French ‘millionaire’s tax’ gets constitutional go-ahead

[MindMover]

Source: Today

PARIS — France’s Constitutional Council gave the green light on Sunday to a ‘millionaire’s tax’, to be levied on companies that pay salaries of more than 1 million euros (S$1.75 million) a year.

The measure, introduced in line with a pledge by President Francois Hollande to make the rich do more to pull France out of crisis, has infuriated business leaders and soccer clubs, which at one point threatened to go on strike.

It was originally designed as a 75 per cent tax to be paid by high earners on the part of their incomes exceeding 1 million euros, but the council rejected this, saying 66 per cent was the legal maximum for individuals.

The Socialist government has since reworked the tax to levy it on companies instead, raising the ire of entrepreneurs.

Read more: http://www.todayonline.com/world/europe/french-millionaires-tax-gets-constitutional-go-ahead

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Other developed countries can tax the wealthy, why can't the USA???????????

[valerief]

1. I wonder if all the extra tax revenue they collect will go to their military the way it does

in the U.S.

[Prophet 451]

2. Vive le France!

Quibbling about what the exact numbers should be aside, thank goodness the French don't have this absurd worship of wealth.

[jsr]

3. Good.

[dotymed]

4. "Other developed countries can tax the wealthy, why can't the USA???????????"

Sadly because we have become a fascist nation owned and controlled by the wealthy.

Our SCOTUS has entrenched this system with "citizens united", what an Orwellian name.

We will have a revolution, it is inevitable at this point.

The question is whether it will be violent or not. I prefer non-violence.

IMO, that will take a third, Progressive (populist) party to lead the way. To get money out of elections and politics.
To harbor in equality.
I hope that Bernie Sanders becomes our next President. I realize his age yet I also realize that for decades he has shown consistent,
progressive leadership for the real Americans.

[JHB]

11. We used to.

In 1955 there were 24 tax brackets (married couple filing jointly). Adjusting for inflation:
16 of them (two thirds) kicked in at income levels over $250,000;
11 of those kicked in at income levels above $500,000;
The top rate kicked in for income above ~$3.5 million
Rates ran from 20% to 91%

To compare, the corresponding numbers today are 7 brackets, 2 over $250K, 0 over $500K, top rate starts at $440,876, and rates run from 10% to 39.6%.

There's room to argue that the rates in the 50s were too high, but it's crystal clear how the load was distributed. Tax reforms under Kennedy and especially under Reagan trimmed taxes at the low end, but sawed them off at the high end (with chain-saws in Reagan's case). All progressivity on very high incomes was eliminated under Reagan and has remained that way ever since. Even the increases under Clinton and Obama only tepidly pushed the high end, and were necessary responses to excessive cutting under Republicans.

[dipsydoodle]

5. No longer related to individuals though.

Its COMPANIES whose AGGREGATE payroll exceeds c. $26,000 a week. That's unless the article has poor wording.

[onehandle]

6. Because in the U.S. millionaires and billionaires are more highly valued than Jesus to the GOP. nt

[awoke_in_2003]

12. And a lot of dems, too., nt

[cohee100]

7. The rich never pay their "fair share"

Rich people did not get rich by being stupid. The minute this act becomes law, money will start pouring across borders to more friendly tax jurisdictions. Sad, that they wrote this to tax companies also, now jobs will start to bleed across the borders.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

8. "Rich people did not get rich by being stupid"

Uh huh...

[freshwest]

24. Yeah, but that dead animal on his head gets great PR! n/t

[groundloop]

9. Hmmmm...... another trickle down troll

Yeah, tax the "job creators" and all manner of horrible things will happen to a country.

$1.75 million is more than adequate for anyone to live on, more than that ought to be taxed at a high rate. Contrast that to the way the US tax codes have been used, starting with Rayguns, to force lower income people to pay more and give tax breaks to the rich. How well has that been working?

[fascisthunter]

15. lol... money does not equal brains

and the rich need to stop sucking the commons dry while not paying anything back for it all.

[TBF]

18. But if all the advanced nations follow suit -

then y'all will be reduced to living in Somalia. You'll like it there - all kinds of freedum.

[Harmony Blue]

10. Good job

France! Bravo!

[Schema Thing]

13. Hello, research much? Everyone knows the French...

don't even have a word for "entrepreneur".

[small D democrat]

17. Okay, that's funny

But I'm not exactly sure why.

