Earlier quoted context omitted.
"The 52% is for everything over ~50K. As a business owner, however, you pay this income tax on top of 20%/25% corporate taxes." No you don't. You pay 52% wage tax in the upper bracket, but in that case it's not taxed for corporate tax since it's an expense. The companies profit is taxed at 23%, and if you pay dividend to the shareholder(s), then they pay another 22 or so percent dividend tax, making the total tax pre…
OK, this is why I don't do my own taxes!
No worries. I still roughly agree with your point that it's too expensive to do business here. That said, compared to the rest of Europe .nl is quite ok for technology companies (especially software) but only for people who actively go out and search for lawyers and accountants who know about the many special situations for IP creation deductions, R&D subsidies etc. Plus one needs to take advantage of EU freedom of establishment rules to move profits abroad for maximum tax optimization. A software company can optimize to only pay a fraction of the taxes what a plumber or widget manufacturer would pay. (and still legal)