French government targets rich with tax rises

[alp227]

Source: The Guardian

France's new Socialist government has announced tax rises worth €7.2bn (£5.78bn), mainly targeting the wealthiest households and biggest corporations, as the country struggles to plug a gaping hole in its budget.

The tax increases come as a deeply indebted France battles to stick to its deficit-reduction targets and keep Brussels and the markets at bay. A grim economic assessment by state auditors this week warned of a €40bn hole in state coffers over the next two years and the government has lowered its growth predictions.

The raid on the wealthy is in line with François Hollande's election promise: "If there are sacrifices to be made –and there will be –then it will be for the wealthiest to make them."

More than half the measures target households, mainly the country's richest, and just under half target big business. They include lowering France's wealth tax threshold, which had been raised by Nicolas Sarkozy. France's wealth tax is unique in the EU and Hollande will now add a one-off higher levy on those with net wealth of more than €1.3m.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/04/french-government-targets-rich-tax-rises

[hedgehog]

1. Vive la France!

[onehandle]

12. +1 nt

[demosincebirth]

2. Gee, it seem so easy to raise taxes on the rich in other countrys

[xtraxritical]

3. Very good reporting, and well written, by the Guardian.

[IamK]

4. the rich are leaving ....

& countries are lining up to take therm


http://eyedrd.org/2012/05/switzerland-is-ready-to-embrace-the-influx-of-wealthy-french.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2161577/David-Cameron-pledge-French-react-fury-Cameron-calls-rates-uncompetitive-wrong.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-10/entrepreneurs-in-france-flee-from-hollande-s-rejection-of-wealth.html


http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/30177568-61fa-11e1-807f-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1zgVYstAJ

Critics said the tax proposal, which would apply only to 0.01 per cent of taxpayers, according to a Senate study of income bands, would raise relatively small amounts of money but risked driving the wealthy out of France – in an echo of an exodus of the rich when the late François Mitterrand, Mr Hollande’s political mentor, took power in 1981.

[alp227]

6. FT has a paywall, but it can be evaded by appending "liveweb.archive.org/"

as in http://liveweb.archive.org/http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/30177568-61fa-11e1-807f-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1zgVYstAJ

[JohninPA]

26. Thanks!

Never heard of that workaround, I really appreciate it!

[maxrandb]

8. How "patriotic" of them

and I say to them the same that I would say to Americans that threaten the same...Don't let the door hit you where the good Lord split you!

Fuck people who have benefited greatly from the security and opportunity of a great country, and then bail when the going gets tough, or they are asked to "step-up".

This needs to be turned on it's fucking head. How about instead of the "wealthy" threatening to take their marbles and go home. How about the next time the Repukes and Tea-baggers decide that we need to balance the budget on the backs of the Middle Class and poor, we say "fuck you, we're leaving your shitty ass country"?

Let Mitt and his billionaire buddies pick up the fucking garbage, teach their spoiled kids, protect their property and business from marauders, protect their economic interests by fighting and dying in some far off land, build the roads and put out the fucking wildfires.

Fuck people like this. If they hate their country that much, and if our wealthy are really that anti-American, WE should help them pack their fucking bags!

Happy Fucking Independence Day!

[oldbanjo]

15. I agree with you on this,

a few years ago Trump said that the rich in American are prepared to leave this Country, I say give them a one way ticket and never let them come back.

[Sirveri]

24. Sieze their domestic holdings, place them in a trust for the employees.

Seriously, want to bail, if you have any businesses it's gone, the workers who actually do real work get to be a part of the ownership class for once. Confiscate all their private property, if it's rented out, give it to the renters. Let them keep a vacation house, just to be nice, confiscate and sell/use for national interests everything else.

[byeya]

28. Agree 100%

[newthinking]

10. It does't matter. They are "Job leachers". The effect will ultimately be positive.

[DBoon]

11. and did anyone care about the millions of peasants and workers migrating to avoid poverty

Throughout the world?

I'd like to see them treated the same way Mexican peasants emigrating to the US are treated - you know, the peasants driven off their land by cheap imported US corn.

[Odin2005]

16. Take your RW crap elsewhere.

[IamK]

19. apparently you cant handle the truth ??

maybe it's time for you to move on....

[Puzzledtraveller]

31. Somehow being pro socialist has become a DU litmus test

if you post anything critical you get flamed and called a RW hack.

[Wilms]

21. The first three of your links don't support "the rich are leaving" notion.

It says they may. That other countries would welcome them is beside the point.

Do you have a link regarding 1981?

[ladjf]

27. "The rich are leaving and countries are lining up to take them".

What percent of the rich are leaving?

What are the tax rates on the rich on the Countries to which they are fleeing.

If the Countries to which they are choosing have any sense, they will tax them at the same rate as the French would.


The old idea that if you tax us, we'll take our money and leave may or may not still work as a form of intimidation.

