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From the numbers people seem to put in their gross income.

I would find it interestin to see how much is taken away by the goverment for different salaries and locations.

In Germany, the government takes away roughly 50% of your income.

Last line is bs. Its not "the government". Taxes are much less. It includes all kinds of insurances included (medical, unemployment, retirement, etc.)

Normaly I would not answer someone who calls my writing "bs". But since its a public discussion, I want to get the facts straight:

I pay 42% taxes on income.

I pay medical insurance on my own.

I dont have unemployment or retirement insurance.

Are you sure? You need an income of over 300k Euro to reach 42% taxes in Germany. Not saying, that you are not making that much. But sometimes people get confused between marginal and average tax rate.

The highest step is 42%, but overall you pay much less. On the first 8k you pay nothing for instance, then you pay some 20% on the next 20k or so, and so on. The last step is 42% for everything above 200k or so.

It's not that different for some situations in the US. When you add federal, state, county and township personal & business taxes for me (self-employed), it comes out to around 40% of my income... and once I spend any of it, the sales tax is 7% here.

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