PFS. Basically, it's about message archive security - either it's leaked (and no amount of encryption and authentication would help) or not.
E2E systems can sync message history - by mutually verifying device keys and then propagating data across such trusted links. I mean, if someone can send you a large file there is no reason one of your devices can't send a message to another your device, with a large encrypted blob of what it knows about the past. And if all devices (including possible server-kept archive private key derivation passphrase) are lost, then message history is gone.
>And if all devices (including possible server-kept archive private key derivation passphrase) are lost, then message history is gone.
If a server can decrypt your messages, then it's not really E2E anymore, is it?
I believe E2E means that data is encrypted and decrypted on endpoints and nothing else. It doesn't imply how the keys are produced or who else knows the keys.
But I was thinking about a scheme, where the key is encrypted with a passphrase (that user's ought to remember) and kept on server. You fetch the blob, decrypt it (server can't), get the key and thus are able to decrypt the existing data (message archive).
This lowers security, but adds a significant convenience of being able to recover history if the only device is broken or lost. Which may be important for casual users.
Well, I wouldn't trust Telegram with something really secret and/or sensitive, but as an every day IM/calling client, it sure got even more sympathy from me by this.
> Telegram, which is open-sourced
The server-side code is not open.
And mobile app repos are not updated regularly, too.
Telegram is FSB's spyware. Their main office is in St. Petersburg and telegrams are still not blocked in Russia but in Russian television they always talk about ducking crazy super duper Telegram security and how difficult is to beat for FSB
I'm still not sure which one is better: Signal or Telegram.
Signal. Telegram is a business run by a millionare who is having fun. Signal is run by well known security expert / activist and his very transparent company Open Whisper systems.
The way Signal tackles the problems is smart gradual development and they are the closest to making the holy grail - e2e encryption without users even noticing it. There are no "secure" and "not secure" messages in signal - it is all encrypted and you can't turn it off. That's awesome.
You're making the mistake of assuming "better" is a single vector.
Signal is more secure, yes. However its UI, UX, accessibility, feature sets and performance are absolutely in baby shoes.
Depends on yours needs. If you need top level security - you use Signal. If speed and stability and features are of more importance - use telegram.
Neither. Both require tying your identity to a phone number.
You're better off with Matrix/Riot or XMPP. Neither requires a phone number, both offer the ability to communicate securely, even with a compromised server. Both also support multiple devices, group chats and federation.
According to Signal's FAQ:
Signal periodically sends truncated cryptographically hashed phone numbers for contact discovery. Names are never transmitted, and the information is not stored on the servers. The server responds with the contacts that are Signal users and then immediately discards this information. Your phone now knows which of your contacts is a Signal user and notifies you if your contact just started using Signal.
However; I don't know if their server is peer-reviewed on a regulary basis, nor do i know if the software (besides the used ciphers) is also peer-reviewed. Can't find anything on it.
Signal. Peer reviewed and open source crypto on both client and server.
If you want to use one on your Android phone without Google apps, then only Telegram will work.
I use Tox with my geek friends and Telegram with my less geek friends. I also plan to give a try to ring.cx
This is just wrong, pls stop spreading misinformation.
The gcm dependency was removed 10 months ago: https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Android/commit/1669...
You can get the apk outside of gplay on their website: https://signal.org/android/apk/
> A lot of people in the western world don’t realize how much taxes limit their options. You can end up paying almost half your income in taxes, which basically means you’re working for the government for 180 days a year. I think I can find better ways to use the money I make for the benefit of society.
ok, so he's basically suggesting to get of rid government. I respect different stands on the size/role of the government in society, but this is just a weak argument. What works out for him, won't work out for everybody.
I don’t know where the author grew up, but didn’t he get anything in return for his taxes? I’ve had free healthcare, free college education, free libraries, police and fire departments protecting me, occasional grants, a social security network in case I lost my ability to work... I would never say that “taxes limit my options” because the personal record shows the opposite.
Besides, it’s not about just me: the whole point of taxes is that it gives options to everyone, not just those lucky enough to be born to wealthy parents.
I have a hard time believing that a messaging app founder would spend his money on charities more usefully than the government would spend it on basic services. (Assuming he would donate an amount anywhere close to the tax rate, which he certainly wouldn’t.)
But wouldn't you have liked to shop around for those free-but-paid-from-your-taxes services? And benefit from competition between providers which drives prices down and quality up?
Government are ultimate monopolies: always getting worse and more expensive.
Maybe you are thinking about a handful of functioning, high quality governments (US, Germany, Nordic States) but I am thinking about the great majority of the governments on the globe (Africa, Asia, E Europe) which provide really crappy, expensive services.
No. I really don't want to shop around when I've been hit by a bus and need urgent medical care. I want to know that whatever hospital the paramedics take me to is going to be equipped to handle things, and that I won't be handed a crippling bill afterwards.
