French election: Hollande wants 75% tax on top earners - Polidicks

[QUOTE=Sobotnik;34910796]I think it's wrong when there's a situation where people are allowed to make 6 or 7 figure salaries when others can barely subside.[/QUOTE] And fixing that by taking away an excessive amount of money is a silly way to fix it. As I said, I support progressive tax codes and people paying their fair share, but 75%? How about we actually have lawmakers sit down and draft real legislation that will protect workers and their pay, not sit here and take from one group and give to another as the sole means to fixing the issue. Class warefare goes both ways. Just as the lower income families (mine included) don't want to be picked on and man-handeled in a completely unfair way, we shouldn't want the same done to anyone else. There are other ways for the government to help people in our situation, and this isn't the best way.

[QUOTE=person11;34910178]I do not know the specifics of how much money this will raise, or what it will be used for, BUT just on principle, I would never tax anyone for more than half their earnings. 50 would be my maximum income tax.[/QUOTE] This, 75% seems a bit unreasonable, 50% Seems perfectly fair.

[QUOTE=N-12_Aden;34910521]This in France. The candidates name is Hollande :v:.[/QUOTE] No this is Holland and the candidate's name is Francee pretty sure I'd know

[QUOTE=Swebonny;34908610]That's quite unfair. Why not just tax everyone evenly within a reasonable boundary according to their salary, instead of putting all the pressure on a single group of people.[/QUOTE] No offense, but does your knowledge of economics stop at the middle school level? Think reasonably for a minute. Unless you're opposed to the concept of a government having a purpose beyond providing a system to resolve conflicts (and if that's true, go move to Somalia), you have to acknowledge that part of the purpose of the government is to protect a populace. Part of protection is trying to put people on equal footing, insure they have certain freedoms, and education, transportation, clean water, power, etc. The wealthy benefit from these public goods and protections to a disproportionate degree, because they make their wealth through a large group of people who are as productive as they are because of those public goods and protections. If a state pays for your education, you benefit to a degree, in the form of increased wages, but your marginal propensity to consume is rather high and will eat a fair amount of that wage in the end. Your employer, who draws income from you and several other individuals in similar positions, and has a low MPC, reaps a greater benefit than you. It only makes sense, then, to tax the people whose income is based on the efforts of the state in proportion to what they get from the state. I can provide an example from the U.S., showing how economic spending by the government always closely follows GDP growth: [IMG]http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8UVGnCIfOVk/TUZfZcf1j4I/AAAAAAAAAhg/g9saXPfgme4/s1600/marginal3.bmp[/IMG] And a limited example from France using some basic [URL="http://www.nationmaster.com/red/time.php?stat=eco_gdp_gro_ann&country=fr&b_printable=1"]nationmaster[/URL] [URL="http://www.nationmaster.com/red/time.php?stat=tax_tax_on_inc_pro_and_cap_gai_of_rev&country=fr&b_printable=1"]data[/URL] (if somebody here speaks French, PM me, I'd actually like to run this with a wider data set and a marginal/corporate/etc. spread and can't find what I'm looking for): [IMG]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/197460/France.png[/IMG] There's also, at least in the U.S., a historical basis to suggest 75% is an ideal top tax rate: [IMG]http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/06/img/marginal_tax_chart.jpg[/IMG] Keep in mind that I am not necessarily saying this man's ideas are good. What I [I]am[/I] saying is that the entirety of the criticism of the man's ideas thus far in this thread are imbecilic and embarassing. Finding fault because of something as superficial as a percentage out of context or failure to understand how taxes actually impact the wealthy is rather silly.

