Those are marginal rates, not your effective rate which is what matter overall.

Austria has one of the higher tax rates of OECD countries, reaching 38.3% effective rate for a single person earning 167% of the average wage (source: OECD Taxing Wages)

Again the 20% when counted towards your income is marginal in that you only pay 20% on the price of covered products and services you buy. For starters you only spend of your net income, and only then after mortgages or rent and exempt products. When I last added that up for myself, VAT added up to around 4% of my gross salary.

So I stand by what I said. Most people in Europe pay nothing like 50%.

With respect to healthcare spending, Austrians do spend a lot, but your total healthcare spend, including private payments is far below what Americans pay in tax towards healthcare (source: OECD Health). PPP adjusted you spend an average of around $7.3k vs. around $12.5k in the US. About 2/3's of your $7.3k is taxes.

While I agree that some taxes are a bit too high and opportunities of building wealth without tax evasion are inexistent in Austria, but your tax percentages don't scan for me.

If I use the online calculator of the chamber of labor, on a 70k/year gross salary, you take home 45k/year NET, so you pay 25k/year in total combined taxes, meaning approx. 36% of your gross income is the tax load on 70k salary. That's not that terrible, seems in line with most developed EU countries more ore less.

The only thing missing is the taxes paid by the employer which also add up and increase the tax load, but are not listed on your payslip, which IMHO is a fault with the system due to this lack of transparency.

However, contrary to the title of this topic, it doesn't make "everyone's wealth go faster" it just supports the lower classes from falling into poverty and crime.

[1] https://bruttonetto.arbeiterkammer.at/

They quoted marginal rates, not effective rates, which is usually the case when people start talking about these high numbers.

I'm confused. What's the difference?

Let's say a country has only a single 20% tax band that kicks in at 20k.

If you earn 40k, your marginal tax is 20%, but only 20k of your earning is above 20k, so you pay 20% * 30k = 4k in tax for an effective rate of 10% (4k of 40k).

Most countries will multiple tax bands plus deductions which complicates this, and most places very few people have enough of their income taxed at their marginal rate for their effective rate to approach their marginal rate.

So if you have a marginal rate of 50% but it only kicks in when you earn over a certain amount, you will be paying less than 50% overall (your effective rate).

If you made $100k, paid $25K in income taxes, and were in a 33% bracket, your effective rate was 25% and your marginal rate was 33%.

What do you mean? I gave you the exact percentages. You can see them on the homepage of the Austrian finance ministry as well:

https://www.bmf.gv.at/themen/steuern/arbeitnehmerinnenveranl...

[1] https://worldtaxpayers.org/2019/10/austria-tax-freedom-day-w...

To be fair, 17% of the payroll and income tax are pension contributions (up to earning around thr $56k, after that it's just a tax).

Sweden reaches 50.3% for a single person earning 167% of average salary in total tax wedge (including employer payroll taxes) with no substantial deducations. An average earner has a total tax wedge of 42.4%. Sweden is one of the highest in Europe.

The average earner pays 24.3% in income tax and employee social service contributions.

The VAT adds up to less than you'd think, because for starters you won't buy anything VAT rates with the money you've already paid to tax, nor what you pay on housing, or food. Last time I added up what I actually paid in tax it was around 4%, both in Norway with similar tax levels to Sweden, and in the UK.

I cannot confirm this (I live in Vienna, Austria) but I've never had a serious health issue. I go to different doctors every year for checkups. What kind of doctors are you talking about?

Wife used to live in Vienna, Austria, and always had private doctor insurance. Her fears came true as she had a serious medical situation and was asked to wait for weeks (with pain managed by painkillers) until the surgery she needed could be done. Her private insurance stepped in, and like magic she was treated in 3 days.

Now, I believe that healthcare should never be considered optional/treated like a business, and must be equally available to all without pre-conditions on their financial well wing, but inefficiencies in the system are not to be wish washed away.

I think because Vienna is not as underfunded as other states. In Styria I had to go private for quite a few things If I didn't want to wait 3 months to see a public specialist.

For example, in Malmö, Sweden the top tax rate is 52% and starts at 45k, but even at 70k your actual tax load is something like 36%

Not counting VAT of course.