QUORA QUESTION
Would a British person who moved to the US or Canada notice a big improvement in living standards?
Answer from Simon Birkett, Lived, worked and founded companies in Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore and USA
Answered 21h ago ·
Upvoted by Anne Webley, lives in The United Kingdom (1957-present) and Clive Anderson, lives in The United Kingdom (1956-present)
I moved to the US after seven years in Singapore and ten years in Thailand. There was no improvement in living standards.
The banking system was way behind even Thai standards for payment processing - forget the UK which has one of the best banking systems on the planet. Singapore is in a league of its own in terms of efficiency, so don’t even try and start to compare the two. Writing cheques? So quaint - need a quill with that?
The quality of fresh food was varied. There was quality produce available, but it was grossly overpriced when compared with Thailand or the UK. The average quality of food products was below par. The US FDA allows producers to put anything in food until it is proven hazardous to health. European standards require all ingredients to be shown not to be detrimental before they are approved. In other words, the US is upside down and solely designed to allow businesses to take advantage of consumers. Maybe the ‘free’ in ‘the land of the free’ is free to be guinea pigs…
Beer was in a different league. Massive improvement. However, I was in Oregon where brewing has been taken to a new level.
Driving standards were visibly lower. Locals who rode with me noticed a difference. However, in downtown Portland, if you just thought about crossing a residential or quiet street, drivers would stop in anticipation. At least that is what it felt like - they were very considerate of pedestrians which was a massive improvement from Singapore and a totally different universe from Thailand. The UK is pretty pedestrian-friendly.
Having to consider additional taxes when looking at the ticket-price of groceries is just bizarre. Don’t the POS systems have the capacity to cater for that? Or is showing the lower price considered a sophisticated sales technique? Just put the final price on so people don’t get confused.
As for dealing with the IRS, that’s a massive lowering of standards. In the UK, everything is calculated by your employer and deductions are taken out of your salary each month. You don’t need to hire an accountant and/or lawyer to calculate your taxes. You don’t need to pull your hair out trying to calculate what you owe. At the end of the year in the UK, unless you have capital gains to include you don’t owe anything - it’s all been taken care of.
I got more for my rent - but that was to be expected. Singapore is one of the most expensive places to rent and Portland is not a regional hub like Singapore. I can’t compare rents with the UK because I’ve not been there for 30 years. It did seem like property prices were lower in the US than the UK.
Workwise, there was less pressure to work long hours which equates to a better standard of living. There was plenty of space to hike and exercise, I even played cricket for a local team so I have no complaints about work/life balance.
If you are looking for someone to say there is a massive increase in quality of life moving to the marvellous US from the messed-up UK, you are going to have to wait… Overall, it felt like a slight step backward.
230.8K viewsView UpvotersView Sharers
REPLIES
--------------------------------------
Claire Jordan
21h ago · 148 upvotes
Current house prices in the UK vary enormously. In central London a million pounds might just about buy you a room. Here in central Scotland the property round the corner from me was recently auctioned with a recommended price of £90,000 (I don’t know what it actually went for) and, OK, it badly needed re-decorating, but it was a basically sound, handsome three-storey stone Victorian building, ex post office, which came with a fine ornamental doorway, five bedrooms, two public rooms, two bathrooms I think and probably two kitchens, two shop premises, outbuildings and a good-sized garden.
--------------------------------------
Simon Birkett
Original Author · 20h ago · 47 upvotes including Claire Jordan
Hi Claire - love your contribution to Quora!
Being a pesky southerner myself, £90K sounds like a bargain! It certainly illustrates the massive variation in prices. My sister and I inherited a house just inside the greenbelt, on the south side of London. Prices there are comparable with equivalent properties in Portland, OR where I can confidently identify similar neighbourhoods from my year there. Central London is between twice to five times the price of where our place is.
--------------------------------------
Claire Jordan I used to live just outside Faversham and commute into London.
--------------------------------------
Anna Collins
14h ago · 16 upvotes
A friend of mine lives in a village outside of Durham, they had a row of three 2 bedroom houses come up for auction (they needed a bit of renovating); they went for £35,000 for all three. Six months later after the work was done they went for £45,000 each.
Jordan ChapmanBasically, I think the main takeaway from this is, the further up north you go, the cheaper the prices are for properties.
--------------------------------------
Jane Williams
15h ago · 43 upvotes including Simon Birkett
“At the end of the year in the UK, unless you have capital gains to include you don’t owe anything - it’s all been taken care of.”
