During his campaign for president, France’s Socialist President Francois Hollande famously declared “I don’t like the rich” and upon taking office hit the wealthy with a 75% tax rate — a rate that I have criticized as economically foolish and part of an increasing demonization of the wealthy around the world. Now wealthy French citizens have responded predictably by moving out of France and last week famed French actor Gerard Depardieu joined the exodus. The steady stream of departures has left the Hollande government incensed and this week Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault blasted the rich. The English have also seen the same decline in wealthy taxpayers after it imposed a 50% tax. They are now going to reduce that tax after the departure of many wealthy Brits and David Cameron controversially pledged to “roll out the red carpet” for any French residents fleeing the massive tax hike. In the meantime, anger at the wealthy continues to rise in France, where “eat the rich” signs are appearing. The problems is that you cannot eat the rich if the rich flee before the meal.
Depardieu is not going to a tax haven. He is reportedly moving to Belgium which has a 50 percent taxation rate. He is moving to Nechin, a town just a kilometer inside Belgium near the French city of Lille.
Bertrand Delanoe, the Socialist mayor of Paris regretted the move because Depardieu “is a generous man but in this instance he is not showing that.”
Politicians often assume that higher taxes have no impact on market behavior for earners. However, such taxes often make no investments less attractive once the labor and time is factored into the lower rate of net profit.
While I am in the minority on this blog, I continue to be concerned over the economic impact of such confiscatory tax rates and the demonization of the wealthy. A 75% tax rate will not only encourage many French to leave the country or find ways to avoiding direct income, but it will discourage those who might become French citizens. I also fail to understand the increasing vilification of the wealthy which is defined as anyone making over $250,000 a year (as defined by the Administration’s proposed tax hike on the rich). Many of such earners are active in community work and supporting social programs. They also pay the vast majority of taxes in this country. Will they have to pay more, yes. However, the suggestion that they are all deadbeats who do not pay their fair share is unfair in my view.
In the meantime, the exodus is likely to continue and brings new meaning to the statement of Georges Danton: “At last I perceive that in revolutions the supreme power rests with the most abandoned.”
Source: France 24
You can search this as well as I can Berliner. The Prime Minister was convicted on one count of four, if I remember. Why did people have money in Icelandic banks? Greed, right? They must have gotten a good deal for a while.
Here is what is actually wrong in America, the robber barons are still doing what they have always done. We cannot seem to learn from history even when it is our own history:
shano, there are actually many people and households for whom loosing 10,000 euro out of their saving account is a ‘big stake.’
And what does it change? Iceland robbed these people, plain and simple.
“… The Icelandic bankers who committed fraud have been charged with crimes. …”
Can you name a few which also have been convicted? Of the big oligarchs?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeuL5IGimCQ
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeuL5IGimCQ&w=420&h=315%5D
The 1% are trying to kill a pillar of the middle class: Republican billionaires pushed Michigan anti-union law forward with primary threats
And how about compassion: Far-right House Republicans demand other spending cuts for Sandy relief
Both, Berliner. Which one had more at stake? The bondholders. The Icelandic bankers who committed fraud have been charged with crimes.
shano: no the “foreigners” were the European customers of the Icelandic banks.
Iceland had, as a prerequisite of entering the EU/EFTA banking market, signed a treaty that they would guarantee the first 10,000 euro of every customer.
When the Icelandic banks failed they said that they’ve never actually had a deposit insurance system as required by the treaty. Then they had two referendums in which they gave their European customers the finger.
Berliner: the ‘foreigners’ were really the ‘bondholders’ who made a bad investment.
If all the nations did this, we would have had a debt write down, clearing and economic recovery that was really strong. instead they are pushing even more debt.
And Bernanke today saying QE infinity will continue until unemployment reaches 6.5%.
What could possibly go wrong?
There should be a transaction tax on the market as well. You could exempt pension plans and other public good investors (like foundations who give to the community).
When any of us buy something, it is taxed. The wealthy not only buy on the market with no tax, they also have any gains made taxed at a lower rate than labor. It is an obscene imbalance that should be understood.
The poor are taxed on everything they buy. The rich are not, and when they sell they pay a lower tax rate than the poor on capital gains.
“… The people of Iceland threw out their government, jailed their bankers and recovered their economy. …”
What?
– Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, good old pal to the oligarchs, is the sitting president.
– Jón Ásgeir Jóhannesson, Jóhannes Jónsson, Lýður Guðmundsson, Águst Guðmundsson, Björgólfur Thor Björgólfsson, Björgólfur Guðmundsson are all free and still super wealthy men. The only one who got jail time was a low ranking public servant in the finance ministry, a scapegoat.
– Iceland choose not to reimburse the foreign small investors and to shield their fat cats. Iceland’s “recovery” is, just like their previous “boom”, entirely based on screwing “the foreigners.”
