Europe-US Tax Comparison

75% tax rate is very common in Europe even for workers with average salary. There are many hidden taxes such as 'social security insurance payed by employer'.

Depends on which europeans you mean. The higher taxed countries like the nordics pay mad taxes. I don't mind though because I feel it's well spent (i.e. my attitude towards public spending is that it is usually pretty efficient). That's probably a big difference to the US where the attitude seems to be that taxes are pretty much a black hole.Tax calc for me:Employer pays $8kPayroll taxes deducted: $2kMy gross salary: $6kMy income tax: $2kMy net salary: $4k

How about 65% taxes? Welcome to Europe :-)

The Tax in Europe is generally much higher, but a lot of it is hidden in payroll tax and VAT that you don't see.So x% has already 'come off your paycheck' before you see it, and then an extra 15% on everything that you buy. Which is also hidden.That is offset by extra services, esp. healthcare, but in tech, healthcare is usually a benefit on top of salary anyhow.

In high tax Euro country those 50% also include stuff like public health care, retirement and social security.

But after 50%+ taxes, take home amount is quite low compared to US, right?

It's not as bad as it sounds: there is normally a substantial non-taxable base income, and the xx% tax you pay only concerns the amount over it. In most European countries there are also numerous tax deductions: daycare, mortgage interest (in certain countries up to 100%), savings accounts for youths and so on. VAT is a base consumer tax paid by everyone, and shouldn't be lumped together into income tax.

I'm not from US, so these taxes don't affect me.I'm talking about earning 2x-3x national average pay and getting fucked by that here, in a small EU country.5k(eur) gross monthly here (current gross average is ~1950eur), after taxes and social/medical (they're a "tax" here, divided between worker and employer) gives me 2922eur net, and I cost my employer 5805eur. With VAT (22%) our customers pay 7082eur, for me to get 2922eur, and the government gets 4160e

You'd be surprised at how in some places in Europe the differential in taxes compared to the United States is not as significant as you would expect. When you factor in state and federal taxes it's not that unusual to pay upwards of 35-40% in annual taxes. The difference is at least a lot of the European countries have something to show for it (subsidized education, universal healthcare, etc).

That's marginal tax rate. Many people pay an effective marginal tax rate of more than 100% if you include government programs like social housing. In fact, when you earn around €2200/month here, it is possible to end up with net less than if you don't work at all, due to various programs.