I also don't want to shop around for roads, police, fire service, garbage collection, or any number of other things provided by my taxes. I definitely don't want people less well off to go without those things because they couldn't pay. The point of taxes, and particularly progressive taxes, is to ensure everyone has access to services while placing the burden for that on those most able to afford it. That isn't particularly well implemented in many cases, but I strongly believe it should be the goal.
...competition between providers which drives prices down and quality up?
Does it necessarily? Corporations are looking for profit growth, and the customer will pay for that.
Imagine a service where a public provider is replaced with three private corporations. Superficially there's competition and freedom of choice... But what if the three companies all operate at 80% margin, are constantly squeezing on quality to drive the margin even higher, and they are owned by multinationals that spend enormous amounts on lobbying to prevent new entrants in the market? It's easy to see how both price and quality can be worse in this case than it was with the single public provider.
You can shop around for products. Doesn't work that well for infrastructure.
The whole private charity stuff also creates perverse incentives. The better people who do donate to charity, are the ones who are left worse off, whereas the bad ones who never do, are the people who benefit.
That’s the nice thing about a system of taxation, in that no one is penalized additionally while doing good.
> Besides, it’s not about just me: the whole point of taxes is that it gives options to everyone, not just those lucky enough to be born to wealthy parents.
Then how does this thinking fit with the reality of taxes increasing everywhere, year after year? Does that mean that services are getting better? Because you know, it's actually the opposite. It's getting worse: more and more illiteracy in schools, inflation of degrees that don't get you any job, more unemployment (or stagnant at best), healthcare with less and less services... etc.
...the reality of taxes increasing everywhere, year after year
Can you show data to back this up? To my knowledge, income taxes in all Western countries are lower today than they were in the '50s or '70s.
Do you check the full cycle ? Ie. if your employer gives you $1, and you use that to give it to Apple (for an app, whatever), how much actually ends up with Apple ?
Let me do the calculation for Belgium for you:
$1 -> First, because yearly the employer has to pay you for 13.92 months, not 12 (end of year bonus thing), we take that out. That's 14% (but you get 20 days 1.5 times paid holidays, and an end of year bonus, which is taxed at a higher rate, but you do get that)
$0.86 -> "patronale bijdragen" (30%) -> $0.6 (even this ignores a few taxes that stem from having employees at all, and assumes there is no union at your workplace. Unions are extra).
$0.6 -> brutto <> netto (depends on total pay because this is a progressive tax, but let's assume you have a normal pay (which gets you into the higest tax bracket and taxed at roughly 40%, let's say 50k euros/year before tax, which is not a particularly large amount) -> $0.36 [1]
$0.36 -> VAT 21% is charged on this -> $0.285
So total tax in .be, for normal workers, is 71.5% (a bit less if you make very little, more if you make more).
This is a strict underestimate, as it assumes you're renting, not owning any real estate, producing zero garbage, not using public transport, harbours or airports, or a car or any kind of motorized vehicle, don't use fuel for anything, not using electricity, gas or water, not ...
Also: you might think this is fair. Everybody pays this, right ? Well, there's one tiny little detail that allows anyone sufficiently rich to evade almost all taxes : capital gains is not taxed in Belgium. Needless to say, this is a hole in the tax code big enough to drive the "bagger 288" through, but only open to the rich (more extreme examples have their own company own things like their house, and they "charge" their own company rent to pay almost entirely with pre-tax money, and you charge their own company rent which is not taxed according to the above calculation). [2]
Aside from cementing the position of the rich, and attracting French comedians, I'm not sure what this accomplishes. [3]
And in case you're wondering about the people who decide all these taxes. Surely they pay those taxes themselves, right ? No [4]. They feel they don't owe the state 71.5%, they feel they owe 12% + VAT, or about 30%, less than half of what their subjects pay)
So no, it's just the normal workers that pay this amount. If you are rich and can get your money paid out to you however you want, then you are taxed at less than 30%, or nothing if you "invest" it all (for instance in that house you live in and rent to yourself). If a politician likes you enough, or needs you, you can get a job that doesn't owe these taxes in government.
Still think it was higher in the 50s ? VAT was 0%, pre-pre-tax taxes (patronale bijdragen) were 0%, and income tax was nominally higher, with the highest bracket at 60% starting pretty high (but again no taxes on income that was packaged in companies). So let's say a well paid consultant in the 50s would have been taxed at something like 45%-50% total.
The argument socialist make to further increase the taxes is, of course, not to tax the rich more. That cannot be discussed in public (and of course has nothing to do with the fact that nearly all leftist politicians are rich landlords that have never once in their life paid tax like this).
The worst of it is, this is correct, but if you tell this to a friend ... they don't believe you ... hell some I have gone through this with them in detail, and they still don't believe me.
They don't believe it to the point that they truly don't understand why construction companies pull crap like having their employees "resident" in Poland. Yes those labourers get less money, but the vast majority of the savings is from not having them subject to the Belgian tax system.
