The pity of France is not that she is some impoverished badly governed third world country losing her native talents to economic flight. The pity is she is a rich badly governed first world country losing her talents to economic flight. We correspond with several bright and talented Français métropolitain. Everyone of them wants out. Each has personal reasons, but there are several common themes:
1. A much bruited "quality of life" short on quality.
2. A "quality of life" more and more determined, therefore circumscribed, by the state.
3. The punishing taxes necessary to keep the state in the business of promising more than it can possibly deliver.
Yesterday was le jour de libération fiscale in France.
LE 16 JUILLET, LES FRANÇAIS FÊTENT
LE JOUR DE LIBÉRATION FISCALE
[JULY 16 THE FRENCH CELEBRATE TAX FREEDOM DAY ("TFD")]
juillet 2006 (Le Cri) - Cette année, le jour de libération fiscale, à partir duquel les Français cessent de travailler uniquement pour financer les dépenses de la sphère publique et commencent enfin à profiter du fruit de leurs efforts, tombe le 16 juillet. Sans aucune amélioration par rapport à 2004 et 2005. ... Rien n’a changé : en dépit des baisses d’impôts solennellement promises, puis abandonnées, la pression fiscale à laquelle sont soumis nos concitoyens ne s’est pas relâchée. Et pour cause ! La situation ne s’améliorera pas tant que la dépense publique ne baissera pas. Or, cette dépense publique continue d’absorber encore, en 2006, 53,6 % du Produit Intérieur Brut (PIB), c’est-à-dire 53,6 % de la richesse créée par les Français.
This year, Tax Freedom Day, when the French cease only working to finance the spending of the public sphere and finally begin to benefit from the fruit of their efforts, falls on July 16. Without any improvement compared to 2004 and 2005. ... Nothing's changed: in spite of the tax cuts solemnly promised, then abandoned, the tax pressure to which our fellow-citizens are subject did not abate. And for good reason! The situation will not improve as long as public spending will not fall. Yet this public spending, again in 2006, continues to absorb 53.6% of the gross domestic product (GDP), which is to say, 53.6 % of the wealth created by the French.
[Hat tip: E-Nough!]
Yes, for the next 5½ months of the year it's all yours, Pierre. Twenty-seven days earlier, TFD fell on June 19 this year in Canada. Forty-three days earlier, TFD fell on June 3 this year in Britain. Eighty-two days earlier, TFD fell on April 26 this year in America.* It is about here that the French break in and start snorting about the "quality of life" differential that they enjoy. Except that this purported "quality of life" bonus is not much in evidence. Not here. Not here. Not here. Not here. Not here. Not here. Not here. And most tragically not here. Still, the French stubbornly cling to this empty argument. Or they flee.
OLD MONEY, NEW MONEY FLEE FRANCE AND ITS WEALTH TAX
PARIS July 16, 2006 (WaPo) - At a time when France is struggling to stay competitive in an increasingly integrated world, business leaders say the country can't afford to make refugees of some of its most established business families. They include members of the Taittinger champagne empire, the Peugeot auto magnates and leading shareholders of dominant retailers Carrefour and Darty. Also going are members of a new generation of high-tech entrepreneurs.Socialist leaders and some government officials argue that the rich are merely trying to shirk their social responsibilities by fleeing the country with their millions.
"France is penalizing success in a big way," argued Payre, who is now 43 and has started a new company in Brussels that he said did nearly $32 million in business this year. "The loss in income for the government is the smallest part. The big issue is the loss of all that creative energy this country is dying for."
[Entrepreneur and tax refugee Denis] Payre said that when he decided to leave his high-tech company, Business Objects, in 1997, he owned shares that were worth $110 million -- on paper. French tax authorities required Payre to pay a wealth tax of 2.2 percent on the shares, based on what the shares would have been worth had he sold them at the market's highest point. But Payre said that he didn't have access to them because of stock market regulations that limited his ability to sell and that, in any case, a market dip had devalued the shares below that peak.
"They were asking me to pay taxes on money I didn't have. I had no choice but to leave the country."The wealth tax -- officially called the solidarity** tax -- is collected on top of income, capital gains, inheritance and social security taxes. It's part of the reason France consistently ranks at the top of Forbes magazine's annual Tax Misery Index [vid. infra] -- a global listing of the most heavily taxed nations [sic, it is an index of taxes and reform for a wide sampling of locales].
France's opposition Socialist Party leader Francois Hollande said recently that his party's -- and his country's -- opposition to proposals to lower high-income taxes has nothing to do with disdain for the wealthy
"I don't have anything against rich people, as such. They have the right to be rich. But I can't accept that the richest can have their taxes lowered."
