When France elected Socialist President Francois Hollande earlier this year, most of America looked over and said, "Good luck, idiots." Now, France's richest people are making plans to flee the country as Hollande plans to implement a 75 percent "rich" tax. Those so called rich people also happen to be the economic engine that drives the French economy through business and job creation. If the rich go, so does the economy.
“We’re getting a lot of calls from high earners who are asking whether they should get out of France,” said Mr. Grandil, a partner at Altexis, which specializes in tax matters for corporations and the wealthy. “Even young, dynamic people pulling in 200,000 euros are wondering whether to remain in a country where making money is not considered a good thing.”
A chill is wafting over France’s business class as Mr. Hollande, the country’s first Socialist president since François Mitterrand in the 1980s, presses a manifesto of patriotism to “pay extra tax to get the country back on its feet again.” The 75 percent tax proposal, which Parliament plans to take up in September, is ostensibly aimed at bolstering French finances as Europe’s long-running debt crisis intensifies.
Also, not surprisingly, the new tax isn't expected to actually accomplish anything other than slowing the economy. This has happened throughout history. How many times does it need to be tried before socialists realize massive tax hikes only result in failure?
But because there are relatively few people in France whose income would incur such a tax — an estimated 7,000 to 30,000 in a country of 65 million — the gains might contribute but a small fraction of the 33 billion euros in new revenue the government wants to raise next year to help balance the budget