It reminds me of a joke:

Cow #1: Hey, are you worried about this mad cow disease?

Cow #2: Why should I be? I'm a duck.

[Igel]

14. A lot of the law was struck down.

For example, to raise taxes on doctors and lawyers so they could later lower the tax on others. "Equality before the tax (law)" was the reason given. Can't pick out individual professions.

At the same time, they couldn't tax the wealthy at 75%, 66% was the max under the previous ruling. So Hollande decided to revise things because he didn't like the limits and needed a constitutional work around.

Now they tax the employer for any salaries at or above 1 million euros, with the effect that the new tax on the "wealthy" is actually at 50%. Then there were the social surcharges of 25%. Not to exceed, in total, 5% of the company's ... profits? receipts?

Soccer clubs are mobilizing against this. The target in the media won't be the majority of the people affected, and it may affect things like sports teams in ways that those who most support it dislike. Bills of retainer are hard to make fit.

However, if certain people are exempled, well, just see my first paragraph.


As for why France can do this but the US can't, this is very much like what the US did in '93. If you paid more than $1 million in income, you would pay additional tax--unless the income was tied to performance goals. So they tied income to performance goals.

[DFW]

23. Social surcharges of 25%?

We have two employees in France, and we pay a little over 50% on top of their gross pay to the government in "charges sociales," while our employees get a little less than 50% of their gross pay. So, if we pay our guys a salary of $80,000, they cost us about $120,000 each, of which they each get to keep about $39,000. In France, it goes to prop the bloated public sector. They do have good social coverage, but they have three administrators for every one they need. In case something should by accident work efficiently, they usually figure out some way to make it more cumbersome and complicated. If some guy makes a salary of a million euros (and not many do), then he costs his employer 1.55 million euros and takes home 340,000 euros, where the government takes 1,210,000 euros. 340,000 euros take home is nothing to sneeze at, but some who see government take over three times as much do say "what's wrong with this picture?"

[MindMover]

25. I would have to say Great social coverage in France ... and that includes more than healthcare ...

An associates mother in law who resides in France and is elderly became sick and feeble ... all her healthcare, nursing home, and assisted living expenses paid for, not a single dime out of her pocket ... and the care is excellent with the home she lives in being on the coast ... almost spa like living ...

In contrast to my father who is 93 and a couple of years ago we were talking about him having to someday go to a nursing home or assisted living ... well, he checked into it and like the other 99% of Americans could not afford either one ... so lately, because he is a veteran of the big war ... he has looked into getting benefits from the VA ... he says to me the other day that he not only can get healthcare benefits but will not have to worry about a nursing home or assisted living ... now the story turns out OK for him, but if you are not a veteran in the USA, you might as well be a piece of trash to our insurance laden medical system today ...

[Nye Bevan]

16. Given that (1) companies and people can freely relocate within the EU;

(2) the top UK tax rate is 45%; and
(3) you can get from Paris to London by train in about 2 hours;

I think this will work really, really well. What a genius Hollande is.

[MindMover]

19. Sure, relocate like our billionaire USA patriots do ...

[DFW]

21. The 2 hours is deceptive

Unless you live next door to the train stations, that is. But agreed, plenty of French will talk/have talked with their feet. I know at least one who has, and he's no millionaire. But he was terrorized in his shop for three weeks straight by a brigade of tax auditors who kept barking at him to bring them coffee, dissing him when they judged his coffee to not be good enough, and then accusing him of having "black cash" in his shop when he offered to get them fresh coffee from the café next door. He sold his business to a Luxembourg company and moved to Belgium, saying this was no longer the country he grew up in, but more like the Nazi occupation his parents suffered for 5 years, and told him about. I would never choose Belgium to live in, with its corrupt "justice" system and thieving police, but he doesn't speak anything other than French, and Geneva is too far to commute.

There is a right way to increase taxes on high earners (Clinton) and a wrong way (Hollande). The effects of both are predictable. Hollande has never worked a day in his life--just been a bureaucrat/politician living off taxpayer money from the word go. His political know-how reflects it.

[MindMover]

22. The effect is to pay and play to a more fair and balanced financial environment ...

where the economic game has been rigged to accommodate the "job creators"

[Overseas]

20. K&R. Glad to hear it.

[Blandocyte]

26. Tax 'em. They'll still be wealthy

No prob for them.

[muriel_volestrangler]

27. Kick (nt)