Why Amazon's HQ is in this tiny country 

As a person who was born in Luxembourg and still lives here, I can tell you that there are actually some small mistakes in your video as you only interviewed 2 people but I must say your tour guide did an excellent job, otherwise you did an awesome job, a great video nonetheless. At the pharmacy everything is definitely not free! You will actually be refunded up to 80% by the healthcare department (or deducted right away upon presenting your social security card and these rates might vary depending on which medication you buy, many things in the pharmacy are not essential like lotions, cremes etc. so your refund for those types of products will be 0, that's how they generate most of their revenue). As your tour guide mentioned many youngsters are indeed moving out in order to get the most out of their salaries. There's a 50% risk among youngsters to fall below the poverty line because of the ridiculously high housing prices. The value of Real estate in Luxembourg has actually increased on average 7% per year going as high as 15%. Luxembourg is also a big melting pot, there's a big multinational community. People come here from all over the world, almost 50% of the residents are foreigners. You have people from many different nationalities and walks of life all living harmoniously and peacefully in the same place and there isn't a big segregation among the different socio-economic classes, they don't live very far apart as they're actually neighbours. It's not a perfect place to live in but still a great place, I love how many people from different nationalities come together. Small fun fact: The constitution is written in french as it is one among the 3 offical languages of Luxembourg and most people are capable of speaking atleast these 3 languages. I myself speak 5 languages and there's a famous news anchor that speaks 6 languages and also comes from Luxembourg, you may have seen some clips online of a guy speaking 6 languages effortlessly in front of a camera for CNN in various parts of the world.

So the locals are moving out because it’s getting more expensive and at the same time multi-national companies and their labour are pouring in … I think I’ve seen this movie before .. not good in a long run.

I lived in Luxembourg for a few years, working as a software developer at a bank. The salary was incredibly good. Plus, the bank gave us rent-free flats in the center of the city, and gave us a ridiculously high daily allowance for meals and other "incidental" expenses. This meant that I, and most of my colleagues, could save 100% of our salary, and live very well off just the daily allowance. Looking back on it, the amount of money involved was ridiculous. I can really understand why people continue to be drawn to the country.

You need to do more videos on interesting countries like Luxembourg, Cayman Islands, Cyprus, etc.

Unfortunatly this video presents a lot of incorrect info. Is clear that these persons talking about taxation and finance in LU have no financial knowledge to talk about financial matters, one of the guys is a nurse. Healthcare in LU is not free, I’m not sure how they came with that idea. Companies are taxed in LU.

Be careful with those statistics: The GPD is often calculated by adding up all the money received by all the participants in the economy. We have about 500k active workers, of wich 220k are border-hoppers and actually live and pay rent in the neighbouring countries. This means that about a 3rd of the wages LEAVE Luxembourg! If you don't come from 'old' money here, you will struggle HARD to be able to afford any type of living accommodation... and that's talking rent. Buying a place is almost impossible unless you and your partner earn well above 5k each NET a month and have previously saved up a few hundred k...

People just don't realize that "free" means pre- or post-paid. Also the guy at the end says than many Luxemburgians are moving out sometimes it means they will live in a neighboring country but still working there. Also, for those who don't even know where Lux is located, this is a tiny country surrounded but 3 much bigger countries. some time ago I spend time there with Luxemburgian friends and, for ex. they say they bought books, meat and cheese in France, fruit and vegetables mostly in Belgium, and went to the doctor in Germany (bc"the doctors in Lux were too much like American doctors") and so on. On the other hand, cars and petrol were cheaper in Lux. Mind you, it is always short distances. This is also a difference btw Lux and Sing or Dubai

was nice seeing familiar places in this video, dont see much about Luxembourg on the internet very often. nice and informative video!

"Luxembourg feels like Disneyland". Indeed, many places in Europe are felt like a giant theme park.

I came here to learn how to trade after listening to a guy on radio talk about the importance of investing and how he made $460,000 in 4 months from $100k. Somehow this video has helped shed light on some things, but I'm confused, I'm a newbie and I'm open to ideas.

6:53 "companies like Luxemburg" *nice*

You know it hits different when one of your favorite content creators is showing my workplace in Luxembourg (KPMG) in one of his videos. Thanks for sharing Luxembourg to the world 😎

Thanks for this video. You are still my favorite RU-vidr. I subscribed to your channel to watch these kinda videos. I love the way how you explain things in a very simple and comprehensive manner. Keep up the great work Uptin.

