9 ms·

I don't know about Germany, but in France for 100k gross salary, the employer social contributions will be around 40k, the employee social contributions another

I don't know about Germany, but in France for 100k gross salary, the employer social contributions will be around 40k, the employee social contributions another 20.5k, then 15.5k income tax. In the end 140k that employer pays result in less than 64k take-home salary. The real tax rate is around 54%. So, I can't verify what OP says about Germany but I can easily believe it. You can see chatgpt calculations here (and they do match my experience): https://chatgpt.com/share/68e64456-020c-800b-8443-1a2726e9a3e4 https://chatgpt.com/share/68e64456-020c-800b-8443-1a2726e9a3...

gambiting 1y ago
Right, but I've never met anyone who looks at it this way - this part: "the employer social contributions will be around 40k" Is not your salary. This is what the employer has to pay to keep you. So even in your example your tax on your earnings is around 35%. The fact that the employer has to pay another 40k to keep you employed is......well, shocking, but I wouldn't say that's a tax rate on your earnings - for the simple reason that if the government reduced the employer contribution to zero it wouldn't change anything about your take home salary(unless your employer decided to be generous and give you a raise).
- alexey-salmin 1y ago
  > Right, but I've never met anyone who looks at it this way - this part: "the employer social contributions will be around 40k". Is not your salary. I don't know, maybe you should speak more to people about this. Literally everyone who I discussed it with (like dozens of people) see it in the same way: * There's the money your employer spends to pay your salary * There's the money you take home * Everything in between is the government tax. There's absolutely no difference between "employer social contributions" and "employee social contributions" except in the name Well now I kind of know one person who sees it differently, but this PoV still doesn't make sense to me. > for the simple reason that if the government reduced the employer contribution to zero it wouldn't change anything about your take home salary(unless your employer decided to be generous and give you a raise). Believe it or not, but for multi-national companies job offers in France are smaller for this very reason: you have a fixed budget to hire an employee, you subtract the "employers contributions" and calculate the gross salary you can offer in various countries where you have legal entities. There's also the "adjust to local market part", it's not a single-factor formula of course, but "contributions" play a huge role in it. After all budget is budget, you can go lower if you like but you can't go higher.
  - gambiting 1y ago
    Well obviously, yes, but again, I don't know anyone who looks at it this way. If your salary is £100k and you know your effective tax rate is 35% then you're taking home £65k a year. I don't know how much on top of that my employer is paying in contributions, if it's another £100k on top or zero - and frankly I don't really care? The negotiated salary is £100k/pa and that's what anyone uses as a number of their compensation, if I ask you your salary and you say it's €140k but that's including my employers social contributions......that's just weird? Are jobs advertised this way in France? Edit: I just want to add one more thing - this entire comment chain started by OP saying, and I quote "I have over 50% of my income taken from me into a collapsing welfare state/pension system". The money that the employer pays to have you employed isn't your income, so adding it to your total earnings and saying "well I'm paying 50% of my income to the state" is just not correct. The employer probably pays money for the office and a desk for you to sit at, but it's not your income - it's part of their cost to keep you employed. I will say it again - if those costs dropped down to zero, you wouldn't say your income is now smaller, would you?
    - alexey-salmin 1y ago
      No, I'm sorry but this is just pointless, arguing about some technicality like "you can't call that income". That doesn't matter, these are just words. What matters in real life is the size of the cut the government gets from the employee-employer transaction. That cut definitely includes all the "employer contributions". The bigger it is, the less the employee gets. And no, it's not the same as the cost of buying the desk. If would be the same if the state prohibited remote work making a desk a necessity and then forced everyone to buy desks from state-owned providers at the price set by the state. In this case -- yes, absolutely, this becomes a "desk tax" which is eating into your income. UPD Since you insist, I'll address this part too: > I will say it again - if those costs dropped down to zero, you wouldn't say your income is now smaller, would you? I'll go to my boss directly and say that "my income is now smaller than it should be" and ask for increase in gross. If this doesn't work out, I'll go and get an offer elsewhere. Knowing how hiring and budgeting works, this is the only sane course of action. Companies suddenly find them with money they've already budgeted but aren't spending, expect the arms race for professions with high demand. In parallel to that I'll make sure to distribute raises to key members of my team anticipating them doing the same. I'll lose a few less valuable members of the team in the process because they'll receive offers that I won't be willing to counter. In general, I pay more attention to what people do, not what they say. This is why I didn't reply to the question "you wouldn't say your income is now smaller, would you?" the first time -- it's inconsequential, but we can consider it if you like.
- selfmodruntime 1y ago
  > Is not your salary. It IS your salary. If the employer didn't pay it, YOU would have to pay it anyway. If you are a freelancer, you will have to pay that employers share anyway. It's the cost of social security systems, and someone has to pay it: You. With your work hours and salary.
  - gambiting 1y ago
    >>It IS your salary. If the employer didn't pay it, YOU would have to pay it anyway. So if the government reduced the share that the employers pay down to zero tomorrow, would you then go to your partner/family/friends and say "hey, I just got a paycut at work" ?
    - valkmit 1y ago
      When you are negotiating payment for any good and service, you care only what the end cost is to you. It doesn't matter how you decide to slice it - "this share you pay, this share I pay" at the end of the day it will be seen through the lens of Total Cost of Ownership.
      - gambiting 1y ago
        I like how you didn't answer my question. If you don't see it as a paycut then it's not part of your salary. >>you care only what the end cost is to you. Yes, so I care what my salary is. What the employer has to legally pay to employ me is literally irrelevant other than academically. It's not my salary, the same how their cost of maintaining an office or providing me with equipment to do my job isn't my salary.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]

