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http://money.cnn.com/2013/12/30/news/economy/french-tax-75/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

75% tax on millionaire salary

More incentive to get paid in BTC?

Yes, and do what Gerard Depardieu did and just leave.  Talk about stupid policy.

Remind me to never go to France. 1 million Euro becoming 250,000? No **** way. That isn't even "super rich". "Super rich" is what I'd consider like 5+ million a year but in any case 75% is so **** much.

I guess this the reason why Max Keiser left France and moved to London?

People with enough money and smarts will go elsewhere.  Takes an awfully stupid politician (redundant) to not understand that!

75% tax is ridiculous. I should imagine people will be looking for alternatives and Bitcoin will be one which appeals to some. However, a lot of them will just relocate. This reminds me of the Cyprus issue, likewise this is not how you get positive results..it's just beyond horrific.

I do not think this will have hat much impact on Bitcoin.

People with that kind of money will just relocate.

Interesting point.  It's kind of how the Cyprus debacle happened and then BTC price skyrocketed after that.  I haven't seen any movement in BTC though yet, any idea when the 75% tax takes effect?

5 million is nothing in an ultra expensive country like France. Super rich is more like 50Million+

Socialism is great until you run out of other people's money to spend, right?

France is insane... why would any wealthy citizen stay? I'd move to Singapore :)

Jesus Christ how horrifying.  France is going to be a 3rd world nation at this rate.  This is not how socialism is supposed to work; you don't wave a pen and some guns around and expect positive results.

75% is a bit exorbitant.. they are just doing to drive out money from the country. does france still have mandatory 35 hour workweeks? seems like they're too busy eating baguettes and drinking coffee (you know, to get cultured and all).

France is basically communist.


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Get 420 with bitcoins at zeltasgarden.com

i dont like that law, 75 percent tax? are u kidding me why would anyone want to live in france, and france wont prosper now.
Maybe for the average man this law is good maybe it isnt. But millionaires will be leaving france a in great number now.
So when was this law passed anyways? i havent heard about this .

Weird the tax isn't an income tax, it is a penalty tax on the companies which pay its employees "too much".  The company pays a 75% tax on the salaries which exceed 1M EUR per year.  So company pays you 1M EUR, company coughs up 750K EUR to the government.  Correction:  The tax is on the employer for 75% of the wages ABOVE 1M EUR so it is in effect a wage cap.  Instead of the govt saying "wages over 1M annually are illegal" they just made it asininely expensive to pay wages that high so ... companies won't.

Company cuts your salary to 1,000,000 EUR or less, and the company pays no tax (well no extra millionaire taxes).  I have a feeling many companies will simply cut salaries which are over the 1M "cap" and offer some form of deferred compensation.

I simply can not believe this law is passed, it is not an income tax it is basically saying, if you have more than 1m you
have a lot of power , too much power, power that we can not control and power that we want to have.
Why would anyone want to live in France after this law? this is BS - .

That's exactly what will happen.
75% is bad joke. I guess they wanted to attack certain businesses. Why don't they just do it in the open.

wtf, it's not progressive? that's ridiculous then.

was this bill even voted on to get it passed? What in the world were they thinking when they wanted to go and pass the bill.
This is an outrage because it isnt even an income tax? or is it?  how does this exactly work out>? it is confusing me.

This taxation is obviously absurd but I feel it is important to remember here that the 75% is over the amount that exceeds 1M and not over 1M itself. If your salary is 1.1M you will pay 75% of 100k + n% over the remaining 1M (n is around 40%, depends on many factors). This leads to an "effective" tax rate a bit lower than 75%. Still, absurd.

It is effectively a "maximum wage" law.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_wage

well, it certainly can't hurt, that's for sure.
idon't know how much it helps bitcoin though.

that was what i was assuming.. it's progressive. that's still what i think as 75% flat tax is exorbitant and will destroy even the middle class, unless they gave government assistance.

People making that kind of money tend to be the innovators, the risk takers, the factory makers, the employers.  They are the pople who work 80-hour weeks to make things happen.

France is shooting itself in the foot, may as well be shooting itself in the head.  When these key people in the economy decide to either leave France or just plain stop doing what they do the French economy will slide ever more quickly into the gutter.

They never learn, do they?

