French affluent flee the tax on super-rich | Hacker News Reader

French affluent flee the tax on super-rich

reuters.com

11 pointsvarjag25 comments

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.

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?

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.

> 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.

Count normal tax rate of up to 45% and value added tax of up to 20% for normal workers in many European countries. That's what many engineers do pay, and most are ok with that and would gain nothing by going to Belgium, because Belgium has only nice taxes for rich people.

It's not as bad as it sounds: there is normally a substantial non-taxable base income, and the xx% tax you pay only concerns the amount over it. In most European countries there are also numerous tax deductions: daycare, mortgage interest (in certain countries up to 100%), savings accounts for youths and so on. VAT is a base consumer tax paid by everyone, and shouldn't be lumped together into income tax.

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

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

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]

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.

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.

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

what is your real point? So what how he got rich?

The point is is it doesn't matter how he got rich. He is rich and can afford to flee the higher tax bracket. You can argue it's wrong or immoral of him to do so but none of your arguments will induce him to stay and pay the tax. You try to squeeze the class with the most means and mobility and they just slip through your fingers.

Yes he is free and we are. He has the right to do so, and others have the right to criticize him for that.

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.

Good point.

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

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

It can, in the same way the South African goverment could discriminate by race during the Apartheid.

That something is constitutional doesn't mean it is morally acceptable

I wouldn't compare letting someone with "only" at least 250000 Eur/y in income anything similar to apartheid.

He was making a valid analogy: both events satisfied your requirements. Where do you draw the line? What is the differentiating factor between them?

Of course is not similar, but the point is only because it is legal and the goverment can do it, does not make it right.

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

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

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