France to introduce 75% income tax rate on earnings above 1 million euros

nitsuj

Number of "French" living in US 9.5million * 0.35% = 33.5k

PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) spread on GDP per person between France and the US is 10k.

Compared to Canada it's only 5k.

I personally think that isn't much of a difference. And is mostly likely the difference between #of cars/and other multiples of goods (tv's ect), size of house ect. And not a "Have/Have not" type of situation, not at PPP GDP per capita figures of 30K or so.

Some CIA Factbook numbers on % of population below "National Poverty":

France - 65.6 * 6.2% = 4.1million in "national poverty"
USA - 301 * 15.1% = 45.5million in "national poverty"

Wow, often being reffed to as the wealthiest nation in the world, I find those numbers very surprising.

If you wanna get rich live in the USA, if you don't wanna be poor live in France. My interpretation of these Statistics confuses me

But one thing I'm not confused about, I don't wanna be poor. (below "National Poverty")

Getting in to "Crime stats" next would be fun (specifically robbery/theft/fraud), but maybe a bit of a stretch assuming cause/effect relationship between crime & income inequity stats.

Does inequality "foster" crime? Maybe a good poll question.

OmCheeto

I've never understood this logic.

If Jacques the Ploomaire' is making 20,156 euros a year, it's going to take him a long time make a million. If instead, he decides to start his own business, and succeeds due to some bizarre marketing scheme, he'll be able to make 1,000,000 euros a year, and never be bothered by the new tax. His post tax income would be 32 times what he made as a simple Plumber. Imagine that, a whole 32 year career, reduced to 1.

And what if he made 2,000,000 euros? He'd be bringing home only an extra 250,000 euros a year. But that is still 12 times his past take home pay. Let me do some more math for you:

income____equivalent plumber take home pay in years
1,000,000_32.3
2,000,000_45.7
3,000,000_59.1
4,000,000_72.5
5,000,000_85.9

It looks to me like Jacques business, no matter how big it gets, is going to be profitable for him.

I simply do not understand poor little rich plumber tax logic, in any nation.

Numbers are based on the wiki entry on income tax in France, 2009, and the new 75% rate
_0.0%___________0___________5,875
_5.5%_______5,875__________11,720
14.0%______11,720__________26,030
30.0%______26,030__________69,783
41.0%______69,783_______1,000,000
75.0%___1,000,000__10,000,000,000

nsaspook

I think 'Jacques the Ploomaire' will make the very logical calculation that being on vacation will be better than working for small fraction of his pay if his yearly earnings exceed 1,000,000 euros.

OmCheeto

Depends...

on how big a house his wife ultimately wants.



There are so many variables. But for me, it's all about the bed* I sleep in.

*Both literally and figuratively. A nice bed is awesome. A nice nation to live in, is equally awesome.

ps. I am so left wing, I would like to move to France to start my new business. But... the jerkwad chef at work posts all the menu items in French, so I don't know what I'm ordering. And when I ask what it is, he says, in his demeaning stupid fake French accent; "You don't speak French? Oh! Poo poo blah blah blah blah." ...... I think he knows that I hate him.

gravenewworld

Did all of the rich people move out of the good 'ol US of A when they were taxed over 90% in the upper bracket under Eisenhower?

rootX

"Post scarcity" is a crackpot (over speculative) concept.

nsaspook

Now you've done it, turned a logical economic decision into a lose/lose scenario. Negative feedback reduces gain and happiness. The visual of poor Jacques forced to toil under a sink by a demanding spouse is not pretty.

http://hollywouldink.files.wordpress...ny-plumber.jpg

2AlphaMales?!

People being contented with a decent standard of living is not an over speculative concept.

Saying it's necessary for annual millionnaires to have greater than a 25% of further income financial incentive to work "harder", or else France is doomed to fail as a country...now there's a crackpot (paranoid) idea.

OmCheeto

Do not, speak, in engineering terms, to me, in P&WA!

Negative feedback produces stability.

Taxes as feedback:

Somalia: ~zero taxes, ~zero stability
USA: ~lowest industrialized national taxes, high stability, and we have to buy what we want
France: ~highest industrialized national taxes, high stability, and cheese and wine galore!

Conclusion?

None....... Other than, don't move to Somalia.

But seriously, how some people view taxes strikes me as bizarre. I view taxes as the equivalent of rent. The more you pay, the better the accommodations.

Would you rather live rent free in Somalia, or pay half your wages to live in France?

My apologies to anyone here at the forum who is from Somalia, or may have relatives in Somalia, but it is #1 on the list of failed states, which would make an interesting topic on its own. The USA and France are almost tied! And what the hell makes Finland the least failed state?

KiwiKid

I heard China is also quite stable.

nsaspook

Rent as taxes is great. Pay forever, own nothing and make some-else rich.

Somalia? Easy choice, I'd pay 120% in taxes not to be there. I 'visited' the disputed areas around Kenya and Somalia after the Soviets left in the late 1970's, some of our guys even made the trip to Mogadishu (Our HQ was in Mombasa, Kenya). Even then almost all the armed forces of the many sides were doped up on khat, extremely trigger-happy and a child's live was worth less than a stick of gum.

http://www.justice.gov/archive/ndic/pubs31/31482/

JonDE

Is this 75% actually going to be the effective tax? For some reason I highly doubt it.

OmCheeto

The original article seems to imply that it is a marginal rate:

bolding mine

Odd way to start that sentence.

CAC1001

How does a tax create any leveling? We get leveling through the product the people provide that makes them a billionaire through said IPO. If you tax it highly, then that money goes to the government, and then to other people who didn't do anything to deserve the money in the form of government social programs. I am fine with safety net programs, but programs based on redistribution of wealth out of some notion of equality of outcome I believe are wrong.

Wish I could think of some of these ideas, although if a $1 idea makes you wealthy, then it's more than a $1 idea!

Also, I don't know if France is very high stability-wise as far as industrialized nations go. This is a country where thousands of cars get burned every year by disaffected youth and where people (youth) rioted over the government wanting to raise the retirement age from I think 60 to 62.

Ryan_m_b

An obvious point is that governments pay for far more than that like transport infrastructure, education, healthcare, law enforcement, national defence etc. Also it really depends on what you think people should do to "deserve" something. In many societies just being alive grants you access to free healthcare, education, protection under the law etc. If that isn't a social program I don't know what is.

CAC1001

A country like France, which already has higher taxes and miniscule defense spending in comparison to a country like the United States, should already be able to afford things like transport infrastructure, education, healthcare, law enforcement (which is a local government priority unless the French have a nationalized police force), national defense, and so forth. No need for high taxes for purposes of wealth redistribution.

Protection under the law I do not see as a social program, as enforcement of the law is one of the core functions of government (that's one of the reasons you form a government in the first place).

Ryan_m_b

It's not really a question of need but one of values. We've already touched upon the discussion somewhat in this thread: the question of what constitutes a fair wage and the extent to which high earners become rich off of other's labour.
Then we have very different understandings of the term. To me a social program is a policy designed to improve a specific facet of life for the collective (i.e. society) as a whole.