Comparing compensation between cities
First post!
Hey fellow monkeys.
I just accepted a job outside the US and I am wondering how I can gauge my comp against a US based salary (as almost all the discussions here revolve around US based compensation).
I guess the thing that matters with compensation is not what you make, but what you pocket after taxes, expenses etc.
So here is what I did (all figures converted to USD, there might be small rounding errors).
Gross compensation: 93.5k*
Total taxes: 14.2k**
Net income: 79.3k
I then went to: http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/rankings_current.jsp - found out that the 'Consumer Price Index Plus Rent' for my city is about 65 as compared to the NYC base of 100 (indices explained here: http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/cpi_explained.jsp).
So to figure out what my net income would be worth in NYC I adjusted my salary upwards:
79.3/65x100 = 122k
Which is about $160k gross.
Did I do that right? This seems exceptionally high to me for my position (my first year at a VC), so I suspect I made a mistake somewhere. Would appreciate a second pair of eyes on this.
*Combination of base (48k), bonus (12k), a tax free short-term savings contribution by employer (3.5k), and private shares which can't be sold until our company goes public (30k) - our fund is very new.
**Combination of income tax (10.7k), capital gains tax on shares (7.4k) and offset by a tax rebate that is unique to my working status here (3.9k). Note the capital gains tax is not actually paid each year as the shares it pertains to cannot be sold yet, but I calculate it anyway because it will have to be paid at some point.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| NYC Salary Comparison.xls 29 KB | 29 KB |
Maybe you could share the location you would be moving to? The income tax seems pretty low to me but could be that it's just because I'm European and after deducting taxes, social security, etc, there is usually a lot less left over here. I'd just say you should check which other mandatory expenses you might have. If you will be relocated for a long time I'd actually make the effort of going through some expenses that you have today (rent, car, insurance, health, food) and approximate them. The consumer price index is maybe a bit misleading on its own. If you move to a land where you don't speak the language there could be additional costs simply because you likely won't pay "native" prices for everything (simply: you're likely to get fooled a bit). Also, I'm not a VC guy but how can you already tell today what the capital gains tax on those shares will be? What if the company fails?
Just some thoughts...
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