Total tax wedge (including employer/social fees) for a single person with no children earning 167% of the average worker in Germany was 49.2% in 2023 according to OECD Taxing Wages. Most of the other categories they measure (a matrix of single vs married, no vs 2 children, and 67%, 100% and 167% of average wage for one of the partners w/ the other person at 100%) end up closer to the 40% mark (as low as 28.4%)...

But most people do not count employer contributions, because they are not part of the negotiated salary, and most people don't even know what they are. Yes, they of course affect how high salaries businesses will offer.

In terms of income tax and employee contributions, in the OECD scenarios Germany maxes out at 41.2% (the OECD average is 30%; the US is at 29.1%). As a comparison, Belgium is "always" worst in class on this in Europe, w/47.8%.

Overall Germany is still one of the highest tax countries in Europe, but it also has a higher difference than most countries the highest taxed (high income single earners) and families with children in total effective tax rate - for the later, Germany is much closer to the pack, to the point of being near or below the OECD average for a couple of categories.

VAT in most countries add very little, because most of your gross income does not go towards VAT rates products - for starters you're first paying tax, and then covering housing and most places exclude a number of others things from VAT as well. Depending on country and income level and spending patterns, it does add a few percentage points, but it's rarely significantly skewing the overall taxation level all that much (last time I did the numbers, at a far above average income, VAT increased my total taxation by about 4%)