Are you including social contributions of employer and employee in your 20% tax rate?

Because these are definitively taxes that should be included.

If yes, I am really curious to know how this is possible

Really the only way as an employee is to have a family because income tax depends on household size. And let's remember that there is a de facto second income tax (CSG/RDS) on top of the income tax.

But this is a small part of the issue with tax. Regarding employment there are the taxes paid by employers, as you rightly point out, which make the cost of labour quite high in France, but there are also all those other taxes on about everything.

> Are you including social contributions of employer and employee in your 20% tax rate?

Only income taxes. The employer taxes are mainly pension / health insurance.

Compare for example with Denmark where the social contributions are close to 0 and the income tax up to 50%.

The total of the employment taxes paid in Denmark is still lower than the total in France.

Denmark seems to be a particular case compared to other OECD countries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rates_in_Europe#/media/Fil...

Yes, I chose this extreme example on purpose to show that evaluating only the income tax is not meaningful.

And what are those ways?

Off the top of my head... in France, you pay tax as a household rather than an individual. So if you are married with children you get a tax cut for each child up to 3.

Private pension contributions are also tax deductible and don't actually have to be used for retirement (you can use it to fund a first house for example)

Other things that you can take off your tax bill include alimony payments, charitable donations and investments made in certain French initiatives.

So yes, there are many ways to legally reduce your tax bill quite significantly here.

And to add, Randomly out of my mind :

- Owning a flat and rent it to a thrid party. Many fees on it are deductible.

- Investing in medium/small-sized companies.

- Making property/housing more energy efficient.

- Invest in accommodations for disabled/elderly/etc.

- Fees for the studies of your kids.

- Support/Invest in art / creative related enterprise.

- And many other that need to be checked.

That is not exceptional. Many European countries have similar taxes credit schemes.

France is a tax and red tape hell.

As an individual you may be OK re. tax if you are married with children because they give strong tax advantages to those households [basically they count how many people live on your income when calculating income tax], which must be your case.

But overall tax levels are high, taxes are many and complicated, red tape works against you.

> France is a tax and red tape hell.

- Red tape I agree. Administrations are slow and processes cumbersome.

- Taxes I do not agree, France is in the European's average.

France is #1 in the EU for public spending [1]. Deficit is within average and constrained by Eurozone rules (excluding the current mess). Money does not magically appear.

As I said, taxes are many, complicated, and often useless. This of course overlaps with the issue of red tape but is an issue in itself. There is a reason why so many rich French people live in Belgium or London. There is a reason why when Peugeot merges with Fiat-Chrysler the new company is headquartered in Amsterdam.

Just another example I've recently found (this is supposed to be abrogated this year): If you're a company and your turnover is greater than EUR760k annually then there is a special, additional tax on your advertising spending. There are plenty of things like that. This is bonkers.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/263220/public-spending-r...

> France is #1 in the EU for public spending [1].

That's a well known overstatement that comes mainly from the fact Pension system, education system AND health care system are almost entirely state-owned in France. You can find the same pattern in some Scandinavian country btw, France is not an exception.

> There is a reason why so many rich French people live in Belgium or London.

You can say the same with British and American near the Leman-lake /Zug in Switzerland. Fiscal optimization is everywhere.

> There is a reason why when Peugeot merges with Fiat-Chrysler the new company is headquartered in Amsterdam.

That's not surprising, Holding companies always love specific countries for legislation/taxes reasons. That include Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Ireland. Almost every European major multi-national has an holding in one of these.

> If you're a company and your turnover is greater than EUR760k annually then there is a special, additional tax on your advertising spending.

That I totally agree with you. This is a good example of terrible case by case politic bullshit.

It is certainly not an overstatement, and the issue of tax goes far beyond what you may see as an individual (for example, overall labour costs [1]). France is not an exception in its organisation, in fact its health care system is LESS state-owned than, say, the UK's. But it spends a lot, taxes a lot, and, to compound the issues, is not flexible.

You seem to actually agree that France has problems with its legislation and tax in the rest of your reply...

Edit: The graph that you posted in you reply below is obviously not the same metric. It states it is "general government" spending while I mentioned "public spending". But even so, your graph shows France ahead of Germany and the UK.

[1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

> It is certainly not an overstatement. As you say, France in not an exception in its organisation, in fact its health care system is LESS state-owned than, say, the UK's.

It is. Especially if you compare with the public spending/GDP collectively [1]. It is currently lower than USA and right in the average of OECD.

> You seem to actually agree that France has problems with its legislation and tax in the rest of your reply...

I totally agree with that. I disagree with the fact it is a taxe hell. In my experience, as a European who lived in several countries including France, it is in the average of Europe.

That said, I agree with you about the red tape / administrative burden.

[1]: https://data.oecd.org/chart/5Zub