Top tax rate is 45% + 2.5% 'solidarity surcharge' and that does not include healthcare, which is another 12%. Unemployment is another 3%, pension is around 20%

Top tax rate is 45% + 2.5% 'solidarity surcharge' and that does not include healthcare, which is another 12%. Unemployment is another 3%, pension is around 20% (although you'll get it back eventually), "pflege" (nursing?) is 2.5%, VAT is much higher than most places in the US at 19% so that sums up to... 105.5% – the error being that most of these are only applied on the net that's left over after paying other taxes. And some of these are the marginal rates applied only to income above certain thresholds (that 'solidarity' tax get to 2.5% only on income > ´1.3 million) while others, like healthcare and unemployment, have upper limits. The best way to measure this is probably government spending/GDP (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending#As_a_percentage_of_GDP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending#As_a_perce...) which is about 46% for Germanys and 43% for the US, although you could argue that healthcare should be included in those numbers.