Comparison of Income Tax - UK vs. US States

There has been much debate about the "high tax rate" in the UK vs. the US. I just thought it might be a more fruitful discussion when we have the real facts in front of us. Since I am up at the crack of dawn on a Saturday morning with no one to talk to (and not to mention that I am a numbers nerd), I actually have the time to do things like such!!

Do note that this is strictly an income tax comparison. Taxes (if you can call them that) such as Social Security & Medicare etc. for the US are not accounted for, National Insurance for the UK is not accounted for. Also note that other additional allowances (tax relief) for either US or UK are also not reflected. Comparison is strictly based on "Single" filing status. UK tax calculation has been converted to USD for an apples to apples comparison. Exchange rate from GBP to USD is reflected at the most recent rate of 1.62.

This has been quite fascinating for me. For example, who would have thought that the state of California has such wacky Tax bracket - how random. Makes me laugh. And, did you know that there are a total of 9 states with no income tax, although 2 of them do tax on income earned via interest and dividends (i.e. investments). I think the process has given me a new idea for my next career move - working for the US government - in a States at least, balancing the State's budget! I think that would be a very fascinating job really. If I can do it for a corporation, why not a State government? Hhhhhmmmm........


CONCLUSION:
While the UK income tax may be slightly higher vs. the US, depending on which US state you draw the comparison to, the comparison schedule is merely to point out that it's not devastatingly/dramatically

higher than we think.

Bearing in mind this is of absolutely no political agenda. I'm the last person to discuss politics with. But the analysis is done to put to rest the myth/mystery of the high UK taxes. While it is obviously high compared to several US states, particularly the ones with no state income tax, it is not higher than the New England states nor California.

And I cannot stress enough that the analysis solely compares Income Tax, which is the topic of misunderstanding in several discussions I've had in the past, present and hopefully not in the future. While many might think that I speak and defend the UK government and way of life, I DON'T. I am simply here to reveal facts.

Greece - Athens & Santorini (Opa!)

Call me spoiled but I insist on having a "babymoon" before the due date! It's something I have always wanted to do. True we are heading to Asia in a couple of months, but going home for a visit is never really a romantic holiday away with your spouse. I am sure y'all can agree. :-)

So anyway, we (or "I" rather) settled on Greece. We didn't intent to go for 10 days. It just happened by "accident" - more like Dylan's fault! We were in the middle of booking our flight and Dagan skyped in. Dylan insist on finishing the reservation while we were on skype, paying half an attention to what were doing. At the end of the skype call, we were stuck with a 10-night trip! It's a good thing I have many holidays to spare otherwise I would not be happy! You see, my initial research has led me to believe that Athens is not as packed with "sights", unlike Rome and Paris. I had wanted to spend 5 nights in Santorini....so 5 nights in Athens is just way too much. Anyhow, we made it work.

The trip started out disastrously, to say the least. We sat in front of a noise making toddler from Edinburgh to Amsterdam! We don't blame the child but rather the parents, for not stopping the child when he kicks the seat in front of him (my seat) continuously AND provoking the child to sing/say "e-i-e-i-o" in a loud screeching, high pitched voice every time the child stops!!! What in the world was the father thinking??? After an hour and a half of "e-i-e-i-o" and a vein and eye popping piercing pain in my eye socket and forehead due to a sinus infection and cabin pressure instability during landing combination, I was reading to eat the child for dinner!

Anyhow, we were just glad to be off the plane for transit in Amsterdam with "e-i-e-i-o" still ringing in my ears. The next leg of our journey on the flight was rather uneventful except for the same piercing pain and motion sickness during landing. Not to mention it was 2a.m. local time (midnight UK time) by the time we land. 10:30p.m. is usually my bedtime to give you some frame of reference! With all that going on, we (Dylan would say I) left our passports on the plane (seat pocket)! I didn't realised it until we left the airport and on the bus en route to our hotel. I seriously didn't think it was going to a big deal. Surely the cleaning crew will find it, send it to the lost and found, and we'll just pick it up the next day from the airport. No big deal. Wrong! In hindsight (which is 20-20), we should have gotten off the bus and went straight back to the airport had we known how inefficient and unhelpful KLM is in handling lost and found property.

