You already have one of the highest tax burdens in Europe. If you add a wealth tax on top of that you'll kill whatever growth you already don't have. The wealth tax will not close the gap, and the reduced growth will start increasing the gap again since growth doesn't keep up with inflation.
There is no path out of this without some pain. At least make sure you have a future. Invest in your youth. Don't dump all your money into your elders, that's not a way to build a future.
Look, since you still don't get it, let me lay it out without any bullet points to distract you. France literally ran this exact wealth tax experiment for decades called the ISF, and it was such a total dumpster fire that they had to scrap it in 2017. The second the government started taxing people just for owning stuff instead of making money, rich folks didn't just stick around to pay up, but they packed their bags and bolted to Switzerland, London, and Belgium, taking all their investments, companies, and spending cash with them. And get this: the government actually ended up losing way more in income and business taxes than they ever collected from the wealth tax itself because the rich people were gone. On top of that, trying to figure out what a Picasso painting or a private company is worth every single year was an administrative nightmare that cost a fortune to manage. It completely tanked their economy, didn't even raise the money they wanted, and left everyone else holding the bag. So no, it's a proven disaster that already failed miserably in real life.
Let's say we agree on that, which we do not, what are the benefits of more invests for the regular people ? More invests just means more money for the same people over and over again. That's why people are rioting. There is money. It just always end in the same pockets, always.
How about instead of a stupid analogy (which makes no sense by the way), you learn from the shitty policies and improve upon them and their implementation?
Taxing income and capital gains instead of assets (what the fuck were they thinking with this one?)
A closed-loop exist tax with a clean break option in certain scenarios (just like the US does it). None of that 15 year tracking fantasy-nonsense they tried to do.
Broad-based land value tax. Why the fuck did they tax things that can simply relocate/fly away? You know what can't be moved? Land. Real estate. Both raise great numbers of revenue from the wealthy without punishing them for investing in businesses or the country in general.
The French policies have been scrutinized to fuck by major economists.
So maybe a better anology would be to buy a new dog and try not to shoot it this time?
I'm confused. Are you talking about the neolib policies Macron have been running for 10 years and that are ruining the country? I don't know how many dogs he shot by now but that must be a lot.
What's killing your country is a hostility towards enterprise and demography. And obviously you can't fix demography short-term, so you have to adapt your public spending to the demography, and incentivize entrepreneurs.
yeah, the """demography""" should love that macron closed so many maternity hospitals, reduced public aids, supported predatory companies like uber or doordash, provoked a rise in harassement on work places and schools...
And the "enterprises" suffered so much when macron gave them 200 billions of euros every year (with 211 more during the confinement year) without asking any proof that they used that for the benefit of the population, it's so unfair to the poor companies.
I’m sure you don’t even know what is in those 200b. TVA at 5% for a lot of products and reduced fiscal charges on minimum wages employees are the bulk of it and most of those helps small businesses survive in the hostile French environment. But you just listen to some populist slop telling you this is money for big shareholders or whatever
Of course not. It's not like the best economists in the world have analyzed the policies and provided better, already demonstrably successful alternatives.
There must be another tax cut for Elon Musk otherwise the migrants and socialists will win, don't ya know? Dey took our jerbs
Since Macron came into office there's been one disaster after another. Doesn't mean the policy is wrong.
When he entered office EU was recovering from the eurozone crisis. After that it was covid, then the Ukraine war, then Trumps trade war, and now Trump's iran war. It's been rough. But his policies have been inching the correct way.
Trying to increase spending like your left suggests, or lower the pension age like your far-right suggests, are both disasters. You can not afford either.
You are right about the disasters since 2017 but the solution is not to cut taxes for the rich when its unclear if the invests will increase after. It will only result in a higher national deficit which means more savings in the social sector which will result in even more riots.
nothing "disastreous happened during his first 5 years of presidency. Or, to be honest, he provoked much of the disasters, like Benalla or a sudden rise in the percentage of people living in precarity
This is nonsense. Taxes for the rich have been cut in France repeatedly leading to economic contraction, and have remained high for labor. You don't know what you're talking about.
This is a separate claim. Transfers, such as pensions, do not constitute GDP. It only counts when the government directly purchase a good or service, otherwise it's double counting. So this citation does not substantiate the first claim.
Social Security taxes are, in general, an entirely separate budget, and shouldn't be talked about for either side of the equation.
30% GDP in taxes
45% with social contributions
51% total government revenues
6% deficit
That's your 57%.
Transfers are about 24% of GDP, which puts the government portion of the economy at about 33% which is pretty much in line with most countries.
I don’t understand your point, it still shows that the ratio of government spending to GDP is very, very high. It just means it’s more because pensions than other types of government spending. It is unrealistic for France to tax themselves out of this deficit.
It's entirely easy and realistic to solve. The cohort receiving the vast majority of the benefit is the same cohort with the vast majority of the wealth.
By age 70 the average French household has about 500k in wealth and receives 20k a year from their pension. So, they literally have enough money as a class to fund their own pensions for 25 years (not suggesting that we literally tax 100% of their wealth to fund their pensions).
