Back in May I wrote a piece describing Francois Hollande’s election victory as emblematic of the EU’s decline, noting that “his government promises to be a symbol of everything that is wrong with Europe today.” True to his election campaign promise, the new French president, together with his prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, has outlined his plans for a 75 percent marginal income tax rate tax on anyone earning more than €1 million Euros a year.
This is economic suicide for the second biggest economy in Europe, a supreme act of financial har-kiri for a country whose public debt has now risen to 91 percent of GDP, a growth of 30 percent in five years. This is part of €20 billion Euros worth of new taxes, mainly on businesses and high earners, unveiled by a backward-looking Socialist government seemingly intent on economic self-destruction. As Jean-Paul Agon, chief of L’Oreal told The Financial Times earlier this week, it will now become “almost impossible” for France to attract leading business talent.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...