[QUOTE=Swebonny;34910739]Ah it makes much more sense now. So let's say I make 1,25 million euro a year. I pay, let's say 30% for my 1 million euro, then for the remaining 250,000 euro I pay a 75% tax on it. Right?[/QUOTE] If you'd earn 1.2 million Euro for example, looking up the French tax brackets, it'd be: [TABLE="width: 500"] [TR] [TD]Tax bracket[/TD] [TD]Tax[/TD] [TD]Subtotal[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Up to €5,963[/TD] [TD]0%[/TD] [TD]€0[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Between €5,964 - €11,896[/TD] [TD]5.5%[/TD] [TD]€326,26[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Between €11,897 - €26,420[/TD] [TD]14%[/TD] [TD]€2359,48[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Between €26,421 - €70,830[/TD] [TD]30%[/TD] [TD]€15682,18[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Between €70,830 - €1mil[/TD] [TD]41%[/TD] [TD]€396641,88[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Above €1mil[/TD] [TD]75%[/TD] [TD]€546641,88[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] Thus, you'd pay €546641,88, rounded to €547000, which would be roughly 45,6% of your 1,2 million Euro.

[QUOTE=Fippe;34910348]Has any of you even thought how taxes are paid? They'll pay the amount the bracket requires, respectively for each bracket. More realistically, you'd be paying around 400k out of your one million euro when you reach the 1 million bracket, where you will pay 75% tax for income that goes [U]over the one million[/U]. It's not 75% out of the million, sheesh.[/QUOTE] thats awesome i like taxes now

[QUOTE=Xenocidebot;34911468]No offense, but does your knowledge of economics stop at the middle school level? Think reasonably for a minute. Unless you're opposed to the concept of a government having a purpose beyond providing a system to resolve conflicts (and if that's true, go move to Somalia), you have to acknowledge that part of the purpose of the government is to protect a populace. Part of protection is trying to put people on equal footing, insure they have certain freedoms, and education, transportation, clean water, power, etc. The wealthy benefit from these public goods and protections to a disproportionate degree, because they make their wealth through a large group of people who are as productive as they are because of those public goods and protections. If a state pays for your education, you benefit to a degree, in the form of increased wages, but your marginal propensity to consume is rather high and will eat a fair amount of that wage in the end. Your employer, who draws income from you and several other individuals in similar positions, and has a low MPC, reaps a greater benefit than you. It only makes sense, then, to tax the people whose income is based on the efforts of the state in proportion to what they get from the state. I can provide an example from the U.S., showing how economic spending by the government always closely follows GDP growth: [IMG]http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8UVGnCIfOVk/TUZfZcf1j4I/AAAAAAAAAhg/g9saXPfgme4/s1600/marginal3.bmp[/IMG] And a limited example from France using some basic [URL="http://www.nationmaster.com/red/time.php?stat=eco_gdp_gro_ann&country=fr&b_printable=1"]nationmaster[/URL] [URL="http://www.nationmaster.com/red/time.php?stat=tax_tax_on_inc_pro_and_cap_gai_of_rev&country=fr&b_printable=1"]data[/URL] (if somebody here speaks French, PM me, I'd actually like to run this with a wider data set and a marginal/corporate/etc. spread and can't find what I'm looking for): [IMG]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/197460/France.png[/IMG] There's also, at least in the U.S., a historical basis to suggest 75% is an ideal top tax rate: [IMG]http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/06/img/marginal_tax_chart.jpg[/IMG] Keep in mind that I am not necessarily saying this man's ideas are good. What I [I]am[/I] saying is that the entirety of the criticism of the man's ideas thus far in this thread are imbecilic and embarassing. Finding fault because of something as superficial as a percentage out of context or failure to understand how taxes actually impact the wealthy is rather silly.[/QUOTE] You raise good points, but you do understand that correlation does not prove causation, nor does correlation over time. Because we have a 75% income tax does not mean we are automatically going to cure all of our problems and have a healthy economy. Our GDP grew (boomed) right around World War 2, which had a great effect on it. Another thing worth mentioning is that the taxes collected at that time, were not used to close the income gap, that wasn't the purpose of the taxes then. To look at the effectiveness of a tax, you have to look at what the money is being used for. A 75% tax to close the income gap sounds like an assbackwards idea to me. The basic idea is to limit the income of the higher class and provide welfare (our system is broken by the way). Why not reform tax codes so that the higher class is paying their share, and a bit more (50%?) and fix welfare so that we aren't throwing money into a black hole, and we can't do that until we fix our spending crisis. Why not pass legislation that protects workers from getting fucked over in the first place and getting paid crap wages? If we stopped that in the first place, this whole "redistribution" bullshit wouldn't have to happen in the first place, because our workers would be paid fairly. I'm all for welfare and universal healthcare, I think it is a responsibility of the government. Our government has been reckless with its spending, and until we stop spending more money than we're taking in, we cannot fix welfare. Simple tax increases alone is not going to fix our nation. (this post is in relation to high taxes and America)

