La belle province!! Your published tax rate is Ontario and it's not as low as you think. http://www.ey.com/ca/en/services/tax/tax-calculators-2016-personal-tax. Try to put in $100K there and you will see it's not 33.7%, it's about 43% once all the surplus tax is added.
Our sales tax is from 10% - 15% in most of the provinces except Alberta and the three territories in Igloo land where the average year-round temperature is -30+ degree celcius. And we are now being charged healthcare on our taxes once your income is above certain threshold so it's not free for us anymore.
The taxtips table include all the surtaxes. I'm in AB, so my rates are slightly lower than ON/PQ. I haven't done the math, but even Quebec shouldn't be that high for $160k. Another big difference between the US and Canada are property taxes. In my city, property taxes are ~0.3-0.4% of my property assessment. We explored moving to Sugar Land, TX and couldn't believe the property taxes down there.
Alberta has one of the lowest personal tax rate at 36%, the same as the three Igloo land territories and BC. If you click on the link that I provided in my previous post, http://www.ey.com/ca/en/services/tax/tax-calculators-2016-personal-tax and type in 100,000 in the "taxable income" box and click on "Calculate", you will see the marginal tax rate for all of the provincial tax rates in Canada as well as how much in dollar amount you will be paying. Ontario and Quebec are not the only provinces that have 40+% fed + prov. combined tax rate.
^ There's a difference between marginal and average tax rates. I don't see how you're getting a 45% average tax rate on $160k in any province.
You can rob a bank and have the Feds chasing you. That's no problem. But defaulting on your credit cards and having them go to collection agencies? That would be your new living hell. In that case, the Feds would be doing you a favor by throwing you in prison, because those collection agencies will tear out your soul. Feds don't tear out souls, they just do their job. :-O
@Overnight I need some cocaine money. Which banks/institutions do you bank at? Gonna get a few CC's from them.
Last night I saw an episode of "House Hunters International" where a professional Bay area couple got transferred to Sydney. They were shocked how high rental prices were. In the end they paid $2400/month for a small one bedroom apartment near Sydney Harbour Bridge. Didn't say where they were living in the Bay area but not obviously in the city for $2400/month.