There's an extremely easy reason. How "rich" a country is, is for some reason determined by it's GDP divided by the number of residents. Most of the GDP in Luxembourg is generated by the thousands of workers living across the borders, in Germany, France or Belgium. However, they pay taxes in Luxembourg and so do the companies employing them. Luxembourg has nowhere near the "rich" vibe as Singapore or the UAE though. Cost of living in Luxembourg is insanely high and there's nowhere near as much variety in food as in Singapore.

This is the video I have been waiting. Couldnt have come in a better time. Keep up the hard work!!!

I love this channel. I get to know about so many new things! Great work.

As a Luxembourger, these kinds of videos always piss me off in how they get the basic facts wrong. People come visit the centre of the city, make their videos in the idyllic sceneries around the historical parts, or like here the business district, and say how everything is amazing and rosy. Fact is, there's a whole rest of the country, the south/south-east isn't nearly as nice and quite derelict. Think of drawing random borders around any more important city, or parts of it. If I were to visit the City of London proper, or Munich, then obviously I don't take those experiences as representative of the whole country. Inner West London is wealthier by many factors than Luxembourg with a multitude of the population, just pity it's not a country to make it on its own in the statistics to make headlines. Amazing GDP per capita headlines to quote in videos, what you don't hear is that 45% of the workforce aren't living in the country so they don't appear in the "capita" part of GDP per capita. And yes they do that because they can't afford it here - literally underpaid with a large percentage of working poor. Amazon not paying taxes by saying that their profits are negated by investments have nothing to do with Luxembourg tax laws. They can do that in many other countries even within the EU. That lady talking about pharmacies being free evidently doesn't have a clue of what she's talking about and the fact that things like that make into the video is just absurd bad fact-checking. What people should be talking about why companies come here: The flexible legal system in regards to the ICT sector. There's very strong and swift legislature in matters such as IP law, ICT security laws (many are EU headquartered here for this), all things that aren't related to tax or money.

I remember when you had a few thousand subscribers. So happy to see you growing, you deserve it.

I recently learnt that Apple has more than 70/90 Billion dollars in Ireland and hasn’t moved it to US to avoid paying taxes. Probably Amazon accumulates all it’s Europe revenue in Luxembourg?

Nice video Uptin, was waiting for such nice video since long, loved your channel.

Very similar to what Switch does and how workers in Switzerland live. It's a shame that big corporations pay no taxes while shops and private citizens are taxed. It's also not sustainable, as the moment some of those corporations change location, the whole system falls apart.

As always, awesome video!

Great educational video. Love your style! Keep it coming and thanks for the educational content on Luxembourg. I was in Singapore recently and was surprised by the city. Your video has peaked my interested now in going to Luxembourg to check it out.

6:55 companies like Luxembourg 😂 didn’t know they were a company too

Very nice video 📼 Uptin 🎉

Absolutely well done ! Well, as a student major in tax, I have to say that even in the past those giant tech didn’t pay no taxes, we just can say that they paid extremely low tax (while it was huge in lump sum for Luxembourg public finance) by using legal entity and international tax loopholes to minimize their tax. On the other hand, despite the global minimum taxes, I believe that Luxembourg government and big four tax team (represent their clients)will still cut a favorable tax deal to maintain attractive to foreign capital. To sum up, as they still capable to maintain their cutting edge compared to other EU member, the global minimum tax will dramatically boost Luxembourg public finance. Still a big win for Luxembourg.

Great video! The housing situation that's happening in Luxembourg is exactly the same that's happening here in the State of Goa, India.

At first I thought your channel is a tech channel then I realized it's about Countries and Cities Good content BTW

Extremely well made video Uptin loved seeing the local and the expats' POV. Your content's quality is really consistent and it is educational. Keep up the great work, your long time fan.

Now this is a country with actual good brains working in the government

Man you deserve more subs!

I studied abroad in Europe and visited Luxembourg. I didn’t realize it was one of the richest countries, but was surprised when the tour guide told us the rent prices

Thank you for sharing this video.

Awesome video! Great channel!

I'm sure you will reach 1m subscribers very soon! Really great contents, keep doing!

Great video. I subscribed

so the core reality of their system is the last couple of sentences of the local guy. "yeah! most luxembourgian are moving out, living on borders or in belgium, germany and france". this is sad ... just a soft form of "red indian elimination".

