You do pay 60% or more in many EU countries, but most of the time you don't even realize because of the inherit complexity of the tax system.
If you do the math, in many western EU countries you end up paying 60% or more of all you make every year to the government, one way or another.
Take this example: you take an apparently generous salary in France earning €50k/year gross.
The total outcome of your work force value production is taxed at 47%, where 27% is taxed on the employee side (13,230€) of €50k and 29% is taxed on the employer side (20,000€) over €70k (€50k gross + employer taxes).
So, the production of value to the company due your job is in reality 70,000€/year, but they only tell you what you are legally accountable for = 50,000€, but at the end your real salary is 70,000€ since it's what your job value produces to the employer business, so 70,000 - (20,000 + 13,230) = 36,770€ is what the poor guy eventually gets in its
bank account each year (almost 50% is taken off).
You can check
salary taxes here.
Alright, is that all, ain't? Ah! Don't be naive. The party is not over, buddy!
From these 36,700€ the poor guy takes, you still have to pay 20% in VAT in pretty much every purchase do you anywhere in order to get products or services you need to live.
But as the government has not enough stealing from you, they also have a bunch of other hidden taxes to basic services such as electricity, gas, fuel, water... going from 5% to more than 50%.
In case you decide to buy a car, the purchase price will be also increased by 20%, which for a 30,000€ car, you will end up paying 5000€ in VAT taxes to the same government who already stole from you 47%.
There are more taxes, like property taxes, rental taxes, local residency taxes, inheritance taxes, capital gain taxes...
To make things simple, let's take the average life cost of a single person in Paris, which according to
Numbeo is 928€/month without rent/
loan. 928 * 12 months = 11136€ / year.
Now let's calculate the average goods & services tax, which according to
The World Bank in 2017 was 22,7%.
11136 / 22,7% = 2450€ in indirect taxes.
To be more realistic, we will add an extra 300€ / month expenses for non-basic services and goods: streaming services, private insurance, private pension, games, gifts, travels, restaurants, nightlife etc...
300 * 12 = 3600€ / year / 22.7% (VAT) = 817€ in taxes.
Now let's take rental income taxes, assuming the subject lives in a one bedroom apartment in a non-centric area of Paris, which according to Numbeo the average price is 836.35€ / month * 12 = 10032€ / year.
According to rental income taxation in France, the owner pays a minimum of 14% of the rental income, hence, I'm assuming here the owner will externalize that cost to the tenant.
10032€ / 14% = 1404€
Note: there are other local taxes involved here, but for simplicity I'm ignoring them.
Now let's assume the subject has a car and drives 15,000 km per year with an average car that consumes 5.7l/km where price per liter for petrol is 1.6€.
Total cost = 1368€, on which 66% are taxes, hence 1368€ / 66% = 903€ in indirect taxes.
Car registration and circulation taxes also should be added, plus the tall-roads that are across all the country indirectly controlled by the government in an oligopolistic lobby, but calculating this is a bit tricky.
Note that many other indirect and local taxes where not explicitly listed (alcohol, tobacco...). Not to mention taxes on multiple sources of income such as capital gains or
dividends.
Conclusion: as a single modest individual producing value through a company measured at 70,000€/year, the overall simplified tax burden will be:
33,230€ salary + 2450€ basic goods VAT + 817€ non-basic goods VAT + 1404€ rental + 903€ fuel + (optionally, 5000€ VAT for a new car).
The subject ends up paying in total taxes: 38804€ / year (or 43804€ / year if you add the new car).
Net salary after taxes: 36,770€
Indirect taxes on top of the net salary: 5574€ = 15.2% taxes of 36,770€ (no new car)
Total effective tax burden: 33230€ + 5574€ = 38804€ in taxes per year = 47% salary + 8.1% = ~55% in total taxes (no new car)
How much money went to the poor government?
38804€
How much money went to the actual market?
8686€ + 2783€ + 8628€ + 465€ = 20,562€
How much money could be put into a saving account at the end the year?
36,770€ - 20,562€ = 16,208€ of 70,000€
Note that if you invest that money in stock, private pension, buying a property, buying a car, getting some license or whatever, don't forget you will also pay taxes again
As you can see, this example is based on conservative costs and expenses, but very possibly a person with such income will spend more money in goods and services to improve its life of quality.
I don't know you guys, but I can only see an obvious winner in all this mess: the state, and more surprisingly, all thanks to other people work and risk
God dammit, lovely parasites, isn't it? Not even the fucking Louis XIV could even think of such great massive robbery when he was alive lol