What this pays for ? Social security and pensions. Oh, and total amount the government managed to save for future pension payouts with these taxes ? Zero. 0 comma 0. The amount of elderly is rapidly going up, and taxes will need to rise, at minimum, 100% (from their current level, ie. taxes on wages will need to rise to 140% of pay) if the current level of benefits for the elderly is to be maintained.
[1] https://home.kpmg.com/xx/en/home/insights/2011/12/belgium-in...
[2] http://www.taxbites.be/taxation/content/view/64/42/
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/dec/22/gerard-depardie...
[4] http://www.brusselstimes.com/magazine2/5828/myths-and-truths...
I won't pretend to know anything about the Belgian tax code or labor laws. But this strikes me as odd way to do the math:
> $1 -> First, because yearly the employer has to pay you for 13.92 months, not 12 (end of year bonus thing), we take that out. That's 14% (but you get 20 days 1.5 times paid holidays, and an end of year bonus, which is taxed at a higher rate, but you do get that)
Why are you subtracting 14% from the employee here? That 1.92 month bonus is money that ends up in the employee's pocket. From the employee's point of view, you should be adding 16% here -- for every $1, the employee actually gets $1.16 when the full year is considered.
If you count bonuses as losses to the employee, that would make for some very unhappy Wall Street bankers (where bonuses can easily exceed yearly pay).
Because I'm making a specific calculation, from a specific viewpoint. What I'm telling you is what happens when an employer decides to give you 1 euro of their money, how much you get out of that, in terms of what you can give someone else for a good or service, in the (oversimplified) common case. Given that perspective, I feel my calculation is, barring some oversimplifications, correct.
To be exact at the beginning of the calculation I'm calculating euros that your employer spends on you. At the end of the calculation is money you have given to someone else for a good or service that they can actually use for something.
If you want to look at it from an employee's perspective, you're right taxes would look different. In fact, on your "bruto" pay you'll pay income tax, which will come out at around 45%-50% if you're on something around 50k euros/year bruto. And yes, add 14% because of the 13.92 (well, keep in mind that it'll be taxed at the 50% tax rate, and there are additional taxes levied on top of that 50% on that amount, so frankly it'd be safer to assume you get 5-6% on top of your bruto pay actually deposited in your bank account).
I feel like this is a way the government masks how high taxes are, but of course you can look at it however you want. I guarantee, however, that employers budget for your pay in terms of euros they need to pay to anyone to have you on the payroll, and I guarantee that when someone decides on the price to sell you something, they'll consider VAT to not be part of the money they get.
Another bug in the calculation is the VAT. Apple will recover most (probably even all) of it on the purchase side of their balance.
1) this is from the perspective of the employee. Since Apple does what everyone does, they add 21% to the purchase price, therefore the employee buying the final product does bear this cost.
2) what you're saying might be true, but it shouldn't. And it certainly isn't true for non-multinational businesses. They (should) pay 21% on their (revenue - COGS). Of course Apple fakes this (like FB, GOOG, XOM, ...) by including "intellectual property from Apple Bahamas" as a resource all their products are "made from", and it "somehow" eats up all of the profit they would normally have to pay VAT on. But this is tax avoidance/abuse, and not the normal case. Frankly, this should be illegal, but that's impossible due to international treaties.
So perhaps you could say that since Apple is a big multinational it is a bad example as that makes it much more complex. But it doesn't change how taxes work for everyday purchases.
Make it "a locally made can of beer" and none of this applies at all.
A very insightful comment you made!
>but again no taxes on income that was packaged in companies
Glad that you noted that. I feel that packaging your own income in shell companies is very common across the Western world
I don't think you can be that expansive about your personal experience with taxes, it's very dependent on where you live and it really seems you don't live in the same place where I do so please contextualise where your argument comes from and add some data to base it on.
> Does that mean that services are getting better?
One part of it is that there's more of it: more elderly people that require and receive care.
Being 32, I fail to understand how it benefits my bottom line.
The theory is that you both a) have relatives/other people that you care about that benefit from this, and b) that you will benefit from it when it's your turn to live even longer.
Of course, it's yet to be seen how well b) will play out in practice.
Maybe they do benefit from this. I fail to see how it converts into an obligation for me.
I care about X. X would like to recieve money backed by my payments. Does that mean I owe them those payments?
How well do Ponzi schemes play out in practice?
There is no inherent obligation. Where I'm from, though, we've voted for governments that make it one.
So you thrown bad money towards Ponzi scheme. Can I now stop throwing good money towards it?
Note that "we voted to confiscate your assets" is NOT a valid vote. "No taxation without representation" fails where we have no hope to recover what we've wasted here.
Or, as you seem to be suggesting, we're just waiting for a big crash while making sure it will be real big, while crunching in process.
Not if you're from my country, because it's the law for you to throw money to it.
But yes, it appears we're waiting for a big crash, which is likely the result of those who __are__ likely to profit from it represent a substantive portion of the electorate, resulting in our leaders being reluctant in finding other/better systems.
We already know that b) is not going to work in practice, because of the population curve. So, there's that. Why should you pay for something you will never get yourself?