Not quite true. I’m self-employed - partially. At the end of each tax year I go online, find that any income on which tax has been paid by the employer (there’s a couple of them) is already on the system, and enter in all my other sources of income. I could input any expenses I can claim against tax as well. Press the button, get taxes calculated, get shown my options for National Insurance (usually the answer for me is none compulsory, but a voluntary contribution that will improve my pension if I pay it).
I’d expect the entire process to take a day, and most of that is dealing with my own mess of a filing system.
--------------------------------------
Simon Birkett
Original Author · 13h ago · 25 upvotes
Thanks for the expanded view. I was being economical due to ignorance of the current system and never having been self-employed. However, by comparison with the US system, a day is a walk in the park by comparison.
--------------------------------------
Richard Johnson
10h ago · 1 upvote
Ugh! The USA. Disgusting! Not like Durham, UK.
--------------------------------------
Robin Hillyard
8h ago · 3 upvotes
But surely you wouldn’t deny the billionaires who profit from the US scheme to make even more money?
--------------------------------------
Ste Skilly
4h ago · 1 upvote
Alright Nellie keep ya knickers on
--------------------------------------
Todd Johnson
3h ago
And to add to that — generally speaking, employers do take your local, state, and federal taxes out of your paycheck. But they do it on the assumption you’re only working for them. So if you’re doing other work, or other gains (capital gains; bank interest accumulation), or have taxable assets or ta … (more)
--------------------------------------
Richard Johnson
10h ago · 49 upvotes
Holy schnockereenos!
In the USA, my employer takes income tax withholding out of my pay and gives it to the government. And then at the end of the year, I do a tax return and pay the small difference from capital gains (and such), or recieve a small refund from overpayment.
But in the glittering, eye-stinging shining paradise of the UK, your employer withholds tax from your pay and gives it to the government. And then you pay whatever extra you owe from capital gains and such.
THAT IS INFINITELY SUPERIOR TO THE USA!! IN EVERY CONCEIVABLE WAY!!
How can it be humanly possible that everything in Europe is infinitely superior to the USA? But it is!!
I was blind until the shining light of quora was cast down upon me from the paradise that is Europe.
--------------------------------------
Ace Grushkin
7h ago · 19 upvotes
When you compare the actual paperwork involved in tax preparation between the US and most other developed countries, it’s a noticeable difference.
Specifically, we have a tax preparation industry that lobbies to make the process more complicated.
Some conservatives in the States advocate a flat tax because “you can do your taxes on a postcard.” But a flat tax isn’t necessary to make paying our taxes simpler. We could do it tomorrow. As you’ve noted, your income is reported already. The IRS could send you a document saying “This is what we think you owe (or what we owe you), sign here to accept, or fill out the corrections you think need to be made and send it back.” For the 90% of the population that don’t have a lot of income complications, this would be far easier than the system we have now (and it’d save us money on unnecessary paperwork).
--------------------------------------
Andy Dickens
7h ago · 15 upvotes
Richard, in the USA, my employer takes withholding tax out of my pay (at the maximum rate set of 0) and at the end of the year, I pay an accountant to calculate my taxes. Invariably this takes several days, costs many hundreds of dollars and I am fined by the IRS for paying insufficient tax, then I have to pay a large lump sum to the IRS. Then I have to do State and local taxes and pay again. If I got a tax refund last year (only happened once in 7 years) then I have to pay tax on that.
Then I have to pay property tax (twice per year) which is more than I paid in income tax in any of the other 7 countries I have lived in. In California, I lose about 65% of my gross income in taxes, and that does not include any kind of healthcare.
Overseas, I paid about 50% of my gross income in tax and that included every cost of healthcare (including pharmaceuticals), city taxes, waste collection, street lighting, retirement pay, social security, property taxes etc etc.
--------------------------------------
Kyle Darcy
4h ago · 1 upvote
#1. The fact that you owe every year could easily be remedied by having your employer increase your withholding to the proper amount for your tax bracket.
#2. “fined” isn’t really the right word in this case… The IRS is charging you the difference between what you should have paid in and what you actually paid in. The only “fine” would be if the discrepancy between those two numbers was enough to qualify for underpayment penalties, which is doubtful and can normally be waived if you pay the difference on time.
--------------------------------------
Kagan Hudayar
3h ago · 2 upvotes
If the amount already paid in is less than the amount owed beyond the specified percentage, you ARE in fact fined on that difference. This is why so many Americans file taxes quarterly. Anything owed that is not paid within the quarter earned can be penalized. If you feel you are short, you can pay … (more)
--------------------------------------
Darryn Frost
3h ago
You can only increase withholding to a certain amount. Even the max is not enough for a lot of people.