Awesome tech vid , great English from the interviewed guy!

love the contents and interesting videos of your channel

Love your videos :)

Excellent& informative

A very informative channel and great contens I enjoyed watching most of your videos Thanks for sharing .[]

The last part kinda got me. It’s true that many Luxembourg-born people can’t afford to live here anymore because real estate prices are becoming insanely high. We are nearing 1 million € as the AVERAGE price for a house and ~600k € for an apartment. Rent is also ridiculously high. It’s sad really.

As a Singaporean, I was taken by surprise that you've mentioned Singapore. I would love to see a comparison betwixt Luxembourg and Singapore. I'd understand that you might have little expertise about Singapore (since most of your videos are Euro-centric) but I would love it if you could find your counterpart here and have a conversation about them, especially about free healthcare and transportation. I see some parallels with Singapore's economic status (i.e. higher living wage, higher rent) but I am no expert in it to understand fully.

Hey Uptin.. Brilliant video.. Absolutely marvelous✅.. ❤🐒

Companies dont want their money to be wasted by the government. Notice people living in tax heaven countries have much more quality life. This just proves that low taxes makes it best for everyone.

Tax is not always the solution. Happy citizens, happy country.

Nice idea!

Keep up the great work

I love how so many people speak of luxemburg but actually dont know anything 😂

0:44 I literally worked in the strange cage looking builing behind for 3 years 😄 (Kpmg)

Low to no tax countries' real estate usually end up like Dubai, Singapore, and Hong Kong....very high and priced out

The corporate might not pay tax, but their employee do. So the higher the pay, the more income tax is collected , hence it is able to meet all it's public expenses. That is the way to go, no ? Provide full employment for it's population. Technically, the EU's employees based here, are also paying their income tax. Income tax in Luxembourg is charged on a progressive scale with 23 brackets, which range from 0% to 42%. Workers must also pay between 7% and 9% as an additional contribution to the employment fund. The first €11,265 is offered tax-free, with the lowest rate of 8% kicking in thereafter.28 June 2022 Luxembourg recorded a Government Budget surplus equal to 0.90 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product in 2021. source: STATEC, Luxembourg

Luxembourg is a really interesting place. Bret Conti did a cool video on it recently

Nice video

22 hundred dollar is too much and not acceptable😳🙆‍♂️ Luxemburg making lot of money from rent. Scary rent 🤦‍♂️

Go anywhere near Esch Alzette and you'll see that the inequality between the country and the people's financial situation is staggering

Informative

I may have missed it, but where in the video does he reference the Amazon office building actually being their headquarters?

Living in Switzerland and knowing very well Luxembourg here is my 2 cents: If you are rich, already own a house or work in real estate it’s a good country, otherwise run away like it’s the plague. Rents are higher in Luxembourg (with exceptions like Geneva, Zurich, Gstaad etc) but the salaries are almost half of the ones in Switzerland. Taxes are also lower on Switzerland for private persons so the math is quite simple to do! Yes we got no free TP or healthcare, but the majority of a family expenses are in housing. Most of the regular joes Luxembourgers that got rich was only because of the enormous real estate price hike, they brought something on the 80/90s for cheap and now is worth a lot. If you are young with nothing, good luck buying something there!

Man this was nice to watch 👍🙏🙏

You just forgot to mention that junkies and drug dealers are occupying most of the roads in the center of the city and nobody is doing (almost) anything. And it's true, with property costs going up all the time it's becoming impossible for lower and middle classes to live here.

I love your videos. 🇰🇪

A minimum tax won't be enough. Tax havens will introduce ludicrous tax deductions such as making domestic housing investments 100% deductable and letting the companies sell those houses for 1$ to separate LLC's. Sketchier nations will just make a trust based system where the government can't actually see if companies actually paid the taxes due to some kind of new privacy law. Or they will give interest free loans in the same amount that has been paid in tax.

the amount of money a government can pull thru taxes in a year is way larger than what a large corporation can earn in its life time.

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Very interesting

They can learn from Singapore with the housing issue. If health care is already socialized, so can housing

From your Luxembourg video I’ll guess it’s to have properties in a rich country

If the lower and middle class is taking care of then there’s nothing wrong with this.

Good video, but my man can surely find a flat for 1500EUR or less, even in the center of Luxembourg.

I can agree with everything said, except everything in pharmacy to be free, it is not the case, you just get reimbursed partially if the thing you buy is a medicine, not a vitamin or other things. I liked the fact that he touched the housing prices and leaving costs in Lux., cause usually people make this videos and they don't talk about cons. in short, very good one, thanks for filming 😊

Like the amazon arrow in your thumbnail

I lived there for few months it rains alot and weather is cold.