Because of a), and because we don't have an alternative for b) yet, but whatever we might come up with might be bootstrapped with these payments.
How can we bootstrap anything with those payments, where they all go to the retired already? Can't spend same payments twice. And the balance isn't becoming better here.
They don't all go to the retired (at least, not where I'm from). A lot of it is reinvested in order to save for future retirements.
But yes, the bootstrapping is still an interesting problem.
> ok, so he's basically suggesting to get of rid government.
Considering he grew up under the USSR, Yeltsin and then Putin I don't really find that surprising. Perhaps he'd have a different point of view if he came from a society where he wasn't forced to sell his social network.
> ok, so he's basically suggesting to get of rid government.
Nice Strawman. So complaining about high taxes means you are either for or against having a government?
It does sound like he is against all taxes. Without taxes it's hard to have anything that you'd recognize as a government.
The UAE have no income tax. Does not strike me as a country looming into anarchy.
Wait until the oil runs out.
Here in France, lots of people don't do the difference between the taxes that go to the government, and the social security deductions. Calling the latter "taxes" is wrong. Most of it pays for your retirement and your health problems.
I think the perception that social security and retirement deductions are taxes stems from the fact these are obligatory. Insofar as we have no choice in the matter these have all the properties of taxes. With the caveat it is difficult to compare one country to another because the value of government services you get is somewhat subjective, I offer the following data point for France: if a company outlays 100k, the employee would take home about 58k before income tax. A single person would pay 10k in income tax on that. All in he would therefore have 48k to spend. This might be useful for those of you wishing to evaluate the cost of hiring in France.
Exactly. The government is releasing open source software to make these estimations : https://embauche.beta.gouv.fr/simulateur
As long as it is compulsory, it is a tax. Whether it goes to your health problems or your street is irrelevant. If you have no control over the money, it is a tax.
Taxes are free to spend for the government, that is they are levied for whatever action or property the legislators choose to tax. Social security, retirement and health care plans are bound to a purpose and cannot legally be spent on other purposes. They often are compulsory but for example in Germany, health care is mandatory and regulated, but the money does not go to the state but rather to a provider of your choice.
There’s also fees that the administration can levy as payment for specific acts, they’re bound to that act.
Social security payments are not taxes.
The fact that the government promises to use that money on some thing or other does not remove the other fact: it is totally compulsory and goes to the Government (who is the only entity able to tax, properly speaking). Hence, Germany's system is not strictly speaking a tax, as one has some choice on the destination.
In the same way, donations are not tax (but because they are just contributions to the welfare, they are tax-deductible).
Compulsory Social Security payments to the Government are as much tax as VAT.
> The fact that the government promises to use that money on some thing or other does not remove the other fact: it is totally compulsory and goes to the Government (who is the only entity able to tax, properly speaking). Hence, Germany's system is not strictly speaking a tax, as one has some choice on the destination
There are lots of mandatory payments that are not taxes: To register a car, you need proof of insurance. Mandatory, government controlled, not a tax. Want to build in flood plains? Some regions enforce a flood insurance. Mandatory, not a tax. Want to register a business in germany? Need to be member of the IHK and pay membership fees. Mandatory, government enforced, not a tax.
Money paid to the Rentenversicherung, to health insurance etc does not go to the government. It goes to semi-private entities (mostly Körperschaften öffentlichen Rechts) and the government has very little control over it other than negotiating the rate and negotiating the mandatory payouts. The money does not go to the government, it cannot be spent on anything other than the purpose it way paid for: Arbeitslosenversicherung pays for the year of Arbeitslosengeld, pension funds for your pension and health insurance when you're ill. All of this may be additionally supported by taxes, but that money comes from the regular tax pool. The individual health insurance providers are actually competing and you, as a member can vote for the governing council of your health insurance.
> Social security payments are not taxes.
I agree with you. In my experience most people in Canada, and perhaps the US too, consider any government mandated deductions from your gross salary to be "taxes," regardless of the final destination of the money.
This is why you have people arguing that health care contributions and social security payments are "taxes"
Source: lived in North America and Europe
Yes, when you already have hundreds of millions of dollars in the bank, you can probably afford to duplicate many services that governments provide, if you so choose. Not really an option for >99% of humans.
It's not equal to "get rid of the government". It's just that their government runs on oil profits instead of taxes.
Which is an excellent way to make sure the incentives of the government and its people are aligned. \s
> ok, so he's basically suggesting to get of rid government
Really doesn't feel like it.
Tax burden in Germany for middleclass is at around 70%. Beeing a software engineer in germany means that you code 8months for the government and 4months for yourself.
The western governments introduced more and more “hidden” taxes. So just looking at income tax is not fair.
Just because he advocates for lower taxes doesn’t mean he want anarchy.
> Tax burden in Germany for middleclass is at around 70%. Beeing a software engineer in germany means that you code 8months for the government and 4months for yourself.
> The western governments introduced more and more “hidden” taxes. So just looking at income tax is not fair.