Tomasz KalturYou can use the IRS calculator to determine your withholding amount and update your W-4 to pay extra on the taxes every paycheck. Heck, you could send your entire paycheck to the government - there’s no max.
--------------------------------------
Yuriy Kovarskiy
5h ago · 5 upvotes
Why don’t you buy off-the-shelf tax prep software and do your own taxes? It is not tough.
Andy DickensI tried Turbotax. My ‘tax owed’ calculation was higher by $14k over the return my accountant subsequently prepared.
--------------------------------------
Bill Soo
20h ago · 8 upvotes including Simon Birkett
I’ve been to Portland. It’s the US city that most reminds me of Canada. So maybe you’d like it here too. The beer is better and the ketchup ingredients don’t contain corn byproducts.
--------------------------------------
Simon Birkett
Original Author · 20h ago · 7 upvotes including Bill Soo
I had the distinct pleasure of playing cricket on Vancouver Island in 2006. We drove up from Portland and took the ferry. It was a great weekend and we had a blast. The beer is good, but better? I lived just down the road from Rogue and we became firm friends! LOL. My favourite beer there was Sierra Nevada Celebration - an aged ale! Bloody marvellous stuff!
My parents lived in Montreal from 1956 to 1961. They loved it, mostly.
--------------------------------------
Laine Frajberg
19h ago
They wouldn’t like our tax forms.All people residing in Quebec have to file 2 sets of taxes-one provincial and one federal-and both tax forms are very complicated.
Harlan CohenMany states in the USA impose a city income tax as well, in lieu of higher property taxes. Although the property taxes are quite high enough, thank you very much.
--------------------------------------
Murray Giles
16h ago · 1 upvote
God damn and there are even cricket tours to Canada! Mind is blown
--------------------------------------
Ray Beebe
16h ago · 2 upvotes from Simon Birkett and Bill Soo
I have some photos inherited from my grandfather (born in Romeo, MI) that show floods in downtown Portland. The era was early 1900s. He came to Australia in about 1908.
--------------------------------------
Sam Felton
5h ago · 1 upvote from Simon Birkett
Yeah, OR State - represent! Two of my all-time favorite breweries are there, in Bend.
Oh, and btw - it’s like any other place on earth - habitability overall is mostly “location, location, location.”
I’d much rather live in OR or WA than anywhere else on Earth.
Oh, and btw - your food quality varies TR … (more)
--------------------------------------
Simon Birkett
Original Author · 30m ago
We drive to Bend one time. Super drive, loves the views. Beers are good state-wide. I put on 13 kg in a year. A baker’s dozen!
--------------------------------------
Murray Giles
16h ago · 3 upvotes including Simon Birkett
Fantastic narrative giving wonderful clear comparisons. It’s incredible you found a cricket team in Oregon! Would never have thought it possible
--------------------------------------
Simon Birkett
Original Author · 13h ago · 2 upvotes
There is an entire league of cricket on the West coast! I played on some amazing grounds - loved it!
--------------------------------------
Richard Johnson
10h ago · 2 upvotes
FANTASTIC narrative.
Science teaches us that when the random impressions of one person agree with your prejudices, it means that you have arrived at a Flawless Universal Truth.
Have you by any chance checked out the Dunham, UK, area for a vacation home? It’s breathtaking there.
--------------------------------------
Alexandre Blitte
19h ago · 7 upvotes including Simon Birkett
Well, you made me look at my Heinz Ketchup ingredients. Looks like as Canadian we're halfway there.
--------------------------------------
Richard Johnson
10h ago
But you’ll never sink down into the level of the filthy pit that is the USA.
--------------------------------------
Steven Bird
4h ago
The ketchup comparison is a bit odd. Basically, they’re exactly the same. The only difference is the source of the added sugar - probably cane sugar in the UK, compared to mostly corn syrup in the US. Cane sugar is supposedly ‘healthier’ than corn syrup, but comes at a higher price in human misery. Even today, most of the world’s sugar cane is harvested by hand, which is nasty, brutal, hard work for extremely low wages.
Personally, I prefer cane sugar if I’m going to eat something with added sugar, but I try to avoid it as much as possible.
--------------------------------------
Cliff Taylor
3h ago · 1 upvote from Steven Bird
I can’t say from these labels alone that either the UK or Canadian versions are definitely made with cane sugar. They could just as well be made from sugar from sugar beets or another sugar source, but I don’t know their labeling rules for “sugar” — note that both the US and Canadian versions have to declare onion powder, but in the UK that’s covered under “spice”. You can make corn sugar, too, but that’s an extra cost that would heavily negate its use in the US. If we ended corn subsidies, we’d probably see less corn syrup used, anyway.
