I have been a critic of the tax policies of French President Francois Hollande, including his disastrous 75% tax on the rich. The tax, as expected, has resulted in an exodus from the country of many top earners and a reluctance of others to move to France. However, with his poll numbers at a historic low, Hollande is continuing his “eat the rich” campaign. Last week, he announced a desire to impose a 75% tax on companies for salaries above 1 million euros. It is yet another blow to the French economy and will further deter new business for the struggling nation.
Hollande announced that when companies pay the large salaries to top executives “the company will have a contribution to pay that will reach 75%. During these difficult times, can’t those that are at the top make an effort for 2 years? The company will thus become responsible”.
I know how unpopular such salaries are, particularly at a time of economic hardship. However, the salaries are part of a global market for top executives. Imposing such a tax once again makes France a hostile environmental for such businesses, which are badly needed to boost a failing economy. This is imposed on top of other deterrents to new business such as mandatory labor rules making it difficult to fire French workers, guaranteed long vacations, and an array of other taxes. Investors have complained that they do not want to take over failing French businesses due to this environment, including the recent flap over comments by an American businessman.
I happen to think corporate salaries are too high, but I do not believe that government should regulate this part of the market. Moreover, the tax has no connection to social costs or public benefits. It is merely a punitive measure targeting the wealthy.
Politicians always garner support for socking it to the rich through taxes. However, it is an extremely shortsighted strategy. In the U.S., we have seen clear moves out of high tax areas like New York and California. The result is a reduction in tax bases. The fact is that tope earners pay the vast majority of taxes so the loss of such earners has a significant impact on tax revenue. These jurisdictions make themselves economic islands of high tax zones as more and more business is pulled into areas with average or lower tax rates. France is the most extreme example. The earlier 75 percent tax rate is viewed widely as a colossal failure for precisely the reasons raised earlier. Yet, Hollande is still offering up the rich as a popular target even though such taxes will generate little significant revenue. What it will do, however, is magnify the image of France as entirely hostile to high earners and new businesses.
Source: Guardian
Bron,
You didn’t read Darren Smith’s Link about Section 42. Section 42 is a government & corporate venture to build homes for the poor and homeless. Instead of the corporations keeping up with their end of the deal, they decide to ‘hide’ their $1.3 trillion in profits overseas in tax havens.
Do you know that our tax dollars are currently being used to pay for programs benifiting low-income and homeless families\individuals? Many of us donate hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars to the Salvation Army, Red Cross, Food Pantries, etc, every year to assist people who are less fortunate than you and I. It is time for the Fortune 500 companies to keep up with their end of the deal.
RWL:
nothing stopping people like you, me and OS from gathering funds and buying and fixing up a place and selling it for a small profit to do the same again.
Part of the problem is that people dont understand that a million people giving a $1.50 or not buying a Starbucks Coffee one day out of a year could do a lot of good. For $2 million dollars I bet we could provide 30 homes for homeless people and they would have some equity as well.
How come Carter is the only one fixing up houses?
All the solutions I hear around here are let government do it, that is like passing the buck. How about we do it?
Bron,
OS is right. Why would you ‘sell to a homeless family or person’ when you (the Rich and Corporations) are receiving a major tax incentive/break from the feds?
Please read Darren Smith’s post about Section 42.
Bruce, I don’t think those words mean what you think they mean.
talk about a liberal socialist
Bron:
Most homeless kids have parents who love them and try to take care of them. Jobs are scarce, and when a job can be found, it is often below the poverty level. Thanks to employers who find every excuse they can to keep wages at the minimum level, and employees on part time. That way they don’t have to provide any benefits such as health insurance. If their parents are making less than $7.29 an hour, 29 hours a week, kids don’t have much chance.
Homelessness feeds on itself. Many, if not most, employers will not hire anyone unless they have a permanent address. The back of a 1975 model camper, a tent, or a homeless shelter is not a permanent address.
There are a few orphanages out there, but not enough, and they have to get funding from somewhere. The money that could fund them is not there because the Pentagon is getting it.
I am old enough to remember the Great Depression. Back then the CCC and WPA provided jobs. I started to elementary school in a brand new schoolhouse built by the WPA. And I never heard ANYONE call it socialism. If the money we are spending on tanks, unflyable airplanes and useless warships were spent on programs like the CCC and WPA, maybe we could kill two birds with one stone. Provide jobs for those who need work, and rebuild/repair our crumbling infrastructure. But that might actually work, and according to Mitch “Box Turtle” McConnell and John of Orange Boehner, their sole mission in life at the moment is to make sure the Obama administration is a failure.
OS:
why wouldnt you just take them to the local orphanage?
I guess these are mountain folk?
RWL:
how many families? about 800,000 +/- I would suspect. In the big cities there are tens of thousands of homes just rotting away from neglect. I say fix those homes up with private charity and sell them to the homeless with very favorable rates, like $200/month.
The children and parents could put in some sweat equity as well and it would give them ownership and some immediate equity plus it would help to bring back those neighborhoods.
Those homes in Baltimore, for example, are selling for 5-10k and for less than 50k you can fix them up.
I guess Carter does this with Habitat for Humanity but he needs some help. Too bad some of the major construction companies in this country cant get together and take this on.
