Wednesday 11 July 2012

Francois Hollande on top form

From The Metro:

The socialist leader batted away previous comments made by Mr Cameron that he would ‘roll out the red carpet’ for French bankers wanting to flee Mr Hollande’s 75 per cent top tax rate.

"I like British humour," he said. "The top rate of tax here is 45 per cent, in France it is 41 per cent. I do not think there is a rush of British people coming to France, except for holidays."

5 comments:

Antisthenes said...

Of course Hollande did not point out France does not rely much on income tax receipts. Instead they slant taxes towards social security taxes and that increases the states income tax take to 50% and beyond. So in reality few pay income tax but a hell of a lot pay ss tax. Because of this they have to have an army of bureaucrats to police the system as there is such a large black economy.

Sarton Bander said...

There's a ton of French arrived in London already. I noticed on Monday my local Sainburys has started selling a French financial paper.

Mark Wadsworth said...

Anti, yes of course, but he thereby called Cameron's bluff. National Insurance in the UK raises nearly as much revenue as income tax*, but UK politicians (probably all politicians) like to pretend it isn't a tax, so Cameron was successfully painted into a corner.

* See my post of earlier today - the Boomers are now feigning surprise that there ain't no fund and are wailing that their money has been nicked etc.

SB, is it? I met a few young French people in the 1990s who said they'd come over because it was much easier to find a job here.

Sarton Bander said...

Also Hollande said he would NOT tax British second homes in France.

Not exactly "Top form" IMHO.

Mark Wadsworth said...

SB, seriously? He's chickened out already?