Maybe only good corporate actors should get lower taxes.
Jack taxes up on Multinationals who refuse to pay living wages, who refuse to pay to clean up their messes, who have gigantic recalls on faulty products or drugs that harm people through scientifically skewed testing.
We should just tally up the public dollars that are needed to do these things for them, and give them the total bill.
For a Multinational like Walmart, just add up the public assistance dollars their employees receive and give Walmart the bill.
Every nation should do the same. Africa could just tax oil Multinationals enough to clean up the environment. etc etc etc et al. All of them. We should b taxing the fracking industry for environmental damages right now.
This would protect the commons and give corporations an incentive to invest R&D in better operations. The economy would recover if the masses of employed working poor people were lifted out of poverty.
Good corporations like Costco would have low taxes.
bettykath
1, December 12, 2012 at 3:40 pm
The people of Iceland threw out their government, jailed their bankers and recovered their economy.
Why don’t we do the same?
——————–
because there may be enough room in the prisons for all the naughty bankers, but not all the naughty bankers+all the naughty CEOs + all the naughty politicians (who would be hard pressed to jail the bankers and the ceos… 😉 ) + not sure who you could actually find to enforce this anyway cause who really owns all the big boom boom guns…I’m thinkin it must be the private guys and that is the real reason we have seen such low die behaviors….now I’m going back to watching MIB3 because if I stay here much longer I will become paranoid….and the portents of the future of corrupted space and time MUST be dealt with….
http://www.alternet.org/corporate-accountability-and-workplace/twinkie-ceo-admits-company-took-employees-pensions-and-put-it
“but it’s so big” that should be “but NOT so big”
Ok. Germany’s largest bank be too big to fail but it’s so big that it’s top officers can’t be prosecuted! In the US they get a fine amounting to 1/8 of a year’s profit and no one goes to jail. This is for bank tax evasion, not personal tax evasion.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/12/deutsche-bank-tax-evasion_n_2283421.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false#sb=2111267,b=facebook
Deutsche Bank Raided, Co-CEO, CFO Under Investigation For Tax Evasion
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Deutsche Bank says its co-chief executive Juergen Fitschen and chief finance officer Stefan Krause are under investigation as part of a tax evasion probe linked to the bank’s emissions trading business.
The bank said Wednesday the reason Fitschen and Krause are being investigate is because they signed the company’s 2009 tax declaration. The bank says the declaration was later amended in a timely way, but that prosecutors do not agree.
The Frankfurt prosecutors’ office says 25 employees of the bank are suspected of serious tax evasion, money laundering and attempted obstruction of justice.
Prosecutors said 500 police officers swooped Wednesday on Deutsche Bank AG offices and private properties in Frankfurt, Berlin and Duesseldorf.
Deutsche Bank says it is cooperating with the investigation.
Wow. Has this blog been purchased by the Koch brothers, or have the readers been fooled?
“These are hectic days for trusts and estates lawyers, as they make house calls, work nights and fly overseas to meet rich clients before Bush era tax cuts expire.
“To say we’re busy is the understatement of the year,” said Martin Kalb, chairman of the global tax group at Greenberg Traurig LLP. “I’ve been practicing for 35 years, and I’ve never seen it like this.”
Unless Congress and President Barack Obama decide otherwise, top rates for estate and gift taxes will rise to 55 percent from 35 percent on Jan. 1, with lifetime exemptions falling to $1 million per person from $5.12 million.” Bloomberg
Swarthmore Mom, the Koch brothers from Wichita got filthy rich by stealing oil from the Oklahoma Native American tribes. They controlled the oil meters and skimmed profits for decades. We do not need these sorts of people. Show them the door. We can get along fine without them.
When they make money in this way, good riddance. These Multinational corporations are killing people for profit:
The people of Iceland threw out their government, jailed their bankers and recovered their economy.
Why don’t we do the same? Maybe b/c the guy who was at the center of the financial debacle is also the guy Obama put in charge of the bailout. And he wants to look forward and ignore all the wrong-doing of the past, effectively hamstringing the justice department.
Why are our farms and food all being turned over to Monsanto? Maybe b/c the guy who was a vp at Monsanto is also the guy Obama put in charge of all farms and food?
Oh, yes, the guy most responsible for drafting Obamacare has just accepted a new job with the pharmaceutical industry.
Accepting the 4% increase on money over $250,000 (while also getting reductions on that first $250,000) is a great buy when considering all the other goodies that Obama is passing out. So the guys between $2.5K and a million or so don’t get a lot of it, it’s palliative to those in the lower brackets taking the heat off those making millions off the capital gains, deferred interest, off-shore accounts, governments contracts, money laundering ,etc. etc. can get a lot more back than the extra taxes they pay.
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