Germany, like any other European country I know, charges 0% tax as long as a company doesn't pay it out to it's owners. Every other use (see next paragraph) is

Germany, like any other European country I know, charges 0% tax as long as a company doesn't pay it out to it's owners. Every other use (see next paragraph) is untaxed. In fact they pay less tax than individuals (no VAT). And of course, high incomes have such companies, that receive their salaries instead of them themselves. This is common and perfectly acceptable, in fact, as a consultant you are taken advantage of if you don't do that. How does it work ? One pays "proper" tax on a nice income they pay themselves indirectly (but 1/3 or less of their real pay) and then invest it in something that's some form of capital replacement business (buy something - rent it out) and grow that business all their career, and of course use it for perks, like free dinners, vacations, health care, education, hotels, cleaning service, ... There's even the more blatant ways to get untaxed pay. For instance renting your own house (you put an office room in your mansion, then "rent" it to your own company for a very nice rent. Untaxed, and legal) For tax purposes, of course, those aren't free dinners. Those are "sales negotiations", which are indeed also conducted in expensive restaurants. "Company conferences", not vacations. As for additional healthcare, that receives special tax treatment by default. Company cars (aside from being a necessity. You're socially judged in Germany by the car you drive. You want "senior consultant" ? Don't arrive in a Renault, or generally any car under $50k. Hell I know people who hack this system by using rentals, removing the stickers and using those to go interview). Anyway company cars are untaxed (0%) as long as their "primary use" is company business. Wanna bet how often that is true for higher pay individuals ? Oh and I've actually walked into the general management building of Deutsche Bank. I guarantee not one of the managers is paying a dime in tax on company perks, and yet ... that building is a palace. You can get free massages there. There's an exquisite restaurant (10 euro per meal). It's the best museum of German art in existence, by a HUGE margin, it's got sleeping rooms (which should be understood to be a free hotel service, because that's what they are), and of course, every business partner or "business partner" ... can be given access, again, for free. And all this service, for free, in the dead center of the city. Hell, the free parking alone is worth 500 euro per month. Can we please stop with the idea that Europe is somehow a more egalitarian place than the US ? It's not. Also no European business will be caught dead paying half the salary you get in Colorado to a software engineer (you can get comparable to Colorado as a consultant with maximum "tax hacking" though, still nowhere near the valley). Lastly, at least in my experience, European companies are a lot less meritocratic than US ones (not that I'm seriously claiming there isn't a healthy dose of nepotism/favoritism in the US, but it doesn't tend to be 90%+ of the company, whereas that is very common in the EU).