Beetcoin - you say "give them government assistance". Just where do you think these government funds come from?  From the taxpayers (Note: the government produces NOTHING.  Government only consumes.  Government can only "assist" by raising taxes LOL)

It is NOT an income tax.  French citizens will continue to pay whatever (likely insane) income tax exist.  This is a tax or more aptly a penalty paid by the COMPANY which dares to issue such a high salary.  You state it is on the amount over 75% can you point to a cite because nothing in the article indicates that.  Still even if it is only on the amount of the salary over 75% it is not an income tax and not paid by the employee.

In essence France has said "employers are not allowed to pay anyone over 1M EUR and if you do we will slam you with a 75% fine".  It is a defacto ban on salaries the government considers too high, the only thing more strict would be outright prohibition by making it a criminal offense for a company to pay an employee more than $1M EUR annually.

Defacto it pretty much is a maximum wage law as no company is going to pay employees over the "cap" only to be slammed with an obviously punitive tax (on top of existing payroll, sales, and corporate income tax).  Companies will cut salaries (or offer alternative compensation) to avoid the tax and the "tax" will produce no significant revenue but the government will have to already know that will be the outcome and thus the "tax" isn't intended as a tax at all but a method of control.

They tried this tax a few months back purely on income and basically the courts shot it down and wealthy citizens started to flew. Courts said it was unconstitutional.

This new law is a roundabout way to still tax the income simply because companies wont pay salaries above 1MM Euro. If this law sticks...

His value to the company he works for is a certain amount, but he only gets 1/4 in pay.  The government confiscates 3/4 of his would-be pay or the company is forced to keep it and not pay the guy what he is worth.

Guy moves to another country that does not confiscate from him what he is worth.

France loses thousands of the best and brightest.  Industry suffers.  Cannot compete with countries that welcome with open arms the cream of the crop.  France becomes a country of low-wage workers and people dependent on handouts from .gov (which may be the whole object of this exercise in stupidity).

This law is complete nonsense. They're charging it on salaries? As if the top 1% this is supposed to hurt even earn salaries. All their money comes from dividends, capital gains, bonuses, etc.

This is the French top 1% making it harder for the French top 2% to ever join them.

or, on the other side of the coin, they are the lazy bankers who game the system (for short-term profits) to win at the cost of the rest of the country. i'm not saying one side is right or wrong, but it's a complex issue.

While it may be easy to criticize the French Gov for their tactics here, I do think the intention is noble.  We all know that some salaries are HUGE.  Personally, I think it's admirable that they are trying to limit that, and not allow anyone to earn an absolutely insane amount of money for being CEO. 

Yes, free market, we should all be able to make limitless amounts of fiat, blah blah blah.  It's not sustainable.  Will be interesting to see how this play out.

Good.

Let the banks and governments keep pushing people toward Bitcoin. Super high taxes, account confiscations, big fees, bigger inconvenience, etc, are all coming down the pipe as the dinosauric big banking cartels try to save themselves. In the end who do you think they will care about more, you or them?

We can just sit back and relax, these monstrosities in power are doing all the work for us by giving basically zero incentive to stay with fiat currency.

I agree they have good intentions.

Hitler had good intentions too (wikipedia Godwin's law) :'(

nobody cares about the intentions, it's the result that matters. That's where a lot of people who don't understand economy get it wrong - they shout these "tax the rich" slogans without knowing how this in the long run this affects them. They have good intentions, but with their stupidity they ruin everything.

agree

I agree with this. Also see footballers in Britain who are now earning 80k per WEEK, while 500k people in the UK are eating from food banks.

Something has to give, or there really will be blood on the streets.

Edit: also, out of interest, would anyone on this thread complaining about this tax being ridiculous actually be affected by it if it was in their country? Classic case of "I'll be as rich as those guys soon so don't raise taxes before I get there, any time now!"

The system is rigged against you. No matter how bright or innovative you think you are, there is no more room at the top for upwardly mobile innovators.

When jobs leave France and more people are unemployed the "intentions" won't matter one bit to those taking a handout.  And I think their intentions are anything but noble: greed, envy, and control. 

When the 50% majority who are making less than the average/median decide that anything about that is "huge" and vote in politicians to stop it, then we'll be really screwed. Huge depends a lot on perspective.

That's true I suppose, but we're supposed to be living in a society here.

Let's take this to its extreme conclusion, with a contrived example from the past: imagine a city of 1000 people, where 950 of them are peasants with no property and barely enough income to put food on the table. 49 are the Baron of the City's household. 1 is the Baron himself. He owns all of the land, all of the wealth that the city and surrounding lands generates goes to him. Is this a city you'd like to live in?

And don't kid yourself that you will be the Baron :D

lol.