--------------------------------------
Randy Hinds
3h ago
HFCS sweetens more than sugar at a lower calorie rate. That’s one of the reasons it’s used in the USA.
--------------------------------------
Milo Blackford
20h ago · 1 upvote from Simon Birkett
I would rephrase the part in driving standards “locals who rode me”
--------------------------------------
Duane Dungan
15h ago · 4 upvotes including Simon Birkett
Then, by all means, you should move back!
--------------------------------------
Simon Birkett
Original Author · 13h ago · 11 upvotes
So you don’t think I was ‘bashing’ the US. Have a word with Dan, would you! LOL.
I would not live in any country where Trump was in a position of official power. However much I enjoyed myself and the company of almost all the people I met (Dan, must have missed you…) there are some standards I get to vote on with my feet. I to plan to be at the inauguration of the next president after Trump. Want to ensure the biggest crowd ever!
--------------------------------------
Michael DiBiasio
9h ago · 1 upvote from Simon Birkett
I didn’t see any evidence of bashing. I thought you presented your points very factually. One thing though. Many Americans see the tax spy stem as sort of a forced saving plan. They select a tax withhold option that takes out more taxes each week than they actually owe. At the end, the do their taxes and secure a refund.
--------------------------------------
Mario Gonzalez
12h ago · 7 upvotes including Simon Birkett
We'd love to have you! We'll see you here in 2025.
--------------------------------------
Richard Johnson
10h ago · 5 upvotes
How did you enjoy yourself in the USA, when everywhere else on earth is infinitely superior?
I learned on quora all about it.
Do you know that in the USA, if you’re a black man you can be arrested for the smallest misdemeanour and held indefinitely in prison with no civil rights whatsoever?
A swedish woman here on quora wrote an essay all about it and was then congratulated for her perceptive mind and truthosity by other people who live in The Paradise of Europe.
My ignorant fascist US brain can barely handle the flood of Ultimate Truth that quora provides.
--------------------------------------
Marius Hiller
6h ago · 7 upvotes
You sound quite insecure if a small criticism piece of the US requires a so defensive comment from you.
--------------------------------------
Ashwin Dollar
4h ago · 3 upvotes
It should be noted that Donald Trump lost the popular vote by over 3 million votes in the US and many other countries like India, Brazil, the UK (Boris Johnson even looks a lot like Trump), and the Philippines all have their own Trumps right now.
--------------------------------------
Josh Velson
7h ago · 6 upvotes
Between the two ingredient listings you have there, they're virtually identical. Sugar and corn syrup are just two sides of the same coin. Unless you have a pre-existing bias against corn syrup… which it seems you have.
Also you're incorrect, European food standards do generally follow the formula of safe until proven harmful. It's simply that there is a political hair trigger for GM food that has put an unreasonable standard of proof on the method of plant breeding rather than the outcome. It's a little bit ridiculous; it allows a crop to be banned if it is pesticide resistant due to a GM trait but easily approved if it is made by bombarding the seeds with radiation until you find one that has the same effect. I'm not even making this up, it's a true story.
--------------------------------------
David Schwartz
12h ago · 15 upvotes
The interesting thing about the ketchup/catsup is the ingredients are incredibly close.
Tomatoes vs tomato concentrate. How different are these really? What is allowed under UK rules to summarize what has been done to the tomatoes.
Spirit vinegar vs distilled vinegar. Effectively two words for the same thing. You distill alcohol to get spirits, so unless there is a real detailed difference they are identical.
Sugar vs HFC and corn syrup. The difference here is as political as it is scientific. Plus the science behind no sugar consumption doesn't seem to place a difference between sucrose and fructose. With all that said this probably produces the most noticeable difference between the two.
Spices and herbs vs listed ingredients and natural flavoring. This is a case of the UK summarizes ingredients and the US stares them. One has to guess under the UK system what those herbs and spices are. For the US they tell you it's onion powder etc. Of course then there is 'natural flavoring' which is a whole set of organic molecules derived from a wide variety of sources thag one may or may not think of as 'food'. But do we know that is not also hidden under the summarized listings in the UK product?
In the whole the UK system has some advantages over the US system but few of those can be discerned from a list of ingredients.
--------------------------------------
Steve Estes
10h ago · 3 upvotes
A fair take overall - the only thing I’ll say is that for me, the equivalent food-item prices in the UK were substantially higher, probably 30–40% higher, for the equivalent items. Like, comparing a Tesco in the UK to a Walgreens (nevermind a proper supermarket) in the US, I could basically assume that whatever would have cost X dollars state-side would cost X pounds in the UK.