Long story short, after visits to the various embassies, tons of international phone calls on our mobile phones, no thanks to KLM, we finally located our passports, not in Athens but in Amsterdam! We had to delay our flight to Santorini (another expense) so that we can have another working weekday in Athens. By Monday night, we finally arrived in Santorini - 4 days after our departure from Edinburgh!

That said, all was not lost in Athens. We managed to do some sight seeing in Athens. Sadly, like Milan, Athens is littered with graffiti, and box-like, distasteful brick built building. The "sites" were sporadic and spread very far apart with very little interesting buildings/things to do in between. Also, we didn't understand why there were so many stray random dogs and cats all over the streets??



Santorini....aaahhh....that's a whole different story! The island is breathtaking! It's definitely a must-visit if you can make it. It's hard to describe the beauty of the natural wonder of Santorini so I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.

Meet Baby Potter

I cannot believe it's been 2 months since I last made an entry. Well, considering the fact that I've been in a fog for the last 2.5 months, it shouldn't be a huge surprise. The little thing in my stomach called baby has been causing quite a havoc with my health the past 2 months. Unfortunately, I had all the symptoms in the book - pretty much. Not very pleasant at all!

Anyway, I am happy to say that the tide has started to turn. I started feeling better about a week ago. Praise God!! I am now officially 15+ weeks! I had a scan today and finally got some pictures to show and tell. I must say I was completely irrationally paranoid right before the scan. I started spilling the beans at work about a week ago and was rather paranoid that the baby would disappear during the scan hence making me a lier!!! It must be the same hormones that are making me have really weird dreams lately!?

Anyway, here are the first pictures of Baby Potter and Baby Mama with her co-called bump. Dylan doesn't think that there's a bump (per se) but that I just look fat. Hhhhmmmm. I say it's a bump. My official due date is August 26, so they say. :-) It was too early to tell the sex of the baby unfortunately! We'll keep you posted. Stay tuned.

Christmas 2008

It's been a while since I posted something....it's not that nothing exciting is happening in our lives but the busyness of the holidays just threw me for a loop. We went back to the US for Christmas, as many (if not all) of you knew. It was a good trip overall. Exhausting but good.

There was a huge snow storm the 2nd day we were there. Our bodies were not equipped to handle such extreme temperatures anymore since we moved to sunny Scotland - not. But seriously, it just never got that cold in Scotland! Needless to say, I was not happy with the chill and at the same time discovered that I did not miss the snow one bit! Sorry to disappoint some of you snow fans out there.

The cold however did not dampen the joy and delight of seeing friends and family again! We had such a great time catching up with people we haven't seen in over a year, some longer! More importantly, we got to meet our little niece Isabella for the first time! She's about 7 months old and is such a good baby!

We were sad to leave but ready to be "home" after two weeks of running around. The flight back was way shorter (7 hours vs. 12/13 hours) compared to the flight there which we were very thankful for.




That's all for now....keep smiling. Jesus loves you!

Haircut! It's a big deal!

I had a haircut today! It's a big deal when the last hair cut was 10 months ago!!! It's credit crunch yo! :-)






So what do you think?








How about this angle?








And this angle??








ok...that's enough! :-)

Oh yes, by the way, we moved!

Some of you might have already heard that we moved - yes, just slightly over a month ago. We've been very busy since and haven't got a chance to take photos of the place to show you until this evening. I walked into the Drawing Room and the lighting was just right and the flat was relatively tidy, so I thought to myself "no time like the present!" :-) You can tell from the photo that our old flat fits right into the living (oops I meant "drawing") room and dining room combined! Just in case you forgot, you can find pictures of our old flat from an earlier blog entry (about a year ago). So, here it is....

Our flat building was built during the Georgian era (17th century)!

Drawing Room










View from the drawing room window as the sun is setting, then at night....













This is Dylan right after the James Bond movie - it's amazing how such movies can turn a grown man into a boy.












Dining area










Hallway










2nd bedroom












Master bedroom









Kitchen








and finally...Bathroom

CHRISTMAS SALE @ Jacqueline Potter Collection

Yes, it's finally here! Christmas Sale is going on now at Jacqueline Potter Collection. Massive discounts of up to 40% off. Every item in the store is on sale. What's more, it's FREE SHIPPING to US and Canada! To visit the site, CLICK HERE. Happy shopping!