what gets taken off your pay in Germany ...

[percival]

I just found an old payslip of mine, and thought I would do some calculations.

Tax: 21.5%
Solidarity tax: 1.2%
Church tax: 1.9% (obligatory for Roman Catholics and Prostestants in Germany; if you don't pay church tax, you're not in the church)
Health insurance: 7.1% (mandatory - everybody who earns a salary has to have health insurance)
Old age care insurance: 0.9% (obligatory)
Pension: 10.5% (obligatory state pension)
Unemployment insurance: 1.2% (obligatory)

Total deductions: roughly 44%

And I wasn't a particularly high earner ... Pension and health care contributions will also have crept up in the mean time; remember that this is from August 2000.

Comments

[perceval.livejournal.com]

Of course - value added tax is at something like 16-17% right now. Not on food, I think. And there's a 7% tax on books, which is always included in the final price.