The only reason they don't is because they are an enormously political powerful voting block since... they have all that wealth.
Oh, I think we agree. You have to cut spending if the form of pension reform. I thought u were saying spending didn’t need to change and that France just needs to tax themselves rich more.
Taxes have been cut? Where? The only thing that have been removed (actually changed) is the special wealth tax (« impôt sur la fortune »). We probably have the highest tax on the rich than any other country in the world, what is even your point..
Education Spending: France spends heavily on secondary education (lycées), with expenditures running roughly 28% higher than the OECD average for older students (ages 15–18), though primary education spending sits below the OECD average. [1]
TheCulture Pass(Pass Culture): The government provides young people (such as an €300–€500 digital credit for 18-year-olds) to spend on books, music, theater, and cultural events via the French Ministry of Culture Culture Pass initiative. [1, 2]
Vocational and Career Tracks: A large portion of upper secondary funding supports extensive vocational and technical training programs. [1]
Social and Canteen Subsidies: Regional authorities (such as Île-de-France) and school social funds heavily subsidize student meals and necessities for low-income families
1. Public Universities (State-Regulated Tuition Fees)The French government subsidizes the majority of the actual cost of public higher education.For students from the EU / EEA / Switzerland / Andorra:- Bachelor’s Degree (Licence): ~€170 – €178 per year.- Master’s Degree: ~€243 – €254 per year.- Doctorate (PhD): ~€380 – €397 per year (uniform rate for all nationalities).
Current president deleted entirely the taxes on the ultra-riches and it did nothing to make the economy better besides making the riches even more riches. (Every study shows it has done absolutely fuck all for the French economy)
And even if they added some more wealth taxes, they’ll still managed to find loopholes or just make the poor people pay for the higher taxes
France has never been so rich than in 2026. The problem is not the lack of money. Between 2017 and 2026 the assets of the richest families was multiplied by 5, from 200 to 1000 billions of euros in 10 years.
We have a repartition problem, and as in 1918 or 1945 after the WWs (far worse situation) they need to participate instead of robbing the social contract as they're doing right now.
ok you tax em and then next year comes around then what ? money in private ownership compounds way higher than ROI on gov assets. So you take away the 800b and then what?
Rich means nothing. Leftists use this a shock slogan. Every GDP grows with time. Right now economy in France is absolutely in the gutter except for big multi national companies that can afford to tax evade.
Creating a business right now in France is terrible. It’s one of the worst place in the OECD to open up a business. Growth is shit. Businesses are going bankrupt left and right.
Taxing the rich means the rich leave means taxes lose in value means you tax the rich more means what's left of the rich leaves means taxes lose even more value means it all falls back on the normal income people to pay for everything.
The only way to make it work is to give the rich something in return for paying their taxes. Something that intices them not to leave to a less taxed country.
Going to need sources for that. Do the rich really leave? If so, wouldn't California see all the rich leave by now. The rich can't leave because it is much easier to find competent engineers in California. If you look, you don't see Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg, or Jensen Huang leave California at all. They are getting taxed, and the tax rate is increasing again. At least post some credible source from any scholarly journal articles or else shut it.
life happens in the middle. there is no true capitalist utopia nor is the socialist utopia etc. the trick is finding the right middle ground where both can be leveraged to maximize humanity.
You would be astonished by how much we’re already taxed.. If I start from my raw income (it’s a company but let’s simplify) to what I earn at the very end, way more than 50% is taken.
They already tax the rich, considerably more than the US. It's not a revenue generation problem, it's a spending problem. France is the only developed country in the world where the average pensioner makes more money from their pension than the median full time worker.
No amount of taxing the rich is going to cover the cost of the pension system. It is such an unstainable financial burden on France's economy that all the gold in King Solomon's mines wouldn't fix the problem. France needs to cut its pension benefits and raise the age of retirement.
No, that's the unfortunate truth of it.
For one, then France isn't the United States. The income inequality isn't so out of whack that you have most of the wealth concentrated to a very few people. Hence why it's not enough to tax the rich.
Secondly, favorable taxes for high incomes drives economic growth. By raising taxes you stifle some of that growth, and that paradoxically means less wealth and thus less taxes. It's capitalism and France is in competition with the rest of the world.
Third, linking a gif of Trump - the guy responsible for some of France's economic pain - is pretty silly, but it does put into spotlight a few of the hardships France is dealing with besides its pension system, which is high oil prices and a war in Ukraine. Both of which Trump are making worse.
It's always easy to say that politicians should just tax the rich, because it is easy arm waving that avoids confronting the hard reality. But there's no avoiding it. Sincerely, a Danish guy who gets to retire when he's 72. The welfare state comes with a price that the young get to pay. Sucks, but that's how it is.
But if we tax te rich they will leave, Or, relocating the bulk of it would certainly work, but we'd lose something, and even if it's a good idea, our government loves the rich too much.
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u/Agreeable-Letter-599 3h ago
or they could tax the rich.