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...
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/