In Portugal, for a 30K/year job, the tax is about 60%.
23% (enterprise) + 11% (you) to social security; around 26% to IRS.
The original 30K are reduced to 12K!
Taxes on everything else are also stupidly high. For instance, there are some cars in Spain that cost half the price they cost in Portugal!
Just to give you an example, a new Citroen C5 V6 costs 50.000 Euros!
Yet, we must not forget the food here is much cheaper than in the UK... [:D]
Xantia HDI Engine mount?
Moderator: RichardW
Well, Thunderbird, you should not include the 23% for social welfair... usually this figure is not considered when talking about gross income 
My point is that out of a gross income of 30k, around 33% are taxes (11% social welfare + 22% direct tax to the government). In any case, for example in germany taxes easily climb to 50% but nobody really cares because the people feel that the system has been OK. nice transports, good hospitals etc...
We should also mention that cars in particular are expensive due to special (stupid...)taxes
I am not quite sure that food is much cheaper than the UK...at least back in the 80´s when I lived in Southampton, the supermarket bill was around 20% higher than portugal...
My point is that out of a gross income of 30k, around 33% are taxes (11% social welfare + 22% direct tax to the government). In any case, for example in germany taxes easily climb to 50% but nobody really cares because the people feel that the system has been OK. nice transports, good hospitals etc... We should also mention that cars in particular are expensive due to special (stupid...)taxes
I am not quite sure that food is much cheaper than the UK...at least back in the 80´s when I lived in Southampton, the supermarket bill was around 20% higher than portugal...