gambiting 1y ago

Right, but I've never met anyone who looks at it this way - this part: "the employer social contributions will be around 40k" Is not your salary. This is what the employer has to pay to keep you. So even in your example your tax on your earnings is around 35%. The fact that the employer has to pay another 40k to keep you employed is......well, shocking, but I wouldn't say that's a tax rate on your earnings - for the simple reason that if the government reduced the employer contribution to zero it wouldn't change anything about your take home salary(unless your employer decided to be generous and give you a raise).

alexey-salmin 1y ago
> Right, but I've never met anyone who looks at it this way - this part: "the employer social contributions will be around 40k". Is not your salary. I don't know, maybe you should speak more to people about this. Literally everyone who I discussed it with (like dozens of people) see it in the same way: * There's the money your employer spends to pay your salary * There's the money you take home * Everything in between is the government tax. There's absolutely no difference between "employer social contributions" and "employee social contributions" except in the name Well now I kind of know one person who sees it differently, but this PoV still doesn't make sense to me. > for the simple reason that if the government reduced the employer contribution to zero it wouldn't change anything about your take home salary(unless your employer decided to be generous and give you a raise). Believe it or not, but for multi-national companies job offers in France are smaller for this very reason: you have a fixed budget to hire an employee, you subtract the "employers contributions" and calculate the gross salary you can offer in various countries where you have legal entities. There's also the "adjust to local market part", it's not a single-factor formula of course, but "contributions" play a huge role in it. After all budget is budget, you can go lower if you like but you can't go higher.
- gambiting 1y ago
  Well obviously, yes, but again, I don't know anyone who looks at it this way. If your salary is £100k and you know your effective tax rate is 35% then you're taking home £65k a year. I don't know how much on top of that my employer is paying in contributions, if it's another £100k on top or zero - and frankly I don't really care? The negotiated salary is £100k/pa and that's what anyone uses as a number of their compensation, if I ask you your salary and you say it's €140k but that's including my employers social contributions......that's just weird? Are jobs advertised this way in France? Edit: I just want to add one more thing - this entire comment chain started by OP saying, and I quote "I have over 50% of my income taken from me into a collapsing welfare state/pension system". The money that the employer pays to have you employed isn't your income, so adding it to your total earnings and saying "well I'm paying 50% of my income to the state" is just not correct. The employer probably pays money for the office and a desk for you to sit at, but it's not your income - it's part of their cost to keep you employed. I will say it again - if those costs dropped down to zero, you wouldn't say your income is now smaller, would you?
  - alexey-salmin 1y ago
    No, I'm sorry but this is just pointless, arguing about some technicality like "you can't call that income". That doesn't matter, these are just words. What matters in real life is the size of the cut the government gets from the employee-employer transaction. That cut definitely includes all the "employer contributions". The bigger it is, the less the employee gets. And no, it's not the same as the cost of buying the desk. If would be the same if the state prohibited remote work making a desk a necessity and then forced everyone to buy desks from state-owned providers at the price set by the state. In this case -- yes, absolutely, this becomes a "desk tax" which is eating into your income. UPD Since you insist, I'll address this part too: > I will say it again - if those costs dropped down to zero, you wouldn't say your income is now smaller, would you? I'll go to my boss directly and say that "my income is now smaller than it should be" and ask for increase in gross. If this doesn't work out, I'll go and get an offer elsewhere. Knowing how hiring and budgeting works, this is the only sane course of action. Companies suddenly find them with money they've already budgeted but aren't spending, expect the arms race for professions with high demand. In parallel to that I'll make sure to distribute raises to key members of my team anticipating them doing the same. I'll lose a few less valuable members of the team in the process because they'll receive offers that I won't be willing to counter. In general, I pay more attention to what people do, not what they say. This is why I didn't reply to the question "you wouldn't say your income is now smaller, would you?" the first time -- it's inconsequential, but we can consider it if you like.
selfmodruntime 1y ago
> Is not your salary. It IS your salary. If the employer didn't pay it, YOU would have to pay it anyway. If you are a freelancer, you will have to pay that employers share anyway. It's the cost of social security systems, and someone has to pay it: You. With your work hours and salary.
- gambiting 1y ago
  >>It IS your salary. If the employer didn't pay it, YOU would have to pay it anyway. So if the government reduced the share that the employers pay down to zero tomorrow, would you then go to your partner/family/friends and say "hey, I just got a paycut at work" ?
  - valkmit 1y ago
    When you are negotiating payment for any good and service, you care only what the end cost is to you. It doesn't matter how you decide to slice it - "this share you pay, this share I pay" at the end of the day it will be seen through the lens of Total Cost of Ownership.
    - gambiting 1y ago
      I like how you didn't answer my question. If you don't see it as a paycut then it's not part of your salary. >>you care only what the end cost is to you. Yes, so I care what my salary is. What the employer has to legally pay to employ me is literally irrelevant other than academically. It's not my salary, the same how their cost of maintaining an office or providing me with equipment to do my job isn't my salary.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]