Will this cause France to get into Bitcoin - 75% Tax on Rich

[gurcani]

It is effectively a "maximum wage" law.

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

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[mpattison]

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

[beetcoin]

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.

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.

[Johnny Bitcoinseed]

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)

[DeathAndTaxes]

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 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.

[DeathAndTaxes]

It is effectively a "maximum wage" law.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_wage

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.

[skivrmt]

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...

[Johnny Bitcoinseed]

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).

[BigJohn]

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.

[beetcoin]

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)

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.

[MrPalmer]

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.

[Operatr]

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.

[gangstabit]

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.

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.

[visionary]

agree

[davedx]

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.

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.

[cr1776]

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.

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.

[davedx]

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.

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

[Hawker]

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

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.  

[bryant.coleman]

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.

[gannicus]

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.

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.