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France plots tax on super-rich to rearm – and Britain could be next
- throw0101a 2y ago"plots" ?
- spwa4 2y agoMeaning it'll fail like all previous attempts and this will be yet another tax raise on people having a decent job, but nowhere near rich. What people imagine this means is a tax on rich people. An appartment in the center of paris costs about 10.000 per month. If you calculate how much you need to own to afford that on interest income alone, it's 120000/4% = 3,000,000. Make it 4 million to cover eating out every day as well. That would be the lowest level I would see as super-rich. But wealth tax, where it exists (e.g. Switzerland) starts at 111.059. This is in a country where a downpayment for a basic apartment would be at least 160000 (but more likely 200.000). So even in famously not-super-low-but-still-pretty-low-tax-Switzerland it's mostly taxing what you would call "professionals". People with a decent, but not spectacular, job (accountant, programmer, ... not FANG wages or doctors). Oh, and looking at the country's finances it becomes immediately clear: Switzerland is low tax because it also has very low unemployment/social support and very low pensions. The solution to this USED to be inflation, government deficits of 10% even 20% in Southern Europe (before the euro was introduced, which transferred control of inflation to the independent ECB, preventing government deficits financed by inflation, as was the norm in the 1980s and 1990s for example)
- wtcactus 2y ago[flagged]
- throwawaymanbot 2y ago[dead]
- kypro 2y agoThe super-rich are already leaving Britain[1] so realistically if they want to raise more money they'll just tax workers a bit more since they're less economically mobile. No matter how much European politicians try to deny it, the Laffer is real, and long-term uncompetitive tax policies are not good for government income. [1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/01/22/millionaire-exodus-same-as-losing-half-a-million-taxpayers/#:~:text=An%20exodus%20of%20millionaires%20from,number%20who%20left%20in%202023. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/01/22/millionaire-...
- klipt 2y agoShould tax land more and income less. Income from work is at least productive, owning land is not. #Georgism
- elzbardico 2y agoInheritance and donations should be strongly progressively taxed.
- eikenberry 2y ago> and donations What do you mean by donations? A 'donation' is the typical way to refer to giving money to a charity. Are you saying that charitable donations should be taxed?
- elzbardico 2y agoI mean gifts, a common way of evading inheritance taxes accross the world.
- eikenberry 2y agoThat makes sense, thanks.
- DFHippie 2y ago
- alvah 2y agoFrance seeks to solve its reckless spending problem by increasing taxes on the rich, and setting up yet another rediscovery of the Laffer curve? I can hardly believe it!
- onemoresoop 2y agoThis is for self defense. The rich would benefit massively from that.
- A_D_E_P_T 2y agolol, lmao even Both the French and the Brits have nukes. They're at no risk of hostile foreign invasion and everybody knows it. Entire libraries of books and whitepapers have been written about it. If it were about self-defense: Build more nukes, build some mobile launchers capable of also launching targeting satellites, maintain the missile and submarine fleets, and your job is done. This can be done on current military budgets, or even smaller budgets. It's not for "self defense". It's for foreign adventurism and geopolitical posturing. Like the opposite of realpolitik.
- pseudony 2y agoHaving Russia roll through the states of all your principal trading partners is probably no fun. Adventurism is such a poor take in this case.
- A_D_E_P_T 2y agoAll of them? Really? Besides, waging proxy wars is very far removed from self-defense. Building outposts in, e.g., Cameroon to ward against Russian aggression over there is perhaps justifiable in some abstract respect, but it's rather the opposite of self-defense. (Without getting into complicated game-theoretical "we have to stop them over there so we don't fight them over here" justifications, which have long been discredited and have even become something of a joke.)
- deleted 2y ago
- tmtvl 2y agoThose who don't learn from the past... <https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2006/07/16/old-money-new-money-flee-france-and-its-wealth-tax/49ac2ec7-c1b2-423e-a89b-699750275cd4/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2006/07/16/o...>
- JadoJodo 2y agohttps://archive.is/Q0ETI https://archive.is/Q0ETI
- wesselbindt 2y agoDon't threaten me with a good time.
- lostlogin 2y agoThere is a flip side though. How long do the working poor tolerate billionaires?
- onemoresoop 2y agoI think it’s coming and it makes sense.
- Detrytus 2y agoWith the advent of AI, robotics and killing drones the question becomes: "How long do billionaires tolerate the poor?".
- dexwiz 2y agoThat is my question for all those prognosticating an upcoming violent uprising. The disparity in power has only risen in the last 100 years. A single well armed solider could kill tens to hundreds of civilians in minutes given the right conditions. How do you rise up in the face of such disparate conditions?
- Teever 2y ago
- cbeach 2y agoHollande tried to do this in France (75% effective rate on earnings above a million Euros). Even his staunchly socialist regime had to admit its failure and abruptly reverse course in 2014, two years later. The tax raised just €260m in 2013 and €160m in 2014…. But caused an exodus of wealth and job creators
- Teever 2y agoWhere did they go to? And did they end up coming back?
