[klausa]

On the contrary, the OP has got it right (perhaps accidentally), and you're the one confusing things.

You're correct that taxes, insurance, and pensions are different things, but in the context of "what amount of money arrives in your bank account at the end of the month", I find it a distinction without a difference.

Plugging in a 100k brutto salary into https://www.bbx.de/brutto-netto-rechner/, yields 57k of take home pay for the year, which is within spitting distance of the 58k figure quoted by OP.

The _income taxes_ of it add to up to "only" ~29k, sure.

And your example of getting 75k on 100k of income if you're married only applies if your spouse doesn't work; which; while I'm sure is a commonly occurring situation, it feels disingenuous to not specify that when mentioning it.

Don't get me wrong — having immigrated from Poland, I am having exactly the same feelings you do towards paying high taxes in Norway — I'm more than happy to pay those, and I see a _world_ of difference in how that that money is used; but we can make _those_ arguments without downplaying the actual amount of money that goes to the State.

[blumomo]

I explicitly said “tax (including insurances)” to make it clear that for a simple calculations of the money that doesn’t reach your bank account. Now in Germany the percentage of income that goes to health insurance is dictated by government, currently around 15%. While insurance is not tax, i’d dictated by government how much to pay, makes no big difference to a tax either.