"In France, income tax and employer social security contributions combine to account for 82% of the total tax wedge, compared with 77% of the total OECD average tax wedge."
Note how it says "of the total tax wedge" not "of their salary.
The tax wedge itself is 47.2% in 2024 in France. This is indeed high by international standards but nowhere as high as you claimed.
[1] https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/report...
Also nobody is talking about taxing income even more.
I do agree however with the sanity part, although I think of a whole different subset of people than you.
So yeah, thanks I guess. Now I really really want to move to France.
Someone making 2500€ gross will take home 1885€ per month after taxes and contributions. On which you can add a 20% VAT. Even should you want to operate in incredibly bad faith and add employer contributions, it would only amount to 3175 in total. For fun, I tried to figure out what would be needed for someone to have 82% of their salary going away into taxes. It is physically impossible to go anywhere above 55%, the math just stops scaling. Even taking employer costs into account, the max will be 65%. This all starts happening when you have the lowly gross salary of about 30 000€/month, something that I'm sure you're being paid right now to complain about to much about it.
Hell, even the damn link you're posting shows that you can't read:
> In France, income tax and employer social security contributions combine to account for 82% of the total tax wedge, compared with 77% of the total OECD average tax wedge
What the fuck do you think tax brackets cover, ponies ? And acting offended about it like it's some unacceptable thing when the OECD average is... 5 percentage point lower ?
> 82% of the average gross salary in France is indeed taken by the state,
You literally can't read.
> In other words, in France the take-home pay of an average single worker, after tax and benefits, was 71.9% of their gross wage
> his means that an average married worker with two children in France had a take-home pay, after tax and family benefits, of 83.1% of their gross wage
Now, there are ways to solve these expenses, they involve cutting all pensions. I'm sure you'll be okay with letting your parents, and mine, die, right ?
On a €2500 gross salary you take home €1651 (which is a very low salary in France very close to the minimum salary). But I guess you think the gross salary is what the company, by law, has to say they pay you, instead of what the total cost for the company of your salary.
See, in France, even if you are getting close to the minimum salary, the state is taking 33% of the cake for themselves. This is for people that earn very little. For people that earn average salaries of €2669 liquid (€5000 gross for the company), the French state takes 47% of the cake.
It's a normal mistake for people that don't actually have to support the costs themselves. Once people actually start a small business or pay more attention to their own wages and how much is being taken away, they figure out how it actually works.
Isn't it the point OP is making - France has much higher taxes compared to US because the state provides pensions, healthcare and higher education and US don't?
That figure is pretty tired. In France, the pension scheme is counted as public spending. In neighbouring countries, the very similar, mandatory, pension schemes count as private.
The comparison makes little sense if you don't compare equivalent spending scopes, and equivalent service provided. If health care was to privatized, for instance, I'm pretty sure we would be worse off, but that number would go down.
> The average rate of social security and tax state contributions from French workers is now 82% of their salary
This figure, on the other hand, is straight up made-up bullshit. I dare you to find a salary that reaches 82% on URSSAF's salary simulator [1]. The OECD report quote is:
> In France, income tax and employer social security contributions combine to account for 82% of the total tax wedge
82% of the State's tax base are from income tax and social security contributions. That doesn't mean peopole are taxed 82% of their income.
[1]: https://mon-entreprise.urssaf.fr/simulateurs/salaire-brut-ne...
That "very similar" does a lot of heavy lifting for you. Your neighboring Swiss pillars 2 and 3 and not similar at all - they are neither financial pyramids that depend on population growth, nor are they subject to some arbitrary "points adjustment" bullshit (a retiree takes out exactly what they put in without any shenanigans from politicians or "Agirc-Arrco board of directors").
> If health care was to privatized, for instance, I'm pretty sure we would be worse off, but that number would go down.
Care to elaborate why French middle class (we are on HN after all, not on Jacobin) would be worse off on Swiss health care model, for example?
This might be the most insane comment I've ever seen on this forum.
What in the hell are you talking about? Did you actually read that first link, completely fail to understand a single word of it, and then the number 82 just magically fell out of the sky?