The average rate of social security and tax state contributions from French workers is now 47% of the total gross wage (EDIT this was corrected, the original figure stated on Wikipedia is much higher and it's wrong).

The French state spends 57% of all French GDP [2]. For context, this is higher than what the Soviet Union spent in the years before the communist regimen felt (41% to 47% during the 1980s [3]).

How much taxes shall we pay to "support our independence"? Will I be allowed to keep at least 10% of what I earn, or am I supposed to give it all to the state to live in this wonderful Socialist utopia?

And here you are, asking to increase taxes even more. The only way out of this madness is a civil war. We are past any sanity left.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_France

[2] https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/government-at-a-glance-...

[3] https://www.elibrary.imf.org/display/book/9781557755186/ch05...

EDIT: The wikipedia page is indeed wrong: "The overall rate of social security and tax on the average wage in 2022 was 82% of gross salary". This was the tax wedge of these 2 contributions, not the average tax on wage as the Wikipedia page states. Average tax on gross wage in France is 47%. The worker then has to pay VAT and other fees/taxes from the remaining 53%.

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qqrot 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Unfortunately you (and of course the wikipedia page) misunderstood the OECD document [1], which says:

"In France, income tax and employer social security contributions combine to account for 82% of the total tax wedge, compared with 77% of the total OECD average tax wedge."

Note how it says "of the total tax wedge" not "of their salary.

The tax wedge itself is 47.2% in 2024 in France. This is indeed high by international standards but nowhere as high as you claimed.

[1] https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/report...

	▲	3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		[deleted]

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kuerbel 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

82% tax wedge is not the same as taxes, or even the contribution of an individual.

Also nobody is talking about taxing income even more.

I do agree however with the sanity part, although I think of a whole different subset of people than you.

	▲	braiamp 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Effective tax rate is what you should be looking at. The most efficient tax rate is one that describes a exponential saturation, where it starts growing faster once it reaches the point where you have too much wealth.

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boomskats 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

None of what you've just said can be verified by looking at any of the references you just posted. However having just read through that wikipedia page, I realised that there I'd be paying almost half the income tax I pay living in the UK.

So yeah, thanks I guess. Now I really really want to move to France.

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abtinf 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Your wiki link contains only a single random reference to that number, and the page it links to justify it doesn’t exist.

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well_ackshually 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Man, life must be easy when you can't read and just get to make things up online. Especially when things such as the URSSAF's simulation tool is like, freely available online: https://mon-entreprise.urssaf.fr/simulateurs/salaire-brut-ne... giving you a copy of a pay slip with detailed amounts of where your money goes.

Someone making 2500€ gross will take home 1885€ per month after taxes and contributions. On which you can add a 20% VAT. Even should you want to operate in incredibly bad faith and add employer contributions, it would only amount to 3175 in total. For fun, I tried to figure out what would be needed for someone to have 82% of their salary going away into taxes. It is physically impossible to go anywhere above 55%, the math just stops scaling. Even taking employer costs into account, the max will be 65%. This all starts happening when you have the lowly gross salary of about 30 000€/month, something that I'm sure you're being paid right now to complain about to much about it.

Hell, even the damn link you're posting shows that you can't read:

> In France, income tax and employer social security contributions combine to account for 82% of the total tax wedge, compared with 77% of the total OECD average tax wedge

What the fuck do you think tax brackets cover, ponies ? And acting offended about it like it's some unacceptable thing when the OECD average is... 5 percentage point lower ?

> 82% of the average gross salary in France is indeed taken by the state,

You literally can't read.

> In other words, in France the take-home pay of an average single worker, after tax and benefits, was 71.9% of their gross wage

> his means that an average married worker with two children in France had a take-home pay, after tax and family benefits, of 83.1% of their gross wage

Now, there are ways to solve these expenses, they involve cutting all pensions. I'm sure you'll be okay with letting your parents, and mine, die, right ?

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wtcactus 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Well, life isn't that easy then, because you failed to comprehend URSSAF's simulation tool.

On a €2500 gross salary you take home €1651 (which is a very low salary in France very close to the minimum salary). But I guess you think the gross salary is what the company, by law, has to say they pay you, instead of what the total cost for the company of your salary.

See, in France, even if you are getting close to the minimum salary, the state is taking 33% of the cake for themselves. This is for people that earn very little. For people that earn average salaries of €2669 liquid (€5000 gross for the company), the French state takes 47% of the cake.

