VAT in Norway is 25%, petrol yesterday was €1.6/L (and we're a major oil producing nation). A car here is probably 1.8x of same model sold in Portugal, purely due to the taxes. About 35% of my (unremarkable) paycheck effectively goes towards income tax, after all tax breaks are factored in. If you are in top tax bracket, you'd be easily paying 45% effective income tax, with nominal over 50%.

Do we get fair return for the money? Most people here seem to think so. Can smaller tax on over smaller base income be felt disproportionately? You have a point there. However Portugal is a first world nation, and this level of civics, infrastructure, education and healthcare does require substantial money for upkeep. There is no good way around this, but hopefully you get a better deal on that due to economies of scale than if you had to provide all that for yourself on your own.

Norway is an outlier even among rich countries. Having lower taxes than Norway does not mean taxes are low.