Please don't pluck figures like that out of thin air - I worked in Berlin as a developer and I easily took home ~60% of my monthly salary (placing tax at around 40%).
Those taxes already comprise of Social Security* (roughly 20%) and income tax (the remainder 20%).
* Health, Retirement, Unemployment etc.
You’re not counting VAT which is 19% of most of what you purchase. Corporate tax is largely bundled into consumer prices as well, and depending on your consumption patterns, and transportations choices there are other taxes that apply. In no way is this list exhaustive.
A good way to normalize it for comparison is tax income as a proportion of GDP[0]
The table on wikipedia[1] shows Norway, Finland, Denmark and Sweden at all over 50%. Germany at 44.5% while the UK is 34.4%, Australia at 34.3% and United States at 26%
[0] https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=REV#
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_reven...
There's also the compulsory 9% Church Tax in Germany, unless you formally renounce your religion:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/113...
Notably: "The changes include German banks now having to withhold the tax on capital gains of account-holders who are church members."
It's 8-9% of your income tax – so in reality maybe 2% of your income or less.
This tax is levied by the churches. You may be against the fact that they get this right because you support a more strict separation of church and state (which is not in the spirit of the German constitution) but this is hardly something the state is to blame for.
It's opt out, which is pretty evil. You can absolutely blame the state for that.
https://www.settle-in-berlin.com/stop-paying-german-church-t...
It is not opt-out. Everybody who pays has opted into the system (or in most cases their parents did[0]). Catholic foreigners might be surprised that the Catholic church is considered a single world-wide religious community. If they move to Germany they will be taxed even if they are not religious (because they haven't left – which is in some countries hard or impossible). This is a thing the Catholic church does to their members, not the German state.
[0]: It is not a regular contract but even those can bind you if your parents entered into them in your name.
You immigrate to Germany as an atheist with no affiliation to any church, but answer questions about your upbringing truthfully.
You're then taxed 2% of your gross income unless you pay a fee and visit multiple government departments. The money is distributed to private parties with little oversight on its spending. This is enforced by the same body and with the same penalties and rules as other forms of taxation.
I think at this point, we're arguing about the definitions of "opt out" and "enforced by the state". "Evil" is open to interpretation, but I stand by it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/41305s/church_tax_...
It's exactly what I said above: The Roman Catholic church is a single world-wide entity and if you become member in one country your rights and duties carry over to Germany if you move here.
> but answer questions about your upbringing truthfully
Whether or not you answer questions truthfully has no impact on taxation. You might get around paying it if you lie but you are still liable for the tax.
> same penalties and rules as other forms of taxation
It is not, here is a decent publicly available primer: https://www.hrr-strafrecht.de/hrr/archiv/08-08/index.php?sz=... In short: The usual tax offences don't apply to church tax.
> Mit der Aufnahme der persönlichen Daten bei der Behörde werden die Betreffenden u.a. nach ihrem Religionsstatus gefragt. Die Frage der Verwaltungsbeamten lautet nicht etwa: „Sind Sie Mitglied der „Körperschaft des Öffentlichen Rechts Katholische Kirche Deutschland“? Das wäre korrekt. Auf diese Frage würden sie zutreffend mit Nein antworten, denn sie wurden in ihrem Heimatland getauft und nicht in Deutschland.
> Der Verwaltungsbeamte fragt stattdessen, in Unkenntnis der Sachlage, einfach: „Sind Sie katho-lisch?“, oder „Sind sie getauft?“ Die Betroffenen erkennen nicht die mit der Frage verbundene deutsch-katholische Problematik und antworten mit Ja, wenn sie jemals getauft wurden. Daraufhin wird vom Verwaltungsbeamten das entsprechende Konfessionsmerkmal in den Akten vermerkt. Diese Zuerkennung des Etiketts „kath.“ führt dazu, dass die Betroffenen von diesem Zeitpunkt an von der staatlichen Verwaltung als Mitglieder der „Körperschaft des öffentlichen Rechts Katholische Kirche Deutschland“ geführt werden – mit allen Konsequenzen.
They ask if you're baptized, which can be true if you're an atheist. This saddles you with a tax obligation that you must then opt out of even though you're a member of no religion. The tax is collected by the state.
Ich denke, dass Sie nur streiten wollen. Es ist genug für mich.
Sorry, that page is a complete misinterpretation of the actual laws. This question is only of declaratory nature of already established facts and has no influence on the actual taxation status (if it ever becomes a court case that is thoroughly examined). You do not become a member of a religious entity by answering a question there (the state has no power at all to decide to admitting new members) – mistakes made while filling the form are always curable. It's the same thing as with marriage status on the same form: You do not simply become married by answering a question there wrongly nor can you claim tax benefits by doing so.
There is no difference between the "Körperschaft des Öffentlichen Rechts Katholische Kirche Deutschland" and the worldwide catholic church. That's a single entity.
(I say that as a non-religious person that never has been a member of a religious entity. If a community decides to tax its members they should be free to.)
