PARIS FRANCE - United States' Democrats might take into consideration what France's top court ruled on millionaire taxes, as Bloomberg reports -
President Francois Hollande’s 75 percent millionaire-tax is unconstitutional because it fails to guarantee taxpayer equality, France’s top court ruled today.
The tax, one of Hollande’s campaign promises, had become a focal point of discontent among entrepreneurs and other wealth creators, some of whom have quit French shores as a result. The ruling comes as the president seeks to cut France’s public deficit to 3 percent of gross domestic product next year from a projected 4.5 percent this year.
Bloomberg writes that France's millionaire tax isn't the only tax the court ruled to be excessive -
The constitutional court lowered a series of other tax increases, calling them excessive or saying they also violated equality of treatment for taxpayers. The tax rate on stock options and free shares was lowered to a maximum of 64.5 percent from a rate of as much as 77 percent. The marginal tax rate on a type of private retirement benefit, known as “retraites chapeau,” was cut to a maximum of 68.34 percent from a planned rate in 2013 of 75.34 percent.
Looking at France’s wealth tax, the court said that unrealized gains couldn’t be included in assessing the tax because it ignores the requirement to take into account a payer’s ability to meet his obligations.
President Barack Obama's call for millionaires and those making down to $250,000 annually to pay their "fair share" in taxes may face the dead end France's President Francois Hollande's has -
Hollande called on the “patriotism” of the country’s rich to do their part during Europe’s more than three-year-old financial crisis.
One wonders if America's Supreme Court would rule similarly.