People who move because of this are the ones with small portable fortunes.  The real rich in France are those that gain huge incomes from companies and property.  The companies can't move because they have a symbiotic relationship with the state (French diplomats often seem to work as salesmen for infrastructure and arms companies) and of course property owners can't move either.

We may disagree with taxing the rich as opposed to raising tax on the lower orders but its not stupid.  

Some one made a famous quote many decades ago.

"The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money"

Hollande should be knowing about that.

It does not matter man, that is not how taxes works. "Companies will pay" is just what French president thinks it will happen, they will just re-engineer their finances so that they don't pay a damn and lower level employees and even the well paid (at a certain level) will pay the amount to be taxed under this new system. Anyway, it is pretty obvious that the 75% is over the amount that excees 1M and not over 1M itself, I am not for it but I recognize that at least it is not constructed in a dumb way, the guy that earns a salary of 999,999.99 EUR cannot pay substantially less taxes than the guy earning 1,000,000 EUR, this is ridiculously dumb and this is not how it works (does not matter if its income tax, taxes over salary paid by companies, or whatever). I am also very curious (seriously) to know if there is any taxation system in the world in any serious country that actually works as you think this one does. Please show me a tax in which the amount of money of N-0.01 pay substantially less taxes than the amount of N+0.01 if you have any example.

As for the "cite" with further explanations, I have found this one:

http://guideimpots.com/calculer-impot/324-contribution-exceptionnelle-fortune.php

"La contribution exceptionnelle taxera la fraction de l’ensemble des revenus d’activité professionnelle des personnes physiques supérieure à 1 000 000 €."

I will be very pleased if you show me any reliable source that shows that it works the way you are saying it does, however.

The true tax rate is higher then 75%.  75% is the rate that working class folk pay. The pay council tax, income tax, vat,  inflation tax, and tax that indirectly make goods and services more expensive because of verious business taxes.

Prehaps most rich in France are state leachers.

Back that up with figures please, if you're going to make claims like that :) Show me how an average working class French citizen pays ~75% in taxes.

France is currently ruled by the Socialist party. There is a methodology adopted by the socialist parties all over the world to retain power. It is like this:

1. Tax to death the 10% hard working people and squeeze as much money as possible.

2. Give this tax money as benefits to the remaining 90%, lazy people.

3. After a few years, most of the hard working people will run away and the economy will collapse.

4. Now blame the economic collapse on Capitalist forces

5. Brainwash the remaining population (by this time will be living in ghettoes and slums), so that no other party will be elected to power other than the socialist party.

This has been successfully conducted in many of the world nations. Let's wait to see whether their experiment in France will be a successful one or not.

How about a deferred compensation consisting of 0.1 BTC along with a link to a unique Bitcoin dice game, of which the link only works for them?

-Each roll, one doubles their bitcoins.
-Every roll is a winner until X rolls is reached.
-On the last roll of which you lose, you still get to keep your initial bet.
-Site/Link crashes, whereupon you can't play any longer and the funds are immediately sent to the gambler's output bitcoin wallet address.

This could be -exactly- the case in France.  It's already happening in the US with the Obamacare law!   It's on a smaller scale but affects many more people and at a smaller rate.  $250,000 in the number is the US.  Make more than that next year, you're going to be hit with an extra 3.8% tax.  I know it's small.  But if you're around that number (many doctors, dentists, smaller attorneys, etc), they are being changed to earn $249,999 next year and then setting up a deferred compensation plan.  It's not a marginal tax like the income tax tables are.  It happens in the US for a small extra tax, it'll certainly happen in France for such a large tax.  You're going to see a bunch of $999,999 Euro salaries. 

Or simply people leaving. :)

Those companies will pay shares as compensation instead, no difference

France politician are retarded, it's unbelievable !
Anybody who is millionaire won't care about moving elsewhere.
They will lose billions every years.

Holy shit, 75%? At that point it's just worth it to leave the country. No country is worth a 75% tax rate to live in it.

Sooo, being a 75% slave is outrageous, but being just 61% is acceptable. Go figure...

https://translate.google.fi/translate?sl=fi&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fsaituri.org%2Fverotus%2Fpaljonko-oikeasti-maksat-veroja%2F&act=url

It is not the French politicians who are retarded. As a matter of fact, the French politicians are one of the most shrewd of their kind.

It is the common people of France who are retarded, for electing these sort of leaders.

California is not too far away from this now.  55.7% marginal rate above $508,000.