Ahh, I didn't realize it was a percentage of income tax. It was explained to me by Germans as tithing, according to the idea of donating 10% of your annual income to the church.
I'm not necessarily for or against it, and it does seem pragmatic for the government to automatically collect it on the church's behalf. The part that does seem strange to me is that you have to renounce your religion to opt out of the automatic deduction, but I understand it's a cultural difference. I'm more used to the idea of contributions as voluntary.
(I'm not German or religious, just an Australian who is a fan of Berlin & Germany and often considers moving there.)
You don’t have to “renounce” your religion or anything to that affect, it’s a checkbox on your income tax / wage form where you choose whether you wish to pay it or not. From what I remember it amount to taking ~1% or so off your salary.
You actually have go through a formal renunciation process (which is done at a state authority but your church will get notified and will not be pleased). That checkbox doesn't actually do anything, it is just your declaration of the official religion status. Lying on tax forms is, well, not the best idea.
Ah I see - I moved over as a foreigner (no previous religious affiliations) so that’s probably why I didn’t have to do anything beyond the taxation declaration.
You still have to officially renounce your church membership if you're member of either the catholic or protestant church. Otherwise the church may at some point come and recoup past taxes for up to 10 years.
Formally renouncing your religion is easy and can be done fairly quickly, I've done it.
The 9% are on the income tax, e.g. 9% of 40% not on income.
so .. 59% tax then?
You can't just add the percentages for income tax and VAT. If you were to combine a 40% income tax and a 19% VAT, you'd end up with 49.6% effective tax. (1-(1-0.40)/1.19)
(I'm not arguing that this naive computation makes sense, you pay different VAT rates or no VAT at all, depending on what you buy. I don't think you have to pay VAT on rent, which is a significant part of the income for many people and reduced VAT on most groceries)
For the middle-class the estimates are that about 8% of your income goes to VAT.
Thanks! My brain kinda failed me there :)
I imagine that he/she is also including VAT in that 70% figure (which I believe is currently 23% in Germany).
In Munich my taxes on my pay check were around 45% as a software dev (including pension & insurance). So 70% total tax might not be far off the mark (assuming that you spend most of your income on VAT goods & services). Although you have to remember it's not 23% of your totoal income, but 23% of the remaining 55%.
There are also other hidden taxes though - import duty, corporation tax and council tax (cant remember if that was a thing in Germany), to name a few.
It's 19% for most stuff and 7% for some other stuff, on average it's closer to 16 o 17% on everything you buy and pay.
Once you account for the 17% being part of your remaining money, you get an effective incoming VAT tax rate of 8.5% (assuming you keep around 50%, if you keep more, this goes up)
I believe the highest amount of income tax you pay is around 60%, plus 8.5% you get close to 70%. However, most people will pay closer to 45 and 50% tax or less so a more realistic figure is 50% to 60% income tax.
It should probably also be included when you get benefits from things paid for in part by this, ie your insurances and pensions and such.
The highest amount of income tax you pay (Reichensteuer) is 47,48% (45% plus Soli). This number is a bit misleading though since the tax rate is a curve that starts at 14% for incomes above 8656 EUR and reaches a plateau of 42% at a yearly income of roundabout 53000 EUR. The highest tax rate only applies to the part of the income that exceeds about 250000 EUR. So the first 8k are tax free, for every EUR above that you pay a tax rate according to the curve and only the part of the income that exceed 250000 EUR pays the full 45%. So if you have a yearly income of 250001 EUR, the 45% get only levied on 1 EUR. It's obvious that the effective tax rate is far lower than 45% for any income that does not massively exceed 250k.
The blue curve in that graph is the nominal tax rate (Grenzsteuersatz) and the green curve the effective rate: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einkommensteuer_(Deutschland)#...
I was probably misinterpreting/mismathing the wikipedia entry, it's been a while since I seriously dived into german tax law.
Actually, it's 0.23 / 1.23 ~= 18.7% of the remaining 55%.
Keep in mind that what the employer pays is about 120% of your misleadingly labeled gross wage. From my point of view the division into employer and employee contributions to what you call Social Security is quite artificial and thus think that you need to compare the net wage with what the employer actually pays.
For example, say your gross wage is 5k/month, the net wage 2.8k and the employer pays 6k. So you take home about 47% of what the employer pays.
I don't know, both figures seem entirely reasonable to me.
However, looking at the OECD figures for Germany of yearly tax revenue (all types of taxation) per capita (15 kUSD) and yearly average wages (45 kUSD), you'd think 30% was the average tax pressure. It then makes sense that you'd pay slightly more taxes, given that you probably earn more.
What the other person may have referred to is some combination involving the tax wedge (the ratio between labour taxes and labour cost not counting taxes), which is 50% in Germany currently, and was near 55% a few years ago. But that number is not relevant to this discussion...
And you didn't get healthcare, free education for 20+ years, subsidised student loans, retirement money, police, fire department etc. from the state? You really should stop and think what you get from the state before you criticise what the state takes from you.
> You really should stop and think what you get from the state before you criticise what the state takes from you.