As such.
"This tendency to take from the rich and give to the poor which is supposed to solve all the problems in France is ruining the country," said Alain Marchand, who left France six years ago and now has a London-based consulting business that helps relocate French business leaders and entrepreneurs in England and other countries. "That's an incredibly stupid and narrow-minded vision of economic life."Eric Pinchet, author of a French tax guide, estimates the wealth tax earns the government about $2.6 billion a year but has cost the country more than $125 billion in capital flight since 1998.
In 2005 France again ranked No.1 on the Forbes Tax Misery & Reform Index -- finally a superior position that France owns uncontested.
The Misery score is the sum of [corporate income, personal income, wealth, employer social security, employee social security, VAT and sales] taxes, at the highest marginal rate in each locale. It is our best proxy for evaluating whether policy attracts or repels capital and talent. Misery is the sum, Reform is the change from last year.
Forbes Tax Misery & Reform Index (misery/reform):
France 174.8/0.0; Britain 111.3/0.0; Canada (Ontario) 111.2/2.9; America 85.3/0.0; India 84.0/4.0.
No surprise to find France in the lowest quintiles of the Forbes Employee Happiness Index.
Forbes Employee Happiness Index, a measure of actual aftertax pay (2005, rank out of 50/net):
A. Single, salary €50,000: Britain 19/€36,515; America (Chicago) 20/€36,333; Canada (Ontario) 28/€34,861; India 33/€33,792; France 34/€33,172.B. Married, income €200,000: America (Chicago) 16/€134,175; India 18/€133,302; Britain 26/€125,485; Canada (Ontario) 36/€115,784; France 40/€110,711.
C. Married, income €1 million: India 14/€664,022; America (Chicago) 21/€617,981; Britain 27/€597,486; Canada (Ontario) 37/€544,508; France 45/€488,440.
This year France slipped a huge notch (IMF ranked 7th by PPP, purchasing power parity) in the world's economies, overtaken by China (PRC, IMF ranked 2nd by PPP). The per capita numbers are even more dismal (IMF ranked 21, per capita $30,151, below, for example, Iceland, 7/$37,913, et al.). Confiscatory taxation, punitive labor law, endless strikes, unemployment, economic patriotism, boondoogles, fiscal mismanagement, and piques with the world, the EU, America, and herself all make for a France that neither dares nor cares to dare. We saw this earlier this year with the nationwide revolt over the innocuous CPE, where unemployed students bemoaned the "precarity" of employment.
"Big daddyism" has beguiled France into demanding a future of certainties. France wants a guarantee of employment. France wants a job for life. France wants all these things because France has had all these things before. It was called feudalism. ... Meanwhile the world moves on.
* Because calculation methods differ, these dates only suggest the differences in tax burdens.
** The word "solidarity" is slapped on poorly conceived government schemes to dignify them and discourage criticism as unseemly.
PFFT (What is this?): Bring back feudalism 3 | Rayonnement français 0
Bonjour,
Je pense que les 3000 yanks , victimes du 11/9/2002 auraient sans doute , après coup , aimé payer plus d 'impôts pour avoir un état efficace , ie: un état capable de les protéger de la barbarie....
Good luck to your country in Iraq !!!
M. AB/AY,
We usually leave your comments intact if they are remotely related to the posted topic because they are illustrative of the sort of French attitudes and thinking that Pave mocks and contemns. And we generally do not comment on your comments because you are a crank.
We make an exception here.
The French presumably pay the French state in hopes of being protected. Yet in the summer of 2003 the French state could not muster sufficient protections to avoid the largely preventable deaths of 14,802 mostly elderly French. If we follow your reasoning above, you are arguing the French still aren't paying enough taxes.
The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center occurred in 2001, not 2002. Two thousand seven hundred forty-nine people, mostly American, but of various nationalities were murdered, not "3000 yanks".
You obviously didn't know, but being properly informed and posting thoughtfully have never been your signature qualities.
DGB
Bonjour,
Si vous avez des services spéciaux capables de lutter contre les phénomènes naturels (Canicule ,cyclone) , vous êtes très , très forts les Yanks !
Mais , à vrai dire , je ne le pense pas , vu votre gestion calamiteuse de Katrina.
Ouarf ! Cette vision des flics US pillant les magasins après le passage de cyclone !!!
Une belle idée donnée au Monde de la cohésion de l ' appareil d' Etat US...
Et maintenant on apprend que les infirmières US envoyaient leurs patients victimes du cyclone ad patrem !!!
Belle efficacité du système social !!!
Good luck to your country in Irak !!!!
