Yes, but people are starting to do it. People who get wealthy tend to care about their money a lot, and are very willing to do the math and see if the big penalty at departure is higher or lower than the sustained penalty of staying.
The problem is if they take the young gifted entrepreneurs with them. I heard anecdotally that they were already leaving e.g. for London and that was before this latest tax increase.
I truly hope that this is going to be the result of the French "situation". It would be once and for all great to have some more substantial evidence on how growth, innovation and consumption dramatically goes down, when governments go on a tax-the-wealthy witch hunt .
Bernard Arnault should be hailed as an example, not a traitor, for leaving France and getting a Belgian citizenship.
Postulating a Unified Europe by pushing the ongoing de-nationalization of the EU member countries is absolutely antithetic to the expectation that tax payers should feel obliged to pay taxes to their home country, and not switch to the one most beneficiary for them.
Postulating a Unified Europe by pushing the ongoing de-nationalization of the EU member countries is absolutely antithetic to the expectation that tax payers should feel obliged to pay taxes to their home country, and not switch to the one most beneficiary for them.
Which is precisely why de-nationalizing Europe is such a bad idea.
First, find actual data to back the assertion that low capital gains taxes back innovation.
I think you'll find that it is in fact seed capital and small business loans that back innovation, and that these facilities are generally provided by government not the private sector.
I think you'll find that what low capital gains taxes do is allow hedge fund managers to get a lower tax rate by reclassifying their income.
It's true that some people get rich by exploitation and other nefarious means, but there are also people that get rich by doing things, by inventing, by discovering, by building companies, by doing the very things that a country like France needs to compete. A country that already hampers any real chance of getting ahead in the world (for example maximum work hours and mandated holidays) needs as much help as it can get, so maybe keeping people that got rich inside of France is actually a good thing. Maybe that chip on your shoulder is holding you back in more ways than you know.
> for example maximum work hours and mandated holidays
Where are you getting this from? They have the same type of labor laws in the US and even in China (how it is enforced is up for debate). You agree to work a certain amount of hours (35-40), you go over the company pays more. And they can't make you agree to more than that.
Holidays aren't mandatory, they are an entitlement. I may or may not work during Labor Day or Christmas. Most offices choose to shut down during holidays because, unless it is critical, with everyone else closed you it's almost impossible to get anything done.
I'm a conservative voting, free market believing Brit. I even work in the finance sector. But he american attitude to holidays appals me. I'm all for high productivity and commitment to work. I'm not even a fan of mandatory holiday allowances as I think that's should be up for negotiation.
But you'll have to take my 25 day holiday allowance out of my cold, dead fingers. My kids get to grow up just once, and I'm absolutely going to be there to see it.
The finance sector in the UK seems quite mean about holidays - I have 33 now and wouldn't go back. My wife is a lawyer and she gets even more, but due to pressure of her work she never gets to take them - at least I do.
I'm already up to 40-odd days of vacation time in the kitty. I haven't mandated anything but even my boss knows I'm entitled to take them when I want (barring schedule conflicts of course).
It's crazy how so many people in this generation believe that getting rich is evil and wrong..but being forced to give up 60-80% of your earnings to a government that will most likely squander it is not.
Don't worry though. When all of the rich leave, there will be nobody left to tax.
Those numbers are totally wrong. First, "pigeon"s don't talk about 80% but 60%. And they're wrong about that too.
Here is an economical review from the law (translated from french) : http://goo.gl/70xwI
The tax is not 60%, but 40%, worst case scenario ; and can be as low as 20% if conditions are met (keeping the business a long time, reinvesting money in an other company).
Also, the purpose was not to blame rich ones, it was to tax transaction incomes at the same level as work income. Not more.
France has universal healthcare, tougher environmental regulations, and 5 weeks of paid vacation for all working people. I hardly call that a "squandering" of resources.
Fighting an oil war in the desert is closer to that.
France also based many of them on the idea that we have man-made global warming.
"5 weeks of paid vacation for all working people"
I would rather leave that up to companies and have 30%+ more of my taxes.
"Fighting an oil war in the desert is closer to that."
You gave me 3 simple examples. Every government in every country is inefficient. France somehow believes that those inefficiencies will go away by taking away more money from its citizens.
I'm not a fan of monopoly, but I'd rather have a monopoly that works in the interest of getting all patients healthcare and bargaining down consumer prices, rather than a monopoly that creates higher costs to feed the profits of providers.
5 weeks of paid vacation for all working people ... I would rather leave that up to companies
I would rather have the vacation time. The problem is that most companies exist in a competive market, productivity is not absolute, but relative. If our company unilaterally allowed everyone to take 5 weeks vacation, the revenue would not fall 5% based on the lost productivity. It might fall 20 or 30% or more, because we would lose market share to our competitors, and we are fighting in a winner-takes-all market. But if all companies in our market had to offer 5 weeks vacation, and this was enforced, then we would all be on the same footing, and all would be better off. It's a classic collective action problem. And the way to solve a collective action problem is that you form an organization and agree on binding rules with punishment for defecting - this is called a government.
I guess many people here on HN aren't interested in intelligent discussion, only down voting. I would expect nothing less from a person that believes in near total government control.