[QUOTE=Xenocidebot;34911468]No offense, but does your knowledge of economics stop at the middle school level? Think reasonably for a minute. Unless you're opposed to the concept of a government having a purpose beyond providing a system to resolve conflicts (and if that's true, go move to Somalia), you have to acknowledge that part of the purpose of the government is to protect a populace. Part of protection is trying to put people on equal footing, insure they have certain freedoms, and education, transportation, clean water, power, etc. The wealthy benefit from these public goods and protections to a disproportionate degree, because they make their wealth through a large group of people who are as productive as they are because of those public goods and protections. If a state pays for your education, you benefit to a degree, in the form of increased wages, but your marginal propensity to consume is rather high and will eat a fair amount of that wage in the end. Your employer, who draws income from you and several other individuals in similar positions, and has a low MPC, reaps a greater benefit than you. It only makes sense, then, to tax the people whose income is based on the efforts of the state in proportion to what they get from the state. I can provide an example from the U.S., showing how economic spending by the government always closely follows GDP growth: [IMG]http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8UVGnCIfOVk/TUZfZcf1j4I/AAAAAAAAAhg/g9saXPfgme4/s1600/marginal3.bmp[/IMG] And a limited example from France using some basic [URL="http://www.nationmaster.com/red/time.php?stat=eco_gdp_gro_ann&country=fr&b_printable=1"]nationmaster[/URL] [URL="http://www.nationmaster.com/red/time.php?stat=tax_tax_on_inc_pro_and_cap_gai_of_rev&country=fr&b_printable=1"]data[/URL] (if somebody here speaks French, PM me, I'd actually like to run this with a wider data set and a marginal/corporate/etc. spread and can't find what I'm looking for): [IMG]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/197460/France.png[/IMG] There's also, at least in the U.S., a historical basis to suggest 75% is an ideal top tax rate: [IMG]http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/06/img/marginal_tax_chart.jpg[/IMG] Keep in mind that I am not necessarily saying this man's ideas are good. What I [I]am[/I] saying is that the entirety of the criticism of the man's ideas thus far in this thread are imbecilic and embarassing. Finding fault because of something as superficial as a percentage out of context or failure to understand how taxes actually impact the wealthy is rather silly.[/QUOTE] Awesome post. People in this thread are just saying "hurr durr da gubbamint iz taking my moniez", and they don't have more than a 3rd grade understanding of economics. Even if you want to play it by emotion, if you earn $1.5 million, and say half of that is taken as tax, you're still going to have more money than people making $1.0 million who will have more than people making $50k. Taxes don't change the hierarchy, it just lowers the number next to the $ sign. You'd still be the top 1%.

[QUOTE=Sobotnik;34908197]If you earn 6 figure sums and pay 75% of it, you can still very easily live off the other 25%. Especially if you make say 600,000 and pay 450,000 for example. You still have 150,000 which is more than enough money to live on for a year.[/QUOTE] It doesn't even work like that. If you pay 75% on income over 1 million/year you literally only pay 75% on everything over a million, so if the taxrate for under a million was 10% and you earned 2 million per year, you'd still get 1.15 million which is a ridiculous amount and absolutely nobody could ever need more than that, no matter what life style they are living.

[QUOTE=bohb;34910397]Stay classy socialism. The only other political system besides communism where chavs, bums and CEOs of large corporations make the same amount of money. Because you know, actually being rewarded for that 8 years of college and the level of effort you put forth IS A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY because you won't share your wealth with people who don't deserve it. I also find it absolutely hilarious that liberal politicians think the only way to fix the disastrous economy is to tax the rich more and spend more in government. It really shows how they excel at subjects like mathematics :downs:. There is literally no incentive to put forth effort in a socialist system since you'll be able to live decently whether you smoke weed every day or bust your ass in some office.[/QUOTE] God damn them nasty commie pig shittin' all over our god blessed capitalist economy, dang it !