[dipsydoodle]

5. That's following Monday's asessment by his State Auditor.

The budget followed a grim assessment of public finances on Monday by the state auditor, which warned that €6-10bn of deficit cuts were needed in 2012 and a hefty €33bn in 2013 for France to avoid a surge in public debt dragging it into the centre of the euro crisis.

One of the highest state spending levels in the world has raised France's debt by €800bn in the last 10 years to €1.8trn - equivalent to roughly 90pc of GDP, the level at which economists say it starts to harm economic growth.

Budget Minister Jerome Cahuzac said that, while the initial focus this year was on tax rises for the wealthy, the government would progressively rein in spending from 2013 onwards.

>

Having promised to freeze central government spending without cutting staffing levels, Hollande faces the difficult task of convincing France's powerful public sector unions to accept a cap on pay rises and promotions.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9376802/France-targets-rich-with-7.2bn-in-tax-rises.html

He's also been told by the State Auditor that his election promise of maintaining current levels pf public sector employment was unrealistic.

[lunatica]

7. May the domino effect take place now

The wealthy will hardly feel it, except on an emotional level. Let them have their tantrums.

[maxrandb]

9. I say take it a bit further

Fuck the wealthy. Their bill is fucking past due! They've benefited greatly from the opportunity of a great country. FREEZE EVERY FUCKING ASSET they've earned doing business in the country and show them to the border!

Since they "earned" it all on their own, without any help from the "public" sector, I'm sure they'll be able to do just fine starting over.

After all, they didn't need the "gubmint". The "gubmint" didn't train and educate their workers, didn't provide state of the art infrastructure to move their products, didn't provide security and protection for their assets, didn't provide a stable government they could do business in.

Hell, they claim they are the "job creators". Let them go someplace else and start over. I'm sure they'll be able to show us that THEY DID IT ALL ON THEIR OWN

[socialist_n_TN]

18. Well, that's it isn't it?..........

If they leave because of a tax rise, then seize their assets. If it's a factory or store, give it to the workers to run as a co-op. Freeze their money in French banks and try to seize it in foreign banks. As you said, they did it all on their own anyway. Or so they think. If they did it once they can do it again.

I'm still pretty skeptical, but at least Hollande is acting a LITTLE bit like a real socialist and not a SINO. Of course at least SINOs can be pressured from the left.

[dipsydoodle]

23. The actual domino effect

would be broken promises. That what you want ?

[Spitfire of ATJ]

13. I just had an image of FOX "News" calling for rich French to come here

Then watch their crazy base mindlessly welcome a bunch of cheese eating elite foreigners with open arms.

[red dog 1]

14. Speaking of Socialists and increasing taxes on the wealthy..

From:
SocialistWorker.org
April 17, 2012

"On the campaign trail in 2008, [then Senator] Obama promised to allow the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans to expire when they came up for renewal at the end of 2010
This was hardly a radical proposal -- taxes on income over $250,000 a year would have gone up slightly, to the level during the Clinton Years.

But the Democrats put off a vote on letting the tax cuts expire--until after the Republicans won a sweeping victory in the 2010 congressional elections.
Obama said that he would negotiate with the Republican leaders -- and the
'compromise' he made extended all of the Bush tax cuts for two years.
The cost for maintaining lower tax rates for the top 2 percent of highest-earning Americans was around $120 billion over two years."

http://socialistworker.org/2012/04/17/the-buffett-rule-charade

[IamK]

20. another broken promise.... n/t

[Hotler]

29. That was before the nomination in Denver. After he got the nod to run..

it was "Now is not the time to point fingers.", Remember that?

[Odin2005]

17. Vive La France!!!

[SkatmanRoth]

22. I hope President Obama takes a note

We need to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans too.

I would love to hear a campaign slogan that says:

Taxes will be raised and the wealthiest will pay them

[Hotler]

30. He doesn't have the spine. He never did and never will. n/t

[Puzzledtraveller]

32. We would never hold high office again with a slogan like that

Curious, when did being a democrat mean supporting taxing the rich into oblivion? There is a socialist and communist party USA if you all are in the wrong party, and wrong forum.

[Occulus]

33. Then just do it without the slogan.

This really isn't hard. All it takes is another means by which to get the electorate on our side.

"My administration, if elected, will move cannabis from Schedule I to schedule III. This injustice will end, and it will end on the first day of my first Presidential term."

There's your tens of millions of votes, and I promise you it outweighs those against.

Then we can tax the shit out of the richie rich. If they don't like it, we can seize their domestic holdings, let them leave, and order the TSA to prevent their reentry. We've already long established that last is perfectly legal.

We don't need the uber wealthy. They're sitting on their money anyway. It sure isn't benefiting the rest of us, so what if they do leave? No harm dome, because they aren't spending their money here in the first place, and they sure as hell aren't improving our nation by any perceptible means.

There comes a time when taxing the wealthy a fair amount stops being a communist/socialist idea, and starts simply being a realistic one. We're far past that point.

[progressivebydesign]

25. If we could go back to our taxes in the 50s or even 80s, we could save the Country. n/t