I’m in Britain and I really hate the eyelashes, fillers and makeup here for young girls sometimes and the intense pressure I see everywhere to get them. Poor girlies.
I’m in Britain and I really hate the eyelashes, fillers and makeup here for young girls sometimes and the intense pressure I see everywhere to get them. Poor girlies.
Company car culture. Taxes are high and compensation is low so people get really fancy company cars as a tax dodge. Even entry level IT and accounting people get cars but … their take home pay is like 2000 euro a month after taxes. My job pays well but without a car and people seem to think it’s some sort of negative statement on my worth but … I am taking home much more in net than them? (And I don’t get the expat tax advantage.)
Curious in what Euro country this is? And you must not be American by the statement of expat tax advantage lol!
You can see this in Reddit posts too. Very young people who work for multinationals complaining that they cannot get a company car despite quote “having a masters degree and two years experience!” I have no idea where they work of course but I can imagine the Deloitte VP of Accounting who just got her first company car after 15 years and with 40+ people in her reporting structure going “what the hell Belgium, why does this 28yo quant drive a Mercedes E Class paid by us!?”
I’m an American in Belgium.
Curious why you said I wasn’t an American. Did you mean I must be an American?
Dude my(US) husband(BE) literally just started working and he gets a company car and we were trying to figure out like why not just pay people more?
So basically if you tally everything up that they include it would be insanely expensive for an employee to manage, and often you are supposed to use your car for any work travel you have to do. So they maintain it, pay for the gas(within reason), pay for the car itself, the insurance,the yearly inspection, and you don’t get bumped up in a tax bracket.
While I personally agree with you I think it’s partially because we view cars as an investment and also as an extension of ourselves In the US. I personally. Was estatic when my first car here was a 2007 opel combo cdti because I love a good value van that I can haul stuff and has good mileage, but the hoops of car ownership are much less necessary and more annoying here. We’re considering selling our van for better bikes and having the company car as our main car.
The perception here is that American wages are so high compared to Belgium, but I added up all of the benefits that came with an “okay” wage with “good” benefits and it’s over 1000$ worth of items if I were to get the bare minimum value of comparable items(car, gas, phone, computer, health insurance(and hospitalization also which would be even more expensive in the US).
My initial instinct was also like “why would you want this, they’re just making money off of you when you lease” but honestly, it has started to make sense. Sorry for the long rant it was just so specific I had to say something lol
The company buys that stuff in bulk. It’s cheaper for them than it would be for you and there are probably other benefits beyond that. Perhaps the car company or dealer is also a corporate customer?
They aren’t a customer but they absolutely totally get a group deal I’m sure, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t also more economical for us as well, only paying the ~1k per year to have a brand new car that is fully upkept and always gassed is a hell of a deal as a customer. As long as the company doesn’t cheap out and give you a less efficient vehicle and then you have to pay higher fees, I think it’s worth it
They have leasing agreements. It is pretty variable in cost apparently, in terms of budget for the employee.
To me it’s just the government / companies telling you how to spend your money on an item I don’t want.
Cars are depreciating assist though, not investments. I would take a gas card though.