How to maximize net income in EU?

you really can't, if you want to live in western europe and don't want to do shady stuff, you have to accept the social solidarity system we live in here.

I'm not a lawyer or accountant, and I cant give business or legal advice and the following is "sarcasm" etc etc...

in theory, slovakia, dividend tax for residents is 7%, you don't have to pay social or health deductions when taking out dividends from the company you own. you can employ yourself in said company with base salary and pay minimal deductions from that, the rest you can take out as dividend. your home residence still matters, this means you would also have to live there for majority of the year. otherwise you would have to pay additional deductions and tax in country of your residence austria. this is still somehow considered legal and "perfectly ok" thing to do, i bet they will change that in couple of years due to pressure from the EU. you might be able to effectively pay only up to 20% of your gross this way + you get to business expense.

really, just move to switzerland, at least that's my plan a few years down the road.

If we're only talking about income, your only option is contracting (or maybe starting a successful business...). If you are willing to work on your expenses, then a lot of other avenues open up to you; you can make significant savings by moving to a country with lower taxes and/or cost of living (for example Romania). Keep in mind that coming from Austria, you may experience some culture shock.

Here are some quick back of the napkin calculations:

Austria

Gross: 80K

Net: 49K

After rent: 41K

Romania

Gross: 80K

Net: ~71K*

After rent: 66K

* Micro-company at 1-3% tax on revenue, 5% dividend tax, ~€2000/year social contributions (once you cross a certain limit), €500/year accountant. I am not a lawyer or accountant so please check with one before making any decisions ;)

Prerequisite: you need to be good and be able to sell yourself as such Options:

* Work for FAANG in London, Switzerland or even Amsterdam [1].

* Tough one: reskill and work in HFT, base seems to be 60K, the bonus that you get after having proven yourself is sizeable and can be a multiple of your salary (if I have to believe teamblind.com, can't find the source anymore). The hours are more brutal though.

* I've met a freelancer doing this, it's on the gray area of shady (depending on where you land with valuing hours worked versus output delivered): get a cushy 80K job for which 2 hours of work per day is enough. Work like 10 to 20 hours per week, track the 2 hour units of commits into an Excel sheet and commit each day appropriately. For each day when you don't need to stack commits, enjoy your free time! Then, if you want to make more money, get another job or freelance thing and do that after your normal work hours (for legal reasons). It's a variation on the 4 hour work week I guess? I've seen a guy do this, he had no issues with it. He even was called employee of the year, so I guess the 2 hours he put was comparable or even better than the 8 hours of another person. Some people think it's shady since you're not working in the spirit of your contract (doing less hours than promised). Other's think it's fine since you're delivering the output that was implied with the contract.

[1] https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/

If maximizing the current income is your goal you should consider contracting over FTE. As for the optimal ways - every country has its set of "vehicles" to minimize taxes which usually boil down to establishing LLC type company that pays low CIT instead of high PIT and making use of the capital earned by that company. The question is how deep down that rabbit hole you wanna go and how much time to spend on that. Very often it's not worth the effort and your brain cycles may be better spent for learning new skills or trying to find a higher paying job :)

Edit: typo

Good starting point would be "Der große Konz" aka "1000 ganz legale Steuertricks", which is for German tax law, but some suggestions might carry over to Austria.

Another idea might be to look at your university degree: if you did a master's degree iirc you can claim expenses for your degree as loss and carry them forward for some years. YMMV.

[1] https://www.hugendubel.de/de/taschenbuch/franz_konz-konz_202...

Poland has just lowered its income tax rate for IT consultants to 12% (effective 2022). You could move there and do remote contracting for a Western Europe company. After taxes and living expenses, it's not hard to save 100k euros per year.

In the UK, you can put up to £40k /year into a private pension tax free. If you are a higher rate tax payer, you get a cash refund.

Whilst it wouldn't give you a higher current net income, it would be beneficial in the long run. There might be similar schemes in Austria.

If you are PAYE through your employer, there is little you can do really. If you can contract under a legal entity, that nunber might go up, but in the UK, you'd have to earn £100k+ for it to be worthwhile imo.

For context, I am a UK accountant.

Off-topic, but I think in your particular circumstances, easiest would be to just move across the border to Switzerland.

Setting up a business and getting paid through that, and/or relocating to a country where taxes are much lower (for example, Estonia, Ukraine, Romania).

Or you can relocate / get a job in a country where the gross income is much much higher, and live frugally, for example Switzerland

Either move to a cheaper country with lower taxes like Romania, Albania, Bulgaria, Poland etc. Or move to USA and get that fat salary+equity. Or combine them both and do it remotely (very hard to get $200K+ remotely).

Even in NYC I pay roughly 50% of my income in taxes. Ce la vie

PS: nothing wrong in discussing tax avoidance as well.