More than 8,000 French households' tax bills topped 100 percent of their income last year, the business newspaper Les Echos reported on Saturday, citing Finance Ministry data. . . .
Les Echos reported that nearly 12,000 households paid taxes last year worth more than 75 percent of their 2011 revenues due to the exceptional levy. . . .
Company taxes will fall by €20bn a year equal to 1pc of GDP, to be phased in gradually by 2015 under a convoluted system of rebates.
Premier Jean-Marc Ayrault said it amounted to a 6pc cut in unit labour costs, enough to close the gap with eurozone rivals. "France is not condemned to a spiral of decline, but we need a national jolt to regain control of our destiny," he said.
The mid-rate of VAT for restaurants and services will jump from 7pc to 10pc. The top rate will rise slightly to 20pc. Spending cuts will plug the revenue gap in order to meet the EU’s 3pc deficit target.
Critics call it the most humiliating U-turn in French politics since François Mitterrand abandoned his disastrous experiment of "Socialism in one country" under a D-Mark currency peg in 1983. . . . .
France’s Socialist government is considering replacing its stricken 75 per cent top income tax rate on earnings above €1m, with a 65-66 per cent rate on households earning more than €2m.
The proposed new rate is working its way through the National Assembly as part of budget measures aimed at redressing France’s growing public deficit.
But it has come under fire from Christian Eckert, the Socialist head of the assembly’s budget committee, who said it did not fulfil President François Hollande’s emblematic manifesto promise.
In an interview with Le Monde newspaper published on Friday, Mr Eckert said: “It seems to me that we are in danger of losing two symbols: that of incomes above €1m and that of the 75 per cent rate, which will be dropped to 65-66 per cent.”
The finance ministry has neither confirmed nor denied the proposed new rate.
Mr Hollande’s 75 per cent rate was struck down by the constitutional council on New Year’s eve, just before it was due to come into force. It said it was unfair to apply the rate to individuals, not households, as is the norm under French income tax rules. . . .
KCRA 3 has learned of nearly two dozen firms now planning to say goodbye to some of the highest taxes in the nation.
It’s all part of a campaign launched by one of California’s neighboring states, the day after Proposition 30 passed, which triggered billions of dollars in new taxes. . . . .
The Golden State's new 13.3 percent income tax on top earners prompted golfer Phil Mickelson to say earlier this month he was considering a move, and according to the accountants who advise millionaire athletes, he was just saying what a lot of jocks were already thinking. Federal taxes on the top income bracket just rose by roughly 5 percent, and, while there's nothing rich athletes can do about that, they are paying attention to which states dip into their game checks — and how much they take.
“They’re going to have an exodus of people,” said John Karaffa, president of ProSport CPA, a Virginia-based firm that represents nearly 300 professional athletes, primarily in basketball and football. “I think they’ll see some [leave California] for sure. They were already a very high tax state and it’s getting to a point where folks have to make a business decision as well as a lifestyle decision.” . . . .
Hundreds of Wendy’s workers are seeing their hours cut back because of President Barack Obama’s health care law.
WOWT-TV reports that nearly 300 employees at 11 Wendy’s locations in the Omaha area will have their hours reduced to 28 hours a week because the franchise owner says he can’t afford to pay his employees health care.
“It has a huge effect on me and pretty much everybody that I work with,” employee T.J. Growbeck told the station. “I’m hoping that I can get some sort of promotion because then I would get my hours, but everybody is shooting for that because of the hours being cut.” . . . .