- robocat 2y agoArticle "Old Money, New Money Flee France and Its Wealth Tax": https://archive.is/Q0ETI https://archive.is/Q0ETI has examples Belgium and the UK. Payre built a successful high-tech company. Payre said the French government sent him a tax bill of nearly $2.5 million on paper assets he couldn't cash in. Payre moved his family to neighboring Belgium. Payre started a new company in Brussels that he said did nearly $32 million Taittinger, who helped create the champagne label, said the French tax system not only helped force the sale of his family company but scattered the 38 family members involved in the corporation. "Half of my family left France because of taxes," said Taittinger. "They now live in England, Belgium and other countries where they were warmly welcomed -- unlike here." Eric Pinchet, author of a French tax guide, estimates the wealth tax earns the government about $2.6 billion a year but has cost the country more than $125 billion in capital flight since 1998. [I've abridged the comments above] Harder to judge the value of talent flight versus capital flight. Anecdotally here in New Zealand I see smart gritty kids emmigrate, and we attempt to import other smart gritty people to replace them.
- tbrownaw 2y agoThey're both trying to do wealth taxes, rather than (more) income taxes. I suppose that could be interesting for wealth that isn't liquid?
- Clubber 2y agoWhen you tax wealth, like say land or stocks, if the person is illiquid, they have to sell their assets to pay the tax. I would imagine that markets would crash every tax cycle due to people trying to pay their tax obligation.
- andy_ppp 2y agoIs this impossible to work out?
- Clubber 2y agoWell, say you inherited 185 acres in the middle of nowhere that is valued at $500K. You make $150K a year. You can't really do anything with the land, it's all scrub brush by now and the government wants 30% in wealth tax to tune tune of $160K. What do you do? Say you put all your savings into the market. You have $400K in assets and the government wants 20% of it ($80K), you either tighten your belt or you sell assets. The wealthy, of course, will be in much better shape to handle this than your average guy who invested some of their income.
- aaomidi 2y agoIf the market is crashing once a year it’s no longer a crash. It’s arguably a prevention of a bubble forming.
- bufferoverflow 2y agoAnd the more they sell, the more they have to sell after, driving the prices even lower. It's definitely a good recipe to crash the markets.
- eikenberry 2y agoSeems like it'd have to mean nationalizing some percentage of the corporations owned by the wealthy?
- bee_rider 2y agoThere’s an opening, right? Right or wrong, our (USA) allies are a little skeptical of the us at the moment, and France does still have a defense industry. If they can kick it into high gear and start selling more arms to their fellow Union-members, Europe can arm itself, and France will get some nice middle class engineering jobs. Seems great for everyone other than US defense contractors.
- credit_guy 2y ago> other than US defense contractors Not really. Europe needs to rearm in a hurry, and by a lot. There is not way to do that without help from the US defense contractors.
- m000 2y agoIn a hurry for what? Even if the need to rearm is not made-up itself, the urgency definitely is.
- DoingIsLearning 2y agoThe few investigations following the aftermath of the Panama papers recovered a couple of billion dollars after several years of investigation. The estimated evasion _in_the_EU_ using these off-shoring vehicles in Panama is around 100 to 200 billion. [0] The 2023 Defense spending of the entire EU member states was about 270 billion. What will happen is income taxes will increase for high earners who cannot evade income tax. And the 'super' rich will continue to own nothing on paper. [0] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/116947/20170412_panama_papers_study_final.pdf https://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/116947/20170412_panam...
- devilbunny 2y ago> income taxes will increase for high earners who cannot evade income tax i.e., those pesky jumped-up merchants who think that $1M a year in wages entitles them to speak to us. And who, despite what seems like limitless wealth to the lower middle class (I would know), don't have nearly enough to really influence on a major scale.
- DFHippie 2y agoFrench oligarchs will flee to the Galt's Gulch the neo-monarchists are building here in the US. Then, when the US electorate wrenches control back, they'll all get the same treatment here. Eventually they'll end up in Dubai. Authoritarian regimes aren't very pleasant places to live, which is why Russian oligarchs send their families abroad. Eventually they will have farted in all the elevators and they'll have to sit in their own stink.
- budududuroiu 2y agoOh no, the rich are leaving. Hope they manage to fit their assets into cabin baggage. High paid workers, due to their skills are way more mobile than asset owners. I can be a software engineer in the Bay or Canary Wharf, but if I am a real estate tycoon, it’s not like I can take British homes with me to the US.
- bufferoverflow 2y agoRich people can always sell assets and then buy similar ones elsewhere. And them being rich, they don't have to do any of the paperwork themselves.
- budududuroiu 2y agoThat’s… unironically a good thing. Most economies are currently being burned by asset price inflation
- bufferoverflow 2y agoThat's not a good thing. Most retirement accounts are tied to the market. If you crash it on purpose, you create millions of old broke people.
- s1artibartfast 2y agoOnly the tiniest sliver of the hyperwealthy's assets are physical. The vast majority is equity, which is relatively easy to move.
- lukashoff 2y agoTax the assets, make the game fair for everyone - for both workers and people living off wealth. Only then we will see wealthy people start to create new productive assets. It doesn't matter if they leave - their assets will still be in our countries. If they don't want them - we will have someone not as greedy own the assets that will benefit all of us.
- r00fus 2y agoEurope needs to pay for its defense since the US is no longer willing to fund it. So it's either higher taxes (on people who can ostensibly afford it) or removing social programs. Since the latter is absolutely political suicide, there is an attempt to do the former. What's the worst that could happen? It's not like the rich pay taxes anyway - they just setup foreign shell companies (a la Panama papers).
- singularity2001 2y agoThis whole rearmament talk makes me sick, it is as if Trump and the MIC have already won. Especially in Germany being affronted for questioning rearmament is insane.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]