French affluent flee the tax on super-rich

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/16/france-depardieu-exile-idUSL5E8NG3Z520121216

by varjag • 14 years ago

11 25 14 years ago

maigret7• 14 years ago

I'd wonder how many films Depardieu got famous for haven't benefited any tax money from public financing. And how many would have been possible at all without it.

gambiting• 14 years ago

During his lifetime he paid almost 150 million euros in taxes, so more than most of us will ever pay - so I think he can go wherever he pleases. And yes, even as a completely non-rich person, I think that the French 75% tax is absurd by every possible measure.

maigret7• 14 years ago

You don't answer my point - which is that the high taxes helped him get rich in the first place.

varjag3• 14 years ago

Perhaps we should also contemplate how much return on investment would have France seen on the public money had Depardieu not starred in those films.

maigret7• 14 years ago

Good point.

Markinhos3• 14 years ago

I don't think that gives the French goverment the right to tax the 75% of his income

maigret7• 14 years ago

Of course it does. Government is elected and has to the right to do whatever is constitutional and gets approved by both assemblies.

cheradenine01• 14 years ago

That's an argument against public film financing, not in favour of higher marginal taxation on the wealthy.

hamax• 14 years ago

How so? Didn't we all profit from it? Even(or especially) if he's taxed 75%.

Mordor2• 14 years ago

Nothing to see here, just politicians trying to blame their failed policies on the the wealthy.

antihero2• 14 years ago

Nope, just politicians trying to get the wealthy to actually give back to the society they benefited from.

Mordor2• 14 years ago

I think he did that already - isn't this more about a government pretending that all the country's woes are caused by the wealthy, rather than all the people that are out of work? [by this I mean lack of taxes, not some other problem]

NicoJuicy• 14 years ago

Socialism only works untill they run out of other people's money :-)

So what if he flees, he payed a lot during his life and has done things, people only dream about. He has taken risks, he should get rewarded.

They are trying to punish him because he took an opportunity with both hands and grabbed it and became succesfull.

He employed 50-80 people .. At least he contributed to society in (also) a more economical way.

Hollande and socialists in Europe are crazy... The socialists in America are the "extremists" here.

antihero2• 14 years ago

Even if he pays the tax, he's still going to be having an amazing lifestyle, one far better than the poor people that taxes are helping. It's in no way creating equality of outcome, just giving people who could one day be like him a fighting chance.

What happened to taking pride in helping others? What of all the people who took risks and are now broke and desperate?

rtpg• 14 years ago

anyone making a non-trivial amount of money profited from public services, infrastructure, and protection paid for by taxes. Ensuring a stable and strong infrastructure is in the interests of the rich anyways.

Not like the super-rich will see much of a difference in their lifestyles anyways.

I understand that there needs to be an incentive, but to act like anyone but maybe wandering barbarians could make a significant amount of money without the help of solid infrastructure is naive.

varjag3• 14 years ago

> Not like the super-rich will see much of a difference in their lifestyles anyways.

As a thought experiment, would you approve 75% tax on your income right now? I would assume you do OK by Western standards but not quite rich yet. However even with 25% of your earned money your lifestyle is going to be lavish, say, by sub-Saharan standard of living.

Point is, doing good by poor people's standards is not really an aspiration wealthy people have. They have money, their lifestyles are costly. E.g. Depardieu is an avid gourmet, other people collect expensive cars they ride on weekends, yet others plan personal missions to Mars, and so on.

Yes we all are indebted to society, but taking most of income away is doing nothing here than killing incentives for big earners, and it's not like the money they stopped earning would suddenly appear among city poor.

French affluent flee the tax on super-rich

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