[DZittersteyn]

The highest tax rate in the Netherlands is 51,95% (Note that this only covers anything you make over ~70k+ a year, 0-20k is taxed ~35%, and 20-70 is taxed 40%). Then you pay 6-21% VAT over anything you buy, so yeah, in some scenarios you definitely lose >50% of your gross income to taxes.

https://www.belastingdienst.nl/wps/wcm/connect/bldcontentnl/...

[jhasse]

> Note that this only covers anything you make over ~70k+ a year, 0-20k is taxed ~35%, and 20-70 is taxed 40%

Which means that you'd need an income over 480k a year to get an effective tax rate >50%.

I hope I calculated that correctly: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=solve+((x-70)*0.5195%2B...

> Then you pay 6-21% VAT over anything you buy, so yeah, in some scenarios you definitely lose >50% of your gross income to taxes.

If you count VAT, you'd also need to take into account all the benefits you get in return from the state.

[morsma]

You don't just count VAT, let's count everything: 150%-250% taxes on energy, ridiculous amount of fees and duties. As a Dane, we're probably the most taxed in the world and for a high earning software engineer it's approaching 75%.

[jhasse]

The state enables a lot of stuff for you in return though, which we'd also have to count as a benefit if we "count everything". It's just infeasible to come up with a concrete number of how much they "take away" from your earned money.

[morsma]

I have the same benefits in the US as in Denmark (more or less). In the US the government take 25% of my income in Denmark it was around 75%. Personally I don't think the extra 50% is worth it. The only ones better off in Denmark is the minimum wage earners.

[jhasse]

I highly doubt it's that simple, sorry.