[QUOTE=Kaios;34907599]I do agree on high taxes for the wealthy, but 75% seems a bit too much, maybe something like 60% would be better[/QUOTE] America used to have 90% tax rate. And for the longest time we had well above 70%.

[QUOTE=I-the-gamer;34908958]Wait, i can do jack shit and eark 300k? Oh lawd all that time in school sure was wasted time, i can just go out and get a job that pays 300k each year without any effort! Hooray![/QUOTE] Doesn't matter how much someone earns, 75% is pretty extreme. [editline]28th February 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;34911426]No this is Holland and the candidate's name is Francee pretty sure I'd know[/QUOTE] Are you being serious?

[QUOTE=Xenocidebot;34911468]No offense, but does your knowledge of economics stop at the middle school level? [/QUOTE] It did. I've been studying math most of my time and a sudden 75% and 1 million slapped on my faces made my mind itchy. I knew brackets existed (since I pay taxes), but I had no idea they taxed every euro/dollar at a certain rate after exceeding a certain limit. I guess you do learn something everyday. [editline]28th February 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=PvtCupcakes;34911800]Awesome post. People in this thread are just saying "hurr durr da gubbamint iz taking my moniez", and they don't have more than a 3rd grade understanding of economics. [/QUOTE] Chill out, perhaps you could have explained it like Xenocide did.

