MSN: Some of France's richest taxed more than 100%

[törö]

Some of France's richest taxed more than 100%

More than 8,000 households got hit with the one-time levy as Socialist President Francois Hollande continues to target the nation's wealthiest.

A woman holding Euro bills in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France (copyright Thinkstock/Comstock Images/Getty Images)Well, America's rich, the fiscal cliff compromise that bumped the top effective income tax rate from 35% to 39.6% could have been a lot worse. The deal could have taken all of it and more.

That's what happened in France, where Reuters says more than 8,000 French households' tax bills topped 100% of their income last year. Business newspaper Les Echos, citing Finance Ministry data, reported Saturday that the huge tax hit stemmed from a one-off levy last year on 2011 incomes for households with assets of more than 1.3 million euros ($1.67 million).

President Francois Hollande's Socialist government imposed the tax surcharge last year to offset the cost of a rebate set up by predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy that capped an individual's overall tax rate at 50% of income.

Hollande's government has been trying to impose a temporary 75% tax on earnings over 1 million euros, but France's Constitutional Council ruled that the rate was unfair and threw it out. An administrative court has since declared that a marginal tax rate higher than 66.66% imposed on a single household borders on confiscatory. The government is now trying to revamp its proposal to hit companies instead of individuals.

Even that has been a problem, as soccer clubs including Paris Saint-Germain, the richest in France, are considered companies under the revised law. Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault's office issued a statement in April confirming that the surcharge will apply to soccer clubs, including PSG. Considering that a dozen members of the PSG roster make 1 million euros or more, France's soccer authorities are, at best, unhappy.

"With these crazy labor costs, France will lose its best players, our clubs will see their competitiveness in Europe decline, and the government will lose its best taxpayers," France's Football League said.

The effects are already being felt. PSG coach Carlos Ancelotti has asked to leave the club for Spanish La Liga powerhouse Real Madrid, according to The Guardian, while PSG superstar David Beckham opted to retire.

Still, the redrafted law had no effect on the onerous one-time levy. Les Echos reported that nearly 12,000 households paid taxes last year worth more than 75% of their 2011 incomes. There's no word on whether that included actor Gerard Depardieu, who retreated to Belgium to avoid the tax.

http://money.msn.com/now/post.aspx?post=aa8584e2-c576-4922-ada7-5eda6b598806

[törö]

Sossueliitissä puolestaan kytee veropetosskandaali.

French ministers face grilling over tax scandal

High ranking ministers in the French government can expect a grilling in the coming days as an investigation into a tax fraud scandal got underway on Tuesday. The probe was set up after the former budget minister admitted having a secret bank account.

France's parliament on Tuesday kicked off a high-profile public probe into a major tax fraud scandal that has shaken the Socialist government and the squeaky-clean image it is seeking to project.

The special parliamentary commission will examine whether the government mishandled the scandal, in which former budget minister Jerome Cahuzac repeatedly lied about owning an undeclared foreign bank account.

Political heavyweights such as Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici, Interior Minister Manuel Valls and Justice Minister Christiane Taubira will be given a grilling, as will Cahuzac himself.

On Tuesday, journalists at investigative news website Mediapart - which broke the story in December - kicked off proceedings by alleging police interference in the case.

Fabrice Arfi, the reporter behind the revelations, said Cahuzac's chief-of-staff Marie-Helene Valente had somehow become aware of a phone conversation between his boss Edwy Plenel and a source for the story.

He said Valente had written an email to a third party on December 11 in which she mentioned the phone chat.

"The police were used to listen in on telephone conversations between Edwy Plenel and one of the protagonists in the case," Arfi told members of parliament, without saying who the email was sent to or how he obtained it.

"We don't know if the interior minister himself is aware of these investigations," he said.

Plenel, who was also questioned at the commission, denounced "the use of police to harm source confidentiality."

Mediapart revealed on December 4 that Cahuzac had funds in an undeclared Swiss bank account. But the minister, who fought against tax evasion during his tenure in charge of the budget, consistently denied the allegations.

He finally admitted to having the account containing some 600,000 euros in April after an official probe into the case was opened.

By then, he had already given up his ministerial position, and he subsequently resigned from parliament as well. He was also kicked out of the Socialist Party.

The scandal shook France's Socialist government and damaged the squeaky-clean image that President Francois Hollande had sought to project, less than a year after he was voted into office.

http://www.thelocal.fr/20130521/french-ministers-face-grilling-over-tax-scandal

[törö]

Siellähän on muhimassa kunnon soppa.

Vittu kun tähänkin piti törmätä satunnaisella googlauksella kun meikäläinen media ei ole viitsinyt kertoa mitään.

Tens of Thousands of French Protesters Reject Austerity


Ten of thousands of far-left French protesters marched to denounce economic austerity on Sunday to mark the end of President Francois Hollande's first year in office.

The march, organised by the Left Front coalition, drew a range of left-wingers from greens to trade unionists to the symbolic venue of Bastille Square, site of a Paris prison that was stormed during the French Revolution of 1789.

Turnout was estimated by organizers at 180,000, but by police at just 30,000. Although not massive, it highlighted fierce opposition on the left to the Socialist president's market-friendly reforms, such as corporate tax breaks and the loosening of labour rules to make hiring and firing slightly easier.

With France on the edge of recession, unemployment at an all-time high and euro zone partners pressing him to cut the budget deficit, Hollande has suffered the sharpest fall in popularity of any president in more than half a century.

(Read More: 'Time is RunningOut', Asset ManagerTells Hollande)

Wearing his signature red scarf, Jean-Luc Melenchon, a fiery leftist orator and former presidential candidate, castigated what he called the government's broken promises. Protesters roared back with chants of "Resistance!"

"We don't want the financial world taking the power, we don't accept austerity measures which destine our people, like all people in Europe, to never-ending pain," Melenchon told the crowd.

While the protest gathered a large swathe of left-wing sympathisers, Hollande still has the strong backing of centre-left lawmakers and the moderate CFDT trade union group, which backed the labour reform and did not join the march.

Responding to the marchers, Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told TV channel TF1: "There is no austerity, that's a propaganda invention."

But he added: "I understand their impatience and it's why we need to battle. We've sown seeds but they will need time to bear fruit because the land had been abandoned a long time. Our reforms are geared towards growth and investment, not just austerity. They will bear fruit little by little."

(Read More: Hollande's Camel Eaten in Latest Setback to French Leader)

Ayrault added the government was considering cutting its stake in some part state-owned companies to finance investments.

In a move hailed as a victory by Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici, the European Commission on Friday gave France two more years until 2015 to bring its budget deficit below the EU ceiling of 3 percent of gross domestic product, from 4.8 percent last year. The government says it will hit the target by mid-2014.

But Melenchon was dismissive. "Stop the lies. It's not two years of respite the European Commission is giving us but two years of blackmail," he said.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100708805