
French affluent flee the tax on super-rich - varjag
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/16/france-depardieu-exile-idUSL5E8NG3Z520121216
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NicoJuicy
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.

~~~
rtpg
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.

~~~
varjag
> 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.

~~~
maigret
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.

~~~
varjag
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.

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

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

~~~
Mordor
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]

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maigret
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
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.

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

~~~
abrown28
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.

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