39.8% federal + 3.8% ACA + 12.1% state.  Not to mention payroll, Social Security, etc.

almost 40% of that goes to federal though. you know, so they can spend the money "defending" our country by invading others.

@ gannicus,

Thanks for the cite. 

I think we might just be talking past each other.

1) I 100% agree no company will pay it thus it simply acts as a defacto cap on wages.

2) I agreed that it might be on the portion over 1M I never refuted your claim just said the articles was unclear and wondered if someone had a clearer example.  With your cite I agree 100% it is a flat 75% tax on the portion over 1M.   Simple solution.  Nobody (or no significant numbers) will get paid over 1M in salary (they will just take more deffered compensation) and the tax revenue will be roughly nothing.  75% of nothing is nothing. :)

3) It still isn't an income tax.  My point was that this isn't like raising the income tax bracket to 75% this is IN ADDITION to the employees income tax.  So hypothetically if the tax rate in the >1M EUR bracket was >25% (and I have to guess with France it is more like 50%+) that means the tax between both the employee and employer on the portion above 1M EUR is more than 100%.  That is how insane this is.   Merely raising the income tax bracket to 75% would be bad enough this is a scheme which results in more than 100% taxation.  Utterly asinine.  I think I was unclear but that was my point on saying it isn't an income tax.

This 75% penalty tax is above and beyond all existings taxes.   So france isn't raising the income tax to 75% (which would be insane as it is) the employee and employer still pays all his normal taxes (income tax is >45%, social taxes >9%, VAT >19%) PLUS on top of that the employer now pays an additional 75% penalty tax in wages over 1M EUR.  It is >100% total taxation (on the portion above 1M EUR) as insane as that sounds, and no employer is going to pay more in taxes then they pay their employee so they will just cut wages to the 1M "cap" and offer other non salary compensation (stock options, increased benefits, etc).  The irony is that not only will the govt not get the 75% in super taxes they will lose all the taxes on employee incomes that have been cut.

That isn't to say CA isn't insane.  Don't forget CA has a 8.5% sales tax on top of the income tax.  Also don't forget ObamaCare added a 3.8% additional tax on those making >$250K annually starting in 2014. Similar to France (although well ambitious) this isn't raising the tax bracket by 3.8% it is a new separate tax class on top of all the existing taxes.  So yeah CA is pushing 60% to 70% in total taxation easy these days.  It is one reason why other tech hubs like Austin have seen so many CA immigrants.

The root cause is that politicians are very generous with other people's money.  The theft is so common that many people justify it as normal and necessary.

It is not just the 75% that is outrageous.  It is the very idea of a "progressive" tax.

A tax of 10% across the board would automatically take more money from people with a higher income than those with a lower income.  That is what "per cent" means.  But they invented the concept of taking a higher percentage from people with higher income.  And almost no one objected.  And this is where it leads.  

But it is a good thing for Bitcoin.

instead of taxing people up the ass hole, they should just start learning how to more efficiently use/allocate their money. the problem is that politicians like to give free money and waste money (so their friends who are businessmen gain large profits).

if politicians weren't politicians, a cap to the tax rate at half of 75% would be more than enough.

You could say "gifted", "smart" or some other junk if you want to justify your priviledge to yourself... But "hardworking"? Come on... people don't make millions by working hard. There are a lot of people, working crazy hours and they don't make a living wage. Being rich is all about being at the right place at right time and using that opportunity the right way, its about knowing the right people and knowing the right way of doing business. For short it's about opportunity, judgement and initiative. Has nothing to do with hard working.

I myself, made the most money in my life, when I was being a lazy bugger.

I mean we are at the bitcoin forum after all, and quite possibly you are an early adopter...

Wait... was it an irony?

i don't like it when people say that rich people are hardworking so they are rich. that may be the case, but they could be just as lazy as a middle class employee. that's how the economic system works really. if you have the right friends, they can help you get out on top and screw other people over.. with very little effort or "hard work."

and what does hard work mean if what they are doing is shit for the rest of the world? what about those bankers who "work really hard" to make money for themselves, and fuck everyone else over in the process?

Everybody here is saying that a 75% tax is a barrier to entrepreneurship and will make most rich people flee.

Did you know that the federal income tax rate in the US was 91% on income over $200,000 (approx. $2.5 million in today's dollars) between 1946 and 1962?
Did it cause a great exile of brains and innovators?