--------------------------------------
Ben Steven
8h ago · 2 upvotes
it is pointless to compare just food prices. you have to compare buying power. Switzerland has the highest food and rent prices, yet when wages are taken into account, the average swiss has more money let over than almost anybody else on the planet. yet food prices are about three to four times that … (more)
--------------------------------------
Jonathan Grimm
10h ago · 5 upvotes
Yes, but you get to experience life more fully in the U.S. because you have to stay constantly aware knowing that a simple broken leg or hospital stay for any reason could lead to personal bankruptcy (sarcasm). It always amuses me when fellow Americans think we are the only modern nation — when we are backward in so many ways including a broken health system and religious demagogues with large followings.
--------------------------------------
Ben Steven
7h ago · 5 upvotes including Jonathan Grimm
I used to live in the US and I was quite amused when I realised that attitude of a lot of people, not all of them, but a lot. And they have rarely ever been outside the US.
I would not want to live there again, compared to where I live now.
--------------------------------------
Fabian Mcallister
3h ago
Yes indeed as I spent one night in US hospital with no treatment required apart from blood and blood pressure checks.
Morning discharge saw an itemised bill of $9500 including ambulance. Thank goodness for travel insurance!
Rhys WilliamsHow much of the $9500 did you have to pay?
--------------------------------------
Paul Irving
4h ago
In the UK if you work freelance, or have personal expenses which are tax deductible, you may have to submit a tax return, or save money by doing so. E.g. my wife, of who both are true. Membership of a Royal College & HCPC registration are compulsory for her to do her main job, & the NHS doesn’t pay them for her, for a start, so they’re tax-deductible.
But the online tax return is a doddle. It leads you through it, & the language of the questions & explanatory notes is clear. Stick in your numbers & it works everything out. And you can do it bit by bit, saving it & coming back to it as many times as you want.
--------------------------------------
Scott Powell
8h ago · 5 upvotes
“Having to consider additional taxes when looking at the ticket-price of groceries is just bizarre. Don’t the POS systems have the capacity to cater for that? Or is showing the lower price considered a sophisticated sales technique? Just put the final price on so people don’t get confused.”
Sales tax … (more)
--------------------------------------
Verena Gabner
6h ago · 4 upvotes
Taxes vary in many countries in the world. However, what really confuses foreigners in the US is that you simply don’t know what you will pay for an item at the checkout. I haven’t seen any signs anywhere in stores in the US where it says “Please note: 10.25% sales tax in this county”. So a visitor would never know unless they pay. Where I come from, it’s mandatory for a seller to indicate the final price of an item, and on the receipt there’s always a line indicating how much tax is included in the final price, so it’s not intransparent. But you know that you’ll pay 1€ if the price tag says 1€.
If it’s so important to make customers aware of net prices, just include both prices on the tag. If tax rates vary by zip code, this should not be to the disadvantage of the customer. The checkout software systems in Santa Monica know precisely what sales tax to add, so the store operator should make sure the price tags match.
--------------------------------------
Scott Powell
3h ago · 1 upvote
That’s more complex than you think.
Let’s say I’m a store with Venice and Santa Monica locations. Requiring the final price would require me to print both prices.
If I have a store in Marina del Rey, I need to add a third price. You can bike the three towns in 20 minutes and I need to publish three prices.
I could never have a national ad campaign unless I was willing to “eat” some tax costs. I might list the price assuming 7.5% tax and cover the 2+ points I’d lose in Santa Monica. I might make up some of that loss in places that don’t even tax my product. (NJ doesn’t tax clothing.)
Also if I my shop is in one state and a customer in another state calls or orders something online, I don’t charge them sales tax at all. I don’t have tax nexus.
It’s actually so complicated that there are firms that do nothing but offer tax calculation services to business (see Avalara for example).
If there were some super easy way to sell one price everywhere, everyone would sell that way.
Fabian Mcallister“Special offer on sweet potatoes, only $1.79 a bag' *plus local taxes! ?
--------------------------------------
Fabian Mcallister
3h ago · 1 upvote
In the UK we have Value Added Tax added to our shopping bills but it's shown as a separate item on the tally so we know how much everything costs.
Simples!
--------------------------------------
Rhys Williams
1h ago
It really isn't hard here. It becomes automatic by the time you're 11.
--------------------------------------
Stephanie Vardavas
3h ago · 1 upvote
Are you in Portland now? If so, welcome! We’ll do a Quora meetup when it’s safe.
| The text being discussed is available at
and
| |