I have no respect and certainly no affinity for France. In WWII their Nazi government partnered with Hitler and they ran a full Holocaust in France against Gypsies and Jews. After the War we put that fruit DeGalle in and forgave and forgot about Petain and his Nazis. The Frogs get lazier by the minute and soon they will be in diaspora like Greece because of their laziness. I hope all the wealthy Frogs move to Greece and points south but we sure dont need em here in the U.S. Specially in Florida. We got enough New Yorkers moving down here when they retire and cant afford the real estate taxes in Queens or across the river in Newark. Turdy turd and a turd speakers.
RWL
Actually your idea of corporations funding low income housing through tax credits is good and there is a provision in the tax code to provide for “section 42” housing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-Income_Housing_Tax_Credit
1.1 million students in the U.S. were homeless at the start of the the 2010-2011 school year. That was just the number enrolled in school. It does not take Nate Silver to figure out that is only the tip of the iceberg. No one knows the exact number, but it is known a lot of homeless kids are not in school and slip through the cracks.
It seems to me that a number around two million sounds about right.
Source: http://www.childtrendsdatabank.org/?q=node/340
Nick,
I will take that as a compliment, coming from you.
Forgot to add to the homeless children subtopic:
Many born, Left in Hospitalhttp://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2009/09/28/havens.ART_ART_09-28-09_A1_88F762U.html
These newborns are not even counted as homeless?
RWL, Do I hear 2 million hamana hamana, do I hear a 2 million “possibly false” statistic bid? You are shameless and not very bright, but quite enthusiastic.
Bron & RWL,
Yesterday, a guy tried to sell his six year old daughter for $1,500. I worked on a case a while back where a man sold his 13 year old daughter. The problem is a lot worse than anyone knows. Unless you work in this business, you really have no way of wrapping your head around the enormity of it.
When people get desperate, bad things happen. Really bad things.
The 75% tax is too low. The USA needs to not not emulate France, but to impose 90% taxes. This is a necessary requirement of converting from a free market system to a full-stream leftist system of state control over all that you see, hear, and do. In fact, I would recommend that ALL income and assets of individuals be fully confiscated, and that a special government bureaucracy be established to determine who should receive cash to pay for food, clothing, or shelter, and in what amounts–based on political contacts and affiliations, of course. This will be the excellent leftist policies that all leftists on this message board yearn for. While these measures seem extreme, they are happening, incrementally. In time, the leftist dream will be fully realized.
RWL:
that is terrible. What can we do about it?
Bron,
I was wrong, again. There are over 1.6 million children who are homeless in the US (see: http://www.care2.com/causes/staggering-38-increase-in-child-homelessness-in-the-united-states.html).
Soultion(s)?: It is too complicated, and it changes the subject being discussed. However, if the US government can provide immediate housing for the Fortune 500 companies and the rich’s corporate profits and income via tax havens overseas, then they can eliminate this 2-3 year waiting period (you put your name on a list, and you wait until there is availible housing or to have a HUD counselor contact you) for Section 8 receipients.
Or the US Government can create a ‘deal’ with the corporations and billionaires & millionaires: create section 8 housing for the homeless, and your overseas accounts/profits/income will not be taxed, if you invest it in the US economy via jobs, and not the stock market or investment firms.
Just a thought……..
Bron,
I was wrong. According to the website, http://www.care2com., there are more than 1 million US children who are homeless.
RWL:
are there really 500k homeless children?
As for the revolution, are you prepared? If occupy Wall St. is the tip of that spear, there isnt much to fear. Although those drums were fetching.
From what I understand they are the children of the upper middle classes and the rich. I am not at all sure they would spill mummies and daddies blood unless the inheritance was secure. After the revolution they would take their money and move to the Caymans, leaving the rest of you high and dry.
Bill Moyers: The Hypocrisy of “Justice for All”
Monday, 01 April 2013 13:44 By Bill Moyers, Moyers & Company | Video
http://truth-out.org/news/item/15460-bill-moyers-essay-the-hypocrisy-of-justice-for-all
Excerpt:
Of the $100 billion spent annually on criminal justice in this country, only two to three percent goes to defend the poor. Of 97 countries, we rank 68th in access to and affordability of civil legal service.
No, we can’t afford it, but just a decade ago we started shelling out $2.2 trillion for a war in Iraq born of fraud.
We can’t afford it, while Dick Cheney’s old outfit Halliburton raked in $40 billion worth of contracts because of that war.
We can’t afford it, while the State Department doles out three billion dollars over five years in private security contracts to protect its gargantuan new embassy in Baghdad.
We can’t afford it, in this golden age of corporate profits when companies pay below zero in taxes while hauling in tax breaks from Congress worth millions upon millions of dollars — and, while, as we speak, the powerful business roundtable ratchets up a costly advertising campaign to cut corporate taxes even more.
We can’t afford to defend the poor.
Oh, Gideon — fifty years ago your trumpet was a clear, piercing cry for justice, and we’ve turned a deaf ear.
End of excerpt.
There is so much that we can’t afford…
(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9961877/Cost-to-US-of-Iraq-and-Afghan-wars-could-hit-6-trillion.html
Cost to US of Iraq and Afghan wars could hit $6 trillion
The cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could reach as high as $6 trillion dollars – or $75,000 for every household in America – a new study from Harvard University has found.)