Luxembourg has quite high income taxes though, so all those 4000 employees would be paying those taxes to the Luxembourg government. Or really it's their employer paying them, since they are deducted at source.

20% of residents are in threat to live beneath the poverty line in near future....min wage is around 2000euros....try to live out of that in a country like Lux.....also: I would like to know which big multinational company like amazon mcdonalds microsoft apple big banks etc pay a lot of taxes anywhere in this world?

I really like your videos, always something new and good to know, very informative/educational and based on facts and data. Not biased, not too much on personal opinion. Proud new subscriber here!

It seems Luxembourg Government has adopted Hong Kong's low tax system but charges very high on housing or real estate

Loved ur video Post More videos abt Luxembourg abt cost of living there.

Since they talked about employee benefits, how many days in a week and hours each day do the people there work?

Can one incorporate a company offshore in Lux?

Ok.. It’s time to move to Luxembourg!

Ayy free public transit? Time to pack my bags, im going to 🇱🇺 Luxembourg!

okay im from luxembourg and it seems to be a rich country yes. but my family has never been that well off but it was enough to get by and even buy a house but im a student in my last year and a tiny glat costs around half a million who on earth could manage to just be free in a country where you need a shitton of money to start your life. i will me living in my moms house till im 30 or something just to save money this is ridiculous. and the culture is fd up. our sports suck, our music sucks, our painters suck, basically everything that isnt a direct governement based job sucks. so yea very rich but very poor as a starting point for your career if youre not super lucky

You also forgot to mention that Luxemburg has the highest number of civil servants working for the EU in any EU country relative to its population. These work mostly in Kirchberg, where there are international schools and other services esp. for them. They come from all EU countries and earn up to 4x more doing basically what they did in their own countries. There is a joke about one of these civil servants who lived 4 there. When he was moving back to his country he realizes "Damn, I forgot to ask the name of the country around Kirchberg"!

Because the pay low taxes and Luxembourg was clever in its history to become a Bank state like Switzerland, Lichtenstein and so on

now you would Compare Luxemburg to Baltimore, MD.. and would be crazy difference :0

They should put one in Lichtenstein then because most of the money isnt even made in that country but its rich

Every caveat of countries having the highest standards of living will always be expensive housing...

It is a great idea live in nearby country and work in lukembourg

Same issue with Lisbon, Athens, and other places where gentrification is forcing locals to move out.

Nations compete - perhaps to a degree, they absolutely should - to offer higher quality of life for people and more advantageous environment to conduct business. For the sake of balance, I would point out that utilizing a tax haven these days is not quite as simple as signing a few pieces of paper and declaring that "I'm a Cayman Islands limited company hahaha"; generally, a company needs to move substantive elements of its business to the target jurisdiction (say, Luxembourg) and actually hire valuable, decision making employees who work in such jurisdiction. A global minimum tax like the one currently proposed in the US or the OECD regimes will probably work to "repatriate" some tax revenues to the countries where the businesses originate from, but in the end of the day, each nation is sovereign, and the whole point of sovereignty is to set up whatever system the people of a nation want. Unless all the high tax jurisdictions (e.g. US, Japan, France, Germany) all collectively agree to wage a tax war against everyone else, it's probably hard to stop Luxembourg from being Luxembourg.

it’s also done in ireland and some of the richest european countries.

American living in Lux! I work at one of those big tech companies, and I will say the cost of living here really is through the roof.

"My dog stepped on a bee"...1:17

in poland maternity leave is 1 year

Small countries can actually function for the well being of their people…

Really loved that outro song -wondering if anybody knows it?

"everything is free in the pharmacies", yeah, if you ignore the 20% you still have to pay or even sometimes the whole 100% because it isn't a necessary medication. It is a great country but living here is way to expensive and the country starts to be a lot more dangerous than it used to be but ignoring the 1 million € houses and that, it is a great country

I am from Luxembourg and I can't afford living in Luxembourg. Not only real estate is expensive but everything is. The only way for Luxembourger to make a lot of money is either to have a rich family, good contacts, luck or moving to another country... I will not move back to Luxembourg. And as for taxes... the little employee will pay 30%-50% taxes depending on the circumstances, compare that to Panama and Paraguay where you can go as low as 0% taxes AND still afford real estate over there. Luxembourg will become a Monaco 2.0. with no native people and losing its own language in (dis)favour to French. Whenever I am back in Luxembourg I don't feel at home, but like a stranger in my 'supposed' own country.