I'm French, there's a good chance I will make more than 1 million a year in a few years, but I still welcome this 75% tax. Millionaires build their fortune on the shoulder of many people who implement their ideas, and thanks to a functioning government and a safe environment, which is payed for by taxes.
Also it's not as bad as it seems. If you earn $1'000'001, only the $1 dollar above 1 million is taxed at 75%. Plus, it is in fact a 50% tax which when social security charges are added reaches 75%

yeah, people still need/want to make money.. even if tax rates are ludicrously high. historically speaking, its impact hasn't been as bad as most republicans/rich people say. still though, 75% is way too damn high. rich people shouldn't be footing that much of the bill. all i expect is something fair (ie less than 50% progressive tax).

Thanks for posting!

I find it so annoying that all the people foaming at the mouth about this tax are those who will never be affected by it. Armchair libertarians on this forum, by reading some of those posts.

I'm also a reasonably high earner here in the Netherlands, and I am very happy paying the high income tax here, because the government in general provides fantastic infrastructure and a safe, secure society. Sure there are problems here but in general I feel like my tax euros go to good use.

There are definitely taxes I do oppose here -- there's a nasty double taxation scheme on savings and assets worth more than 21k, where you pay a 30% tax on a nominal "assumed" appreciation of 4% -- so it's only 1.2%, but that's slapped on all of my savings above 21k euros, and on the value of my house every year if I own it. Now that is bullshit.

Yes, I did.  And do you know what happened?  All those politicians who voted for those progressive increases throughout the years eventually got voted out (took about 10-15 years) of office and the tax rates become lower and lower until the mid 90's and early 2000's.  The other thing to remember, inflation adjusted $200,000 in 1943 is ~$2.5MM in today's levels.  The amount of higher earners in the 40-50's was a lot lower than today for various reasons. 

More power to you if you want to stay and pay that much tax in France if and when you earn more than $1MM.  It's a relatively free world out there compared to most times in history.  We are free to stay in one country or move to another. :)

Spot on.

When the masses of people discover they can vote themselves other peoples money then the game is over - all you hear is a giant swirling rushing sound as the economy goes down the toilet.

Many of you here on this forum are mixing up banksters with hard working entrepreneurs (the people who start small and medium sized successful businesses that more often than not employ you, pay the majority of taxes, etc).

Kill the economic incentive and these people have no reason what-so-ever to take risks, work eighty hours a week, and innovate.  They will also have absolutely no reason to keep you employed.  But, of course, you can always become a parasite on the taxpayers as is the current method in favor by millions of people who choose not to work for a living.

Tin foil hat time, eh.


Let's just dispense right now with the notion that how much money you make is proportional to personal effort. That is an insult to school teachers, police, scientists - well, pretty much anyone who earns a wage for services.

That is not to say that capitalism isn't the best engine of economic growth available, just that it has little to do with fairness. The idea that everyone could be a fantastically wealthy hedge fund manager if they just worked hard enough is patently false, but that's the implication that is made when you equate wealth with hard work. Certainly it's easier to be wealthy if you work hard, but then again that applies to any goal in life.

That said, looks like this French law is temporary - 2 years. I suppose they figure that's short enough to prevent companies from relocating.

Sure, who would work eighty hours a week, and innovate for salaries less than 100k a year?
Except you know, all researchers.

Who would take risk for low salaries?
Except you know, all policemen.

Let's not group the school teachers with police and scientists. The cops and the researchers work hard, so we can't blame them. The teachers on the other hand, have proliferated with the support from their unions. They work for less than 10 hours a week, and carry almost four times the salary which an average council worker (who works for 60 h / week) receives. And what do they do? They just brainwash the students with their political messages. No one is going to disagree if I claim that the quality of teaching has gone down the drain for the last few decades or so.

mskryxz thanks for sharing the news about the cruelty of France government on civilians by enhancing the tax. Yes for sure I guess salary in bitcoins could protect the salaried person otherwise taxes will eat up all the hard earned money. Surely bitcoin could today safeguard the civilians not only of France but everywhere. 

Source that teachers in France work 10 hours/week please?

All I know, as a successful entrepreneur, is the more I work and give value to the world the more I am worth and the more money I make.

Indeed, the world is better off for my innovative efforts.

I am already taxed 40%.  Tax me 75% and I am outta here after laying off my employees and shutting down the business.

When thousands upon thousands of overtaxed people quit their businesses and services, you will see widespread unemployment and poverty like you wouldn't believe.

Not rocket science my friends.  Too many people are jealous that they too cannot come up with and launch ideas that other people value enough to pay good money for.  So the solution they lobby for is to tax those "rich" people because after all it is soooo unfair that someone can earn more than someone else.