[QUOTE=Funcoot;34911745](this post is in relation to high taxes and America)[/QUOTE] Put that at the top next time, dude, you had me hella confused. [QUOTE=Funcoot;34911745]You raise good points, but you do understand that correlation does not prove causation, nor does correlation over time.[/QUOTE] [IMG]http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/correlation.png[/IMG] That's a non-point in an economic discussion because all known real economic systems are too complex to fully analyze for each and every causal factor. There are degrees of correlation, we try to peg things as close as possible. It being "only" a correlation is a bit like criticizing something for being "only" theoretical. Put another way, that criticism wouldn't fly speaking to a mechanical engineer about engine efficiencies, and armchair economists (not saying you are one, this is more of a general gripe regarding econ discussions on FP) need to stop thinking it's a valid way to shoot down actual economics in favor of their substantially less evidence-based viewpoints. If you're having a hard time understanding the concept, look at the old product and factor market cycle diagram you've probably seen in intro to econ or something. [IMG]https://dweeks1994.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/2_6.gif[/IMG] Government spending doesn't make money just disappear, it puts it right back into the economy. Things that benefit people directly will benefit businesses too, and vice versa. Thing is, based on observation, we know that [URL="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-13/rich-americans-save-money-from-tax-cuts-instead-of-spending-moody-s-says.html"]people and organizations who already have money have a lower propensity to spend new money than people who have less[/URL], which should be common sense. I have money, I have planned expenditures, giving me $500 means nothing, I just throw it in my wallet and go on with my life. Take a person who has no money, there is stuff they want, services they need, and giving them $500 guarantees it'll go right back into the private sector's hands. [QUOTE=Funcoot;34911745]Because we have a 75% income tax does not mean we are automatically going to cure all of our problems and have a healthy economy. Our GDP grew (boomed) right around World War 2, which had a great effect on it. Another thing worth mentioning is that the taxes collected at that time, were not used to close the income gap, that wasn't the purpose of the taxes then.[/QUOTE] Don't think you read the post, then. The graph using US data was corrected for removal of defense spending. Hence the big bold "v. Non Defense" in the title. Also, uh, the economy didn't "boom" during WWII. I mean, it did, if you want to be completely literal and just mean "we made more shit for a period", but it resulted in three recessions and would have killed economic growth for a solid decade if the Eisenhower presidency hadn't been as radical as it was. Those cats also wrote the book on de-fucking an economy, really. [QUOTE=Funcoot;34911745]To look at the effectiveness of a tax, you have to look at what the money is being used for. A 75% tax to close the income gap sounds like an assbackwards idea to me.[/QUOTE] It can sound like the holocaust to you, but unless you've got data, you don't have a point. [QUOTE=Funcoot;34911745]The basic idea is to limit the income of the higher class and provide welfare (our system is broken by the way).[/QUOTE] Why on earth is limiting income a goal? That misunderstanding is why the right wing of this country is so good at scaring people, by suggesting taxes really do exist to limit people. The idea isn't to create some sort of absolute cap in dollars a person can earn, or a percentage of total GDP a class can earn, it's to make sure people aren't getting shafted. [QUOTE=Funcoot;34911745]Why not reform tax codes so that the higher class is paying their share, and a bit more (50%?) and fix welfare so that we aren't throwing money into a black hole, and we can't do that until we fix our spending crisis.[/QUOTE] The spending crisis is a myth. In reality, things are substantially more horrifying. Also, forgive the harshness, but I'm starting to get fucking sick of saying this (probably ought to just ghostwrite something for a buddy to slip into a paper I can call back to...) [URL="http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals/"]Let's start with some historical data.[/URL] Expenditures as a percentage of GDP are marginally higher than they've been during the Reagan years by around 2%, and 3% higher than the average since 1977, meanwhile revenue has been at an unprecedented low for three years in a row, and sits 2% shy of the average since 1977. Those would both be minor problems were it not for the fact that the [URL="http://www.skymachines.com/US-National-Debt-Per-Capita-Percent-of-GDP-and-by-Presidental-Term.htm"]debt itself, relative to GDP, has been steadily climbing since Clinton stepped out.[/URL] That's not something you can call a crisis by itself either, to be fair. But, as you'll remember, 32% of our debt is owed to foreign parties, and a shitload of the remainder by private investors. [URL="http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Documents/TBAC%20Discussion%20Charts%20Merged%202.2011.pdf"]Only 29% of it belongs to the government itself.[/URL] There's also the fact that [URL="http://www.leavenworthtimes.com/opinions/local_columnists/x981214864/Dollars-and-Sense-The-Next-3-000-days-inflation-a-growing-concern"]"the fed fund rate has been at historic lows for 27 months. There is only one direction for interest rates to go and that’s up."[/URL] [URL="http://www.elliottwave.com/freeupdates/archives/2010/04/22/Market-Mythbuster-Who-Really-Sets-Interest-Rates.aspx"]Which we're expecting, considering it's been demonstrated interest rates follow the market.[/URL] [URL="http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_17388514"]Analysts are calling it a slow-moving trainwreck.[/URL] [URL="http://trueslant.com/michaelpollaro/2010/02/19/interest-on-u-s-government-debt-a-brewing-time-bomb/"]Last year it was a time bomb.[/URL] It's probably safe to say by 2014 it'll be a rocket-powered fifteen megaton bumfuck. We're looking at an interest expense that's going to kill us if the economy picks up steam again, because the money spent, unlike, say, government expenditures on people and products, doesn't go back into the economy, but exclusively into the financial sector at home and abroad- the people least likely to spend it. Meanwhile, you and everybody else who can't be bothered to look at numbers thinks the solution is cutting spending. What the fuck are you going to cut? [URL="http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_deficit"]We're short 1.3 trillion annually![/URL] [URL="http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/piechart_2012_US_fed"]The Federal government spends 3.8 trillion.[/URL] [I]We could cut healthcare and welfare altogether and not close the gap.[/I] And as soon as the economy recovers (if it recovers from a complete spending cut, which it wouldn't, it'd die in the water, because of that funny little [I]correlation[/I] between spending on the public and GDP), the interest rates will go back up, and we'll suddenly be hemorrhaging money again anyway. We need to take a page from Ike's book and bring revenue back up to a tenable, historically precedented level, [I]gradually[/I] reduce spending with a focus on the [I]military and health care[/I] portions of the budget, and start saving for the social security explosion which is coming next. It'll be a challenge, [URL="http://www.offthechartsblog.org/what-should-corporate-tax-reform-look-like/"]considering tax reform over time shifted the load from people with money to people with less,[/URL] but have a huge payoff if you could reform it- because the current load is primarily focused on people who would spend more of the money they would save if you put it back on the wealthy and corporations, the growth would be pretty large. [QUOTE=Funcoot;34911745]Why not pass legislation that protects workers from getting fucked over in the first place and getting paid crap wages? If we stopped that in the first place, this whole "redistribution" bullshit wouldn't have to happen in the first place, because our workers would be paid fairly.[/QUOTE] The current problem with that approach seems to be that rampant outsourcing (which, as far as anyone can tell, occurs regardless of whether or not you disincentivize it) negates attempts to protect the domestic workforce. Doesn't mean much if you guarantee a better wage for jobs companies no longer choose to offer here. [QUOTE=Funcoot;34911745]I'm all for welfare and universal healthcare, I think it is a responsibility of the government. Our government has been reckless with its spending, and until we stop spending more money than we're taking in, we cannot fix welfare.[/QUOTE] It doesn't go in that order, I'm afraid. Trying to make spending cuts when revenue is insufficient does not work. [QUOTE=Dwight Eisenhower]And now, our last subject: taxes. In spite of some things that I have seen in the papers over the past 8 or 9 months, I personally have never promised a reduction in taxes. Never. What I have said is, reduction of taxes is a very necessary objective of government--that if our form of economy is to endure, we must not forget private incentives and initiative and the production that comes from it. Therefore, the objective of tax reduction is an absolutely essential one, and must be attained [B]in its proper order.[/B] But I believe, and I think [B]this can be demonstrated as fact by economists[/B], both on the basis of history and on their theoretical and abstract reasoning, that [B]until the deficit is eliminated from our budget, there is no hope of keeping our money stable.[/B] It is bound to continue to be cheapened, and if it is cheapened, then the necessary expenses of government each year cost more because the money is worth less. Therefore, there is no end to the inflation; there is finally no end to taxation; and the eventual result would, of course, be catastrophe. So, whether we are ready to face the job this minute or any other time, the fact is there must be balanced budgets before we are again on a safe and sound system in our economy. That means, to my mind, that [B]we cannot afford to reduce taxes, reduce income, until we have in sight a program of expenditures that shows that the factors of income and of outgo will be balanced.[/B] Now that is just to my mind sheer necessity. I have as much reason as anyone else to deplore high taxes. I certainly am going to work with every bit of energy I have towards their reduction. And I applaud the efforts of the people in Congress that are going in that way. But I merely want to point out that [B]unless we go at it in the proper sequence, I do not believe that taxes will be lowered.[/B][/QUOTE] That was in 1953. Income for that year was 18.7% of GDP. When Clinton was finally making headway on the debt, it was 20% of GDP. And here we sit, on the tail end of a recession, and they've been 15% for three years. [B]Cutting spending is not a relevant issue until revenue is normalized.[/B]

