Highly Progressive Income Taxation In Germany

Posted: 7/9/2017

Trigger

The German federal statistical office just released the latest income and taxation statistics for 2013 (latest available year, see e.g. here)

Tax And Expropriate The Rich

The German income taxation is highly skewed against those with higher incomes.

Only 2.2 million taxpayers of a total of 39.8 million pay about 55% of all income taxes in Germany. The top income tax rates of those 2,2 million taxpayers is either 45% (at annual income of about 251,000 Euros or higher) or 42% (at about 53,000 Euros or higher). Not to be outdone, 9.6 million taxpayers pay no income taxes at all.

Besides income taxes, the VAT (general sales tax) is 19% in Germany and you pay about 70% taxes on high priced gasoline and so on.

The situation is worse than in the U.S. if I am not mistaken, but it is not much better in the U.S.