PS - if school teachers and policemen want to earn more money all they have to do is start their own businesses if they think that is so easy LOL

Stop using government guns to force your idea of economic fairness onto others.  Isn't that what Bitcoin is all about?

Sort of like in "Atlas Shrugged".

+1. It is not easy. If you don't put in tons of hours for years, you can forget about it..

The socialists always want to test how far they can push things with force.  If you can't do it in a free, voluntary manner, perhaps one will see eventually when it is done TO them..

A 75% tax rate will do much more harm than good. Sadly most politicians have a hard time grasping economics 101.

history, as stated prior, does not support your claim. i don't know how it's going to end up in france, but high taxes historically have not hindered the economy.

It strikes me as rather difficult to prove such a claim or its contrary on a historical basis with any degree of certainty. There are a lot of other confounding factors.

I was wondering how long it would take for someone to quote Atlas Shrugged or at least reference it. Many of the worlds countries are moving towards an Atlas Shrugged scenario. It still many be many years off, but I honestly think it's happening around the world, and to some extent in the US.

I wonder what Rand would say about something like Bitcoin? I personally feel she would love it that it crosses international boundaries and is away from government regulation.  Her modernized version of repaying everyone owed in gold :)

I think some of the might get into Bitcoin indeed, but even more will move out of France. By moving out of the country they won't help the economy anymore, so this decision has negative effects.

I think it's okay to tax the most rich people more than poor people (absolute, but also relative), but you shouldn't harm them. 75%... that's way too much. Being an entrepreneur in the Netherlands you have to pay 52% tax in the highest "tax stage" (if you earn more than €56,000.00 income per year).

You didn't mentioned the fact that this tax will be applied ONLY FOR TWO YEARS. The French elite concerned by the tax represent a few people, who usually do not show appetite for innovations like bitcoin. I don't imagine them turning the 25% left into btc just to make sure. What could have a real impact on btc price is a 10% taxation on savings as advised by the IMF - France seems to be in sights but also other European countries.

You know, I almost want the economy to collapse regardless of ridiculous tax hikes like this just so that people realise what the real problem is here, fucking crowd panderers.


You're right! Because we all trade in Bitcoin we don't have to suffer them! HAH! :D

and what would happen if all the police and the school teachers turned to businessmen/women? You as a businessmen would have no secuity and no skilled labor to run your business, no?

Don't get me wrong, the government provides me nothing that I value.

I think that business, government and religion is part of the same meta structure that oppress people. Business pays the politicians, and the clergy, and each of these provide essential services to one another.

France is a strange country where, every now and then, people mess things up.

I enjoy these arguments given by people who attack the idea of no taxes but where's your actual proof that everything is going to be a disaster if we don't tax people for everything they have?

do you value parks and roads?

In most of the EU nations teachers work far less than 10 hours a week. And I don't think that the situation will be much different in France.

Source please.

http://www.thejournal.ie/french-teachers-strike-five-day-week-764624-Jan2013/

French teachers are required to teach for a maximum of 3 periods (40 mins each) per day. 2 hours per day = 10 h / week.

Do you think there would be no parks or roads without government?

Actually, the number of relocations from France to UK didn't increase for 1 year... As it has been said,  this tax is only a salary one. There are many ways to avoid it.

Income tax in UK isn't that much low either. For the last two decades or so, a lot of ethnic minorities from France, especially the Arabs have been relocating to UK for professional reasons. On the other hand, there is also a migration of white British families to France, as the latter offers better work to family life equilibrium.

I do.

I was at the gezi park, which the government wanted to destroy, to build a shopping mall. The people defended it with their lives... I value such parks.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=222723

I http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouVxXkwExHw

It does not say that in the article, does it? It talks about a 4 day week, that's all. Do you have an actual source, or is this just something you heard in a pub?

I don't think there would be very good roads without government. Do you think individual companies are capable of organising nationwide infrastructure projects?

It actually is the private companies that build the roads in most countries. Government collects the taxes and outsource the actual job of building.

but we are talking about organizing... In the sense of figuring out which community needs what and supplying it at the national (or international) level.

Somehow I tend to think that google would do that better than U.S. department of transportation if you let them make money off of it.

The hard question is how to do this in a distributed fashion. I am sure it is doable, but you probably need to discover something as revolutionary as bitcoin in order to facilitate people working towards a defined goal in a distributed but coherent way in real life.