Social security contributions

Many countries provide publicly funded retirement or health care systems.[6] In connection with these systems, the country typically requires employers and/or employees to make compulsory payments.[7] These payments are often computed by reference to wages or earnings from self-employment. Tax rates are generally fixed, but a different rate may be imposed on employers than on employees.[8] Some systems provide an upper limit on earnings subject to the tax. A few systems provide that the tax is payable only on wages above a particular amount. Such upper or lower limits may apply for retirement but not health care components of the tax. Some have argued that such taxes on wages are a form of "forced savings" and not really a tax, while others point to redistribution through such systems between generations (from newer cohorts to older cohorts) and across income levels (from higher income levels to lower income levels) which suggest that such programs are really tax and spending programs.[4] Some tax scholars argue that supporting social security programs exclusively through taxes on wages, rather than through broader taxes that include capital, creates distortions and underinvestment in human capital, since the returns to such investments will be taxes as wages.[4]

Дата добавления: 2015-07-20