And when you're done doing so, and decide that it's not a good deal for the money, then you're told to do it again, and again, until you get the "right" answer the person patronizingly telling you to do so expects.
It's reasonable to have a discussion about the most reasonable, efficient, and appropriate way to fund certain things, as well as whether they should be funded at all, and whether funding them should be mandatory. Such discussions should not be derailed by people simply saying "think about what you get" as though the people participating in them haven't already thought about that just because they come to different conclusions.
History shows us that privatization always ends up being more expensive for the average person, while still providing lower-quality service than the old public system.
Example please? By that line of thinking the Soviet Union must have had the best and cheapest service and products. Also Venezuela should be a total Dream right now without empty stores, starving children, no murder rampage.
I did not in any way imply that a strict top-controlled planned economy system like in the USSR was better. I also did not imply that the current state of chaos in Venezuela is preferable (and that happened due to a bone-headed reliance on a single big export product, which completely collapsed when global oil prices crashed).
I'll amend my statement to "privatization of a functional public system, ostensibly to provide better/cheaper service".
Examples from my own backyard include the Danish State Railways, Ørsted (previously DONG), TDC (previously TeleDanmark, which was previously KTAS, JTAS and Fynsk Telefon) and others.
Were they perfect? No, there was a lot of waste and mismanagement of resources. But as investors came in and demanded rationalization and austerity measures in the name of Holy Profit, customer service and general quality plummeted.
The current state of ISPs/telcos in the US is another good example of privatization gone bad.
The railroad sucks because its an old outdated businessmodel when it comes to personal transport. Only railroadbusiness that make sense is Heave industries and inner city subways. Everything else ist just romantazied waste full bs. So of course these kind if business can only be sustained by wasteful public spending.
What are you even on about? Rail transport is one of the absolute cheapest forms of transport per passenger mile and capacity per hour.
God your socialist are aweful, everytime that fails you guys point it to the random single event that made that whole thing fail and act as if that were some unqie exception. “... single bone headed reliance...”
Please stop posting uncivil, unsubstantive comments. We ban accounts that do that.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Edit: since we warned you before and you didn't stop, I've banned this account. If you don't want to be banned on HN, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.
Please enlighten us on how the chaos in Venezuela wasn't caused by over-reliance on oil and widespread corruption.
Taxes is traditionally a heated subject.
I think it's unreasonable to express a simple (one-sided) argument within this subject and not expect a one-sided answer from someone.
It is truly a complex subject.
Now, I expect someone to disagree with that statement. :)
One interesting property of the US tax structure is that most of the tangible benefits are mostly funded locally (education for 13 years, police, fire, most roads) which is generally a lower tax rate than the federal taxes (which don't as clearly connect to the services that we all need): especially if you don't consider the >50% of federal money spent on the military to be a good use the federal/state/local divide makes it very visible that the taxes you pay are mostly not going to the services that we need.
That's a little misleading, as a ton of federal dollars come back to the state governments. It seems inefficient (and it is), but it's a way of applying political pressure, and of redistributing money from states with stronger economies to those with weaker economies.
I don't think it is that misleading, the bulk of federal tax dollars are spent at the federal level. More of my net tax dollars go to tanks than schools or roads right?
Healthcare isn’t free in Germany. It’s extortionately expensive.
It is (close to) free if you already pay the contributions we are discussing about here. Note how the post said you get free healthcare if you paid your contributions.
The contributions are not extortionately expensive. It may seem that way if you are healthy, high-earner, and young. But looking at the actual cost of providing healthcare it's pretty competitively priced. Over the lifetime of a person private health insurance is not that much cheaper. You can view the difference as a tax supporting the poor and chronically ill if you like.
> It may seem that way if you are healthy, high-earner, and young.
Interesting tidbit that many people tend to forget about: Health care payments are capped. The maximum monthly income that gets counted is 4425 EUR/month of which about 14% get paid in total. So if you earn 10k a month you effectively pay a lower rate. The effective health care rate drops for high-earners.
It costs about half what the US pays per capita.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea...
Any credible calculation[0] puts the tax burden of all groups at 50% at most (and most middle class is not taxed at that number) – including all taxes, contributions, levies, and VAT. You would have to add the employer's contributions to that number (but they are less than 10%).
A better measure would be the tax quota (gross national product divided by all taxes and contributions) which is about 35%. This is the effective rate the state gets for everything it does.
[0]: Such as the RWI study which really can't be accused of downplaying the numbers http://shop.freiheit.org/download/P2@675/96532/A4_Steuern%20...
70%? How do you come up with that?
It's roughly 40.5% for most middle class people. If your salary is 4,000€ per month, you get wired 2,380€ to your bank account. Income tax, social security contributions, retirement contributions etc. already deducted.
You could add 19% VAT for all purchases on your tax burden, but that's not 70%.
