75% Income Tax [France]

[Escapee]

I understand that the 1970s Labour government was taxing the highest earners up to 98%.

[Mr Angry]

Originally Posted by Damien

Yes, the gains were kept and the losses are socialised.

Exactly.

Look at what was done with the Royal Mail also. The profitable element and national property portfolio were sold off at a pittance compared to their respective actual worth and the shortfall of the pensions was socialised.

Originally Posted by Osem

At least until the time when the banks in question recover sufficient of their value that they can be sold to repay that debt.

Doubt it. The 'bad debt' will be taken on by us and the rest sold for less than we paid for it. Like Royal Mail the part that is sold will be probably be sold off cheaply as well.

[Pierre]

This will probably just guarantee that the French economy will stay in the toilet.

Instead of cutting their public sector, they'll just continue to fund it by taxing more.

Eventually, the money will dry up.

Actually, how it is supposed to work is (from the Times, behind a paywall)

Under the redrafted law, approved by the court yesterday, companies will pay a 50 per cent levy on that part of all employees’ earnings which exceed €1 million (£835,000) a year.

Along with the country’s high payroll taxes, this will mean that employers will have to pay at least 75 per cent of the salary’s value to the state. The tax, which will be levied for only two years, will be capped at 5 per cent of the company’s turnover.....

...The Constitutional Council had earlier this year rejected as discriminatory the Socialist Government’s first attempt to introduce the supertax, which imposed a 75 per cent levy on incomes higher than €1 million a year. The court had noted that, under French law, taxes are calculated on household income rather than individual earnings. The Hollande law would therefore have imposed unfair treatment on those affected. ....

....The highest tax rate, paid by a tiny minority of households, remains at 60 per cent. Half of French wage-earners pay no income tax at all.