AFP / THIBAULT CAMUS
Constitutional Court rejects Hollande’s 75% tax
The government of the Socialist President Francois Hollande will seek other ways to impose a top income-tax rate of 75% on wealthy individuals it said on 30 December following a French Constitutional Court ruling that Hollande’s tax plan was illegal and unfair.
The plan to levy a 75% tax rate on annual incomes of more than €1 million ($1.3 million) wasn’t acceptable by French law, because it would have been applied only to individuals. Traditionally French income taxes are applicable to households. With the new measure the Court said that every household with the same total income could end up paying different tax rates depending on its member’s earnings.
Hollande’s tax plan has caused a stream of entrepreneurs and celbrities to publicly rebuke it by abandoning French shores. Among them were the actor Gerard Depardieu who now lives in a tiny village in Belgium not 10 kilometres fromt he French border, alreadyreceiving calls to live in other less taxed nations and the Billionaire Bernard Arnault, chief executive officer of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA (MC), who filed an application for Belgian nationality in September. Mr. Arnault stated that he will continue to pay income tax in France.
The office of Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault announced that the government will introduce new tax legislation for the rich in the next budget in 2013. Hollande’s government also included new charges on capital gains, an increased tax on wealth, a boost to inheritance charges and an exit tax for entrepreneurs selling their companies.
The Court did however approve Hollande’s proposal for a new 45 percent tax bracket for annual incomes exceeding 150,000 euros. NEW EUROPE ON LINE
No comments:
Post a Comment