That's populism. She's trying to net the "average joe's" votes with unrealistic ideas. 75% income tax would scare the wealthiest away.

If I were earning that much money no fucking way I'd agree to 75% I would be more than happy for 50 or 60. But 75%? That is insane, if its that high then all other taxes should get a small bump to make it seem fair. Think about it, if you actually made that much money on an annual basis you would like to keep a fair share of said money for yourself.

[QUOTE=Maucer;34917198]That's populism. She's trying to net the "average joe's" votes with unrealistic ideas. 75% income tax would scare the wealthiest away.[/QUOTE] I'll ask again, can you find me even one example where taxes reached such a high point that the wealthy deciding to pick up and leave en masse? Even in America, when taxes were as high as 94% this did not occur, so why would it in France with 75%? [editline]28th February 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=Dysgalt;34917223]If I were earning that much money no fucking way I'd agree to 75% I would be more than happy for 50 or 60. But 75%? That is insane, if its that high then all other taxes should get a small bump to make it seem fair. Think about it, if you actually made that much money on an annual basis you would like to keep a fair share of said money for yourself.[/QUOTE] Did you not read the post just a few above your own? It isn't '75% of all income in a year', it's 'every dollar past 1 million euros is taxed at 75%'.

Hopefully one day there will be no upper and lower class and we will all be equal. Until there is an attack ad calling him a communist.

