"Free" sounds more appealing than "tax-funded", but they mean the same thing. Googling "finland income tax rates" gives this:

'The Personal Income Tax Rate in Finland stands at 57.30 percent. Personal Income Tax Rate in Finland averaged 53.99 percent from 1995 until 2024, reaching an all time high of 62.20 percent in 1995 and a record low of 49.00 percent in 2012.'

There need to be some taxes, but I think a person has the moral right to keep the majority of their earnings, regardless of how much they earn.

> There need to be some taxes, but I think a person has the moral right to keep the majority of their earnings, regardless of how much they earn.

Maybe only if you move to UAE :)

While here in the US we are not paying 57.3% in taxes (though in some States kind of close to that) we pretty much get nothing in return (other than military complex...)

My understanding is that the total tax rate (city+state+federal) is higher in places like New York and California than it is in Finland

We take LA as example:

California state tax rate: 7.25% Los Angeles county tax rate: 1.00% Special tax rate: 1.25% Combined Los Angeles tax rate: 9.50%

Highest federal tax rate is 37% so that is 46.5%. Not quite Finland but a lot...

Interesting! And then maybe once you factor in health care costs etc it comes out at pretty much the same

That’s not health tax tho - it’s usually a separate tax. In Israel, mine used to be around $100/month.