It's a normal mistake for people that don't actually have to support the costs themselves. Once people actually start a small business or pay more attention to their own wages and how much is being taken away, they figure out how it actually works.

	▲	well_ackshually an hour ago \| parent [-]
		>It's a normal mistake for people that don't actually have to support the costs themselves. Once people actually start a small business or pay more attention to their own wages and how much is being taken away, they figure out how it actually works. No, thank you, I am quite well versed in the concept of superbrut, and actively pay more than a SMIC in taxes every year: you won't play that game with me. Va jouer, comme on dit. They're employer _contributions_ to the system. They're the price you pay for a healthy, well educated working population. You don't get to claim it as "it would be your salary", because we both damn well know you'd never pay that back into the salary should it go away. We've had the experience every time, with tax writeoffs on SMICs, VAT lowered to 5.5% which led to zero jobs created and no changes in employment conditions, etc. You might even be old enough to remember the MEDEF's "1 million jobs" pin, where they created... 20k. Cool. The reality of things is, you as an employer cannot be trusted to not fuck over employees, especially the weakest and most vulnerable of us all. Once again, your own damn links prove that 1/ France isn't that far off the OECD average for taxation and 2/ actually does better in not slapping in a bunch of unrelated crap in taxes.

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ul5255 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

How did you arrive at 82% of salary being taken by taxes and social security? I read the Wikipedia article but I don’t how the numbers would add up to 82%.

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skywal_l 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[2] You include pension, healthcare and education in this number. What would be the equivalent number in, say, the US if you were to include all this?

	▲	lII1lIlI11ll 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> What would be the equivalent number in, say, the US if you were to include all this? Isn't it the point OP is making - France has much higher taxes compared to US because the state provides pensions, healthcare and higher education and US don't?

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pyrale 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> The French state spends 57% of all French

That figure is pretty tired. In France, the pension scheme is counted as public spending. In neighbouring countries, the very similar, mandatory, pension schemes count as private.

The comparison makes little sense if you don't compare equivalent spending scopes, and equivalent service provided. If health care was to privatized, for instance, I'm pretty sure we would be worse off, but that number would go down.

> The average rate of social security and tax state contributions from French workers is now 82% of their salary

This figure, on the other hand, is straight up made-up bullshit. I dare you to find a salary that reaches 82% on URSSAF's salary simulator [1]. The OECD report quote is:

> In France, income tax and employer social security contributions combine to account for 82% of the total tax wedge

82% of the State's tax base are from income tax and social security contributions. That doesn't mean peopole are taxed 82% of their income.

[1]: https://mon-entreprise.urssaf.fr/simulateurs/salaire-brut-ne...

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lII1lIlI11ll 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> That figure is pretty tired. In France, the pension scheme is counted as public spending. In neighbouring countries, the very similar, mandatory, pension schemes count as private.

That "very similar" does a lot of heavy lifting for you. Your neighboring Swiss pillars 2 and 3 and not similar at all - they are neither financial pyramids that depend on population growth, nor are they subject to some arbitrary "points adjustment" bullshit (a retiree takes out exactly what they put in without any shenanigans from politicians or "Agirc-Arrco board of directors").

> If health care was to privatized, for instance, I'm pretty sure we would be worse off, but that number would go down.

Care to elaborate why French middle class (we are on HN after all, not on Jacobin) would be worse off on Swiss health care model, for example?

	▲	pyrale an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> That "very similar" does a lot of heavy lifting for you. The critical point if my claim is whether or not they are mandatory. Pillar 2 is mandatory for employees. Whether employees are forced to fork their cash to the state or to a private management company doesn't change the scheme or the benefits you get, but it changes OP's number. There's plenty more to say about the way pension schemes are set up, their benefits and drawbacks, but that's unrelated to my point. > Care to elaborate why French middle class (we are on HN after all, not on Jacobin) would be worse off on Swiss health care model, for example? I'm going to talk about the French as a whole here. The key metric to me is the share of money collected that is paid back to beneficiaries. In private insurance systems, it is usually between 75% and 90%. The french assurance maladie is between 96% and 99% [1]. [1]: https://www.securite-sociale.fr/dossiers/quels-sont-les-cout...

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handelaar 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> "The average rate of social security and tax state contributions from French workers is now 82% of their salary"

This might be the most insane comment I've ever seen on this forum.

What in the hell are you talking about? Did you actually read that first link, completely fail to understand a single word of it, and then the number 82 just magically fell out of the sky?