[QUOTE=Megafan;34917656]I'll ask again, can you find me even one example where taxes reached such a high point that the wealthy deciding to pick up and leave en masse? Even in America, when taxes were as high as 94% this did not occur, so why would it in France with 75%? [/QUOTE] Where would they even go? They would have to leave the western world if they wanted to escape taxes. They'd wind up in a place like Somalia.

I'm all for hiking up taxes for the upper classes, but up to 75% seems excessive, and is bound to scare off quite a few people. 50-60% seems more reasonable.

Anyway, there are some cool relationships in economics that many people don't know about. Like the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillips_curve]relationship between inflation and unemployment.[/url] Somebody like Ron Paul wants to stop inflation but also decrease unemployment. But this is impossible because having less unemployment means you will have inflation. If he wants 0 inflation, unemployment would be through the roof. Or if you look at it another way, if you increase inflation you can lower unemployment. Inflation can be increased by increasing the money supply which is what the Federal Reserve has the power to do. In really simplistic terms the economy could be "fixed" by printing more money. The question is how much inflation is society willing to accept to get the level of unemployment they want. Ron Paul can eat a dick.

[QUOTE=Daniel Smith;34917910]Hopefully one day there will be no upper and lower class and we will all be equal. Until there is an attack ad calling him a communist.[/QUOTE] Yes hopefully one day the lazy unemployed of society will make the same wage as the proactive producers and innovators.

[QUOTE=Daniel Smith;34917910]Hopefully one day there will be no upper and lower class and we will all be equal. Until there is an attack ad calling him a communist.[/QUOTE] Such a system can only be put in place by people who want it in place. Marxism, for example, is only applicable on a voluntary community-size scale.

[QUOTE=Kaios;34907599]I do agree on high taxes for the wealthy, but 75% seems a bit too much, maybe something like 60% would be better[/QUOTE] That's still too much why would anyone want to become wealthy if they're gonna lose a shit ton of money that they earn when they pay their taxes?

[QUOTE=Djessey;34908347]So lets assume this guy worked his entire life extremely hard to get where he is now, And earns 1 million. With taxes off he only gets 250. All that while some other guy earns 300K and does jack shit all day. How is that fair?[/QUOTE] Wha- Do you not understand how taxes work?

[QUOTE=Awesomecaek;34909773] I can really imagine that living on 250,000 euros yearly must be HELL. I imagine these people will soon fill welfare camps and such.[/QUOTE] Imagine the agony of only being able of buying one Lamborgini a year. Or having to skim down on some of the extreme luxuries to be able to afford a new private jet.

[QUOTE=PvtCupcakes;34918010]Where would they even go? They would have to leave the western world if they wanted to escape taxes. They'd wind up in a place like Somalia.[/QUOTE] Switzerland ? [editline]29th February 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=Maucer;34917198]That's populism. She's trying to net the "average joe's" votes with unrealistic ideas. 75% income tax would scare the wealthiest away.[/QUOTE] He* 75% is not unrealistic and it would not scare people away. Read the numerous posts about how taxes work, it's only every euro ABOVE 1m that will be taxed. Whatever is below this level will not have a 75% tax. Your revenue will not drop to 250k a year because of that law. Second, it's not going to scare the wealthiest away. Only massive assholes left France to go and live somewhere else like Johnny Halliday (who is a giant douchebag on every level), who already tried tax evasion before clearly leaving the country and who eventually left without any event pushing his decision - there was no tax increase or anything, he just said "fuck that" and left.

ITT People with no knowledge of economics that are scared of big looking percentages.

[QUOTE=Sobotnik;34910796]I think it's wrong when there's a situation where people are allowed to make 6 or 7 figure salaries when others can barely subside.[/QUOTE] I don't think there is much wrong with this.

[QUOTE=Megafan;34917656] Did you not read the post just a few above your own? It isn't '75% of all income in a year', it's 'every dollar past 1 million euros is taxed at 75%'.[/QUOTE] So you're saying this: (i just made this up obviously) If you earn 80k and bracketing is at 20k (10%) 40k (20%) and 60k (30%) that you'd be taxed 10% for the first 20k, 20% for the next 20k, etc. Is that how it works?