Ok, on the one hand, that's a very fair point. The middle class needs to pay taxes too, and a large social state is often funded partially with a broad-based V

Ok, on the one hand, that's a very fair point. The middle class needs to pay taxes too, and a large social state is often funded partially with a broad-based VAT as well as income tax. On the other hand, you're ignoring an important piece of data: what's the pre-tax distribution of income, both among individuals and between individuals versus companies, in Germany versus the United States? As far as I'm aware, Germany collects more corporate taxes (not sure about the pre-tax income distribution between people and companies there) for the size of its corporate income base, and Germany's pre-tax income inequality is slightly lower (but not by much) than that of the USA. So, as I understand it, Germany can tax the middle class because the middle class has a bit more money than in the USA, while Germany also taxes companies with both corporate tax and the company portion of VAT (it's mostly passed on to the consumer, but also ensures that some tax is collected on corporate revenues) at effective rates heavier than those of the USA. To sum up: a social state requires a broad tax base rather than just soaking a tiny population, but the desire to raise a large tax revenue by broadening the tax base has to be balanced against the need to tax people who actually have money to pay. If your income is massively concentrated among a few recipients, then they shouldn't be so surprised that they pay a correspondingly massive share of taxes.