It depends on what you include though. You could look at someone earning 100k, having it taxed, paying all the things that are not taxes but obligatory just the same (social security, depending on the country), and then spending the rest on rent, travel, food & entertainment (and paying sales tax and various other specific taxes). How much of their total income has gone to the state?
If you want to extend that comparison, look at someone running a company. The value they create with their company will be taxed as well, then they receive dividends from their company which also will be taxed at different rates.
Of course, you'd need to either compare to individual US states, or make some choices about how to average their very different tax levels.
Someone earning 100k (assuming single, no kids, no private pension) pays about 33% effective tax (including social security) and some VAT on spending. 50-70%, again, is just kinda nonsense.
"Some VAT on spending" is a bit hand-wavy, don't you think? If you take those 67k (probably a bit less in Germany, because you'll pay for health insurance one way or another, and it's not a 100% deduction) and spend it, most of that will be at the normal VAT rate, which in Europe is between 15 and 27%, the average is approximately 20%. That'll be another 10k or so (or another 10% of income), you're now at ~43%.
Buying gas for your car (~50% of sale price are taxes), or natural gas (~30% taxes), oil (20%), or electricity (27%) for your home, and you'll pay taxes, too. There's various small amount (~250€/yr for public television; nominally not a tax in Germany for legal reasons, but it would be dishonest not to include it -- it is by law, there's no way to opt out, you don't have a claim to anything in return, its height is controlled by the state), it adds up.
I doubt you could get to 70%, but 50% isn't far off if you actually spend your money (which you will have to at some point, so I don't see a reason why you wouldn't consider those taxes).
Okay, that's _really_ different to how it works in Ireland, and I think just shows the government trying to incentivise slightly different things. I think the key difference is that, per the above, dividends are taxed as capital gains in Germany (weird; they're clearly not capital gains); in Ireland they're deemed unearned income and taxed more or less as normal income (with some slightly weird treatment at the edges, I think; I'm not sure that you can offset income tax on them with pension contributions, say).
I'm a bit curious _why_ Germany wants to incentivise retention and payout via dividend vs payout via salary for small companies (it seems like, for high income people, corporate tax + dividend there would probably be lower than the highest band of tax?) but that's clearly what's going on here.
But since limited liability is a pretty good thing to have and is affordable now, these days many people opt for it, especially if you're somewhat successful because one of the disadvantages is increased accounting duties -- but if you make more than 50k (or something thereabout; in profits) without a limited liability, they'll apply the same duties to you.
Corporate tax + dividends is usually more expensive than personal income. On 100k profits, you'll pay 30k taxes, and then you'll distribute 70k of which 25% are tax (capital gains), so another 17.5k gone, and you've paid 47% until the money is yours. Top marginal income tax is 45% (250k+/yr). Accountants are technically optional, but practically mandatory for LLCs, and they cost 2-3% of revenue (by law, no negotiations possible).
Germany very much doesn't like self-employment when you look at it from that angle. But I doubt there's an intention behind it, it's mostly historical: limited liability is supposed to be the larger companies, not an electrician with two employees. But Germany doesn't adjust, so our 2nd highest marginal tax rate (42%) starts at 66k€, which around 10% of employees in Germany hit, and it rarely gets adjusted to account for inflation. But no worries: there's been a lot of noise to increase this to 57%, payable on income > 80k€. We'll get to the 70% eventually.
The EU either has to integrate muslims, which is a rougher ride, or Russians/Ukrainians, of which there is a more limited number to import.
The country with the worst demographics, South Korea, still IMO has an out: it can topple North Korea and import a huge number of people from there.
China is in deep, deep trouble. They have restated demographics downward, and probably it is still worse than that. Combined with increasing levels of totalitarianism, allegedly a huge financial house of cards in real estate and regional governments, and a likely invasion of Taiwan that results in blockade and sanctions...
Russia was having huge problems before the war. Now they are throwing away a badly needed generation, and causing 2-5x that amount to flee the country.
Democracies have the potential to pivot from demographic disaster, but totalitarian regimes don't care about them, because demographic cliffs mean there is just an older more compliant population to suppress. Of course it means long term their country will fade to irrelevance and perhaps starvation/economic collapse, but totalitarian regimes exist primarily to ensure the survival of the regime, not the population.
Indeed, but, even Mexico and much of Latin America now has below replacement fertility too. So now what?
Democracies that entice immigration are also strategic weapons.
But to answer your question, that's their problem.
Countries and governments need to wake up and structure their societies towards liberal reforms to get encourage child rearing. That involves a host of things that the right won't like, but the side effects will be a society that people want to immigrate too.
It's a double demographic effect. Now, so far even Europe has not restructured its housing, work, subsidies, childcare, and the like to fully stimulate demographics.
The US would need huge reforms in healthcare, workers rights, and childcare, and the doom of an imbalanced demographics like we have with the boomers (ESPECIALLY the baby boomers) is that they vote only for their selfish needs and won't vote to invest in the younger generation
That said, for _most_ countries, 40-70% effective tax is very high, and not encountered by the average person. To pay 40% effective in Ireland, say, you’d have to be earning at least 150k, and that’s assuming you’re single, have no kids, don’t pay rent or mortgage, and have no private pension (401k equivalent) contributions. Realistically, almost no-one hits those sorts of rates; for realistic setups you’re looking at closer to 200k for a single childless person.
It is impossible, here, outside of ultra-contrived circumstances, to pay over a 52% effective tax rate.