You are correct for the first number (181k to 100k), but not the second one, as the income tax is calculated by brackets defined in adavance[1]. A single person with no family winning 100k would have to pay 23k, leaving them with 77k. This is more than twice the average in France[2] and nearly thrice the median salary [3].
Thanks, I calculated 26.7k leaving 73k, so employee keeps just over 40% of what the employer pays.
If you look at income tax in high income tax states the income tax looks similar, so its the payroll taxes and VAT that really is the difference between France and US.
I may be wrong, but I think there is also a cultural difference: everything here revolves around your gross income.
You'll hear "I win 100k a year", not "I win 181k a year". During hiring, you negotiate on the 100k number. Your contract mention this number. In the end, if there is a tax raise on the company part, they have to maintain your salary to the same level, even if it ends up costing them more than before.
That'd be also why US salaries seem so high from the outside, but are less impressive once your factor this in.
This is exactly how it works in the US. Salaries here are listed and negotiated around the gross amount that the employer pays to the employee, without any regard for the employer taxes. The difference is that employer-side taxes on that salary are about ~8% (and most of this is capped at the first $147k), not 45%.
Sadly, US salaries don’t just seem much higher than Europe: they are much higher. Take home pay after all taxes for a senior engineer at a large public tech company can commonly be $250k+ per year, in addition to benefits like health insurance and 6+ weeks off once vacation and holidays are taken into account.
The employee doesn't pay 40% income tax on a 100k salary.
Income tax in France is progressive. You slice your income in brackets, and for each there's a tax rate. Your average tax rate is the average of your brackets.
The highest bracket in France is 45% for income above 160k, so for your total income tax rate to be about 40%, it would mean that you make an absolute shitload of money.
Not French, but it doesn't sound that weird. I think my grandmother (an accountant) once told me that the general principle is that an employee should be worth at least three times their salary for the employment to make sense financially.