Like I said its hidden. E.g. my employe pays around 90k for me of which I only see 78k then they apply Tax, pension, healthcare, mandatory unemployment insurance etc, Im left with around 40k. Then i go and spend it and it again gets taxed with 19%. Many products have beeryax, coffetax etc. higest is petrol tax which is 70%. So If i spend 200€ on petrol an month, 70% is tax. I could go on and on. like I said those tax are hidden.
> Tax burden in Germany for middleclass is at around 70%
Even under a charitable interpretation this is simply wrong.
I suppose you have no first-hand experience, but have read that on social media?
If you're self-employed the tax rate is ~70%, at least for lawyers in germany. Source: My self-employed gf.
And no, she does not earn 5 figures, 4-6k gross per month with 1 part-time employee for the bureaucracy stuff (bills, phone service, faxing, scanning etc.). With a 60 hour week.
Your girlfriend does not pay 70% tax. This is mathematically impossible if you actually look at all tax rates.
No, she doesn't.
You must be counting all kinds of other expenses. Professional insurance or bar membership, for example.
That's just a big lie, it's nowhere to 70%. Besides it will vary depending on your salary, your state and your personal situation (i.e. kids, married, age).
Also worth noting that that tax includes full health insurance.
You can easily calculate your take home pay for Germany here: http://www.parmentier.de/steuer/steuer.htm?wagetax.htm
That’s only income tax, not the total tax burden.
My total tax burden in Germany (Munich) was around 65%-ish, depending on exactly how aggressively you want to factor corporate taxes into consumer prices.
You're almost certainly including social security here, health care and retirement. This is not exactly a fair comparison, as in countries with lower tax burden you have to pay for those yourselves.
34% for a family with one child in Munich, 30.5% on capital gains.
You're implying that government does nothing—or at least nothing positive, which is a specious argument at best.
There's also the most hidden tax of all: inflation.
That point is totally valid. "The West" is rapidly becoming a mirror image of the Soviet Union. With half or more of economic value of your work going to uncle Sam, how this is not a state ran economy?
If I remember correctly, the split for a typical Soviet citizen was 60/40, and this is where the West will be this decade if government expenses will continue rising at the speed they do.
Comparing tax rates with the Soviet Union is totally meaningless because the economy was fundamentally supply-limited.
It’s not that people didn’t have money — they didn’t have anything to buy that they actually wanted. The same applied to the government-owned businesses. The economy was flush with rubles that everyone desperately wanted to spend on something. The tax rate was just optics.
Top marginal income tax rates under President Eisenhower (a Republican) were in the low 90%s.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/nov/...
This is a total BS argument. Nobody ever payed these taxes. Its far more accurate to look at what part of the GDP the government is spending. That number was the further back you go.
I'm citing my sources. You could at least show me the courtesy of doing the same.
Not OP but he's right, your statement is slightly misleading, not many people actually paid that (fewer than 10,000 households[1]). A good source as you asked for can be found here:
The Tax Foundation has been called a “deliberate fraud” by Nobel laureate Paul Krugman. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Foundation)
Also, 10,000 households in the 1950s is roughly equivalent to the top 1% of the top 1%, and exactly who i’d expect to be taxed at a rate of 90%+.
I'm not saying the 90% number did not exist. My point is that overall government was lower then. What part of that are you not understanding?
If you compare the West to the USSR, you certainly don't know what you are talking about. Taxation in the East block was really not the problem.
I'm not talking about per se taxation, but the split how much economic value of your work you get in your pocket with a paycheck.
In USSR, 60 percent of economic value of labour was taken by the state. The West went from <20% to over 50% since WW2 and is about exceed that 60% soon.
That's true of (most of) Europe, the US taxes are lower.
#/media/File:Grenz-undDurchschnittsEStsatzD2008.svg){kind=link}
cue ICO...
>He sees Telegram as a charity that he’ll start to monetize early next year, but only enough to fund expansion.
Charity and monetization don't go hand in hand.
Yeah they do, charities are just businesses that don’t distribute profits to share holders. Making money or not has nothing to do with charity status - it’s about what you do with the profits.
This is a very recent interpretation. It is legally true, but it goes against the true meaning of the word.
When you work for a charity, do you ask for a raise? Do you get a bonus if you collect more money? How much to you get to keep?
Not even mentioning that sometimes the money goes through a chain of charities, all making a living out of it, but leaving almost nothing for the final beneficiary.
Salaries are an operating cost and have nothing to do with the disbursement of profits. Some people at charities are very well paid but that has nothing to do with the charitable status.
Almost all charity orgs have operational expenses...
Operational expenses. Sure. But I am taking the situation into consideration. And I am not denying the fact that Durov needs to make money, eventually, to cover expenses.
The problem is on the word monetize. It seems like the idea might be to sell ads which will eventually require some form of personalization even though it is not explicitly sold. Just like what happened with whatsapp. It is free but we saw what was tried with FB integration.
He is getting "buy-in offers like those he's received from some of Silicon Valley's biggest names".
I got one of those this week, and I'm very excited. I haven't yet chosen how to respond. Please discuss it at my Ask HN: