“Tax the rich!” The plan proposed in France by the man nicknamed “Billionaire nightmare” attracts the street support and the anger of business people
A proposal is at the center of a heated debate in France: Should the Government recover its finances by reducing the expenses with pensions, health and education or by taxing extremely rich people, at a time when the number of super-logs increased? There are at least two firm opinions, I write Le Monde, New York Times and Financial Times.
A proposal from the French left, which would impose a new 2% tax on assets of over 100 million euros, generates a heated debate and, in particular, the anger of business and right.
The fiscal plan, proposed by the French economist Gabriel Zucman, has become a symbol of the socialist and left parties in France, who claim that it will reduce the country's budget deficit and combat inequality.
The reduction of deficit is the main purpose of the new French government led by the ally of Emmanuel Macron, Sébastien Lecorn.
His predecessor, Francois Bayrou, was dismissed by the Parliament after proposing an austerity plan that provided for discounts of expenses worth 44 billion euros, and Lecu needs to support the Socialists to survive.
Video hundreds of thousands of street protesters in France: strike, anger and pressures on the new prime minister / arrests in Paris and other cities / protesters accuse the police of “putting gas on fire”
The protesters who came out to reject the austerity on Thursday in the big French cities, obviously argue the taxation of the rich.
However, companies and right -wing parties warn that the tax is incorrect and will attract an economic calamity.
“The nightmare of the billionaires”
Zucman, a 38 -year -old economist, which the French daily Le Monde called the “nightmare of the billionaires”, has been pleading for over a decade for specific wealth taxes.
In 2023, he won the John Bats Clark medal, an award for the most significant contributions of an economist under 40.
The American Economic Association, which awarded the prize, said that Zucman is “one of the most important world evasion experts” and a major contributor to the research on measuring and explaining the increase of economic inequality.
Economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and at the Paris Economy School, Zucman recently entered the spotlight with statements that a 2% tax applied to the richest 1,800 individuals in France would generate revenues of 15-20 billion euros.
The figure is challenged by some economists, who say that the amount would be rather 5 billion euros.
In February, the National Assembly of France approved the so-called Zucman tax, but the plan was later rejected in the Senate.
Zucman has admirers on the left of Washington, including senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, writes New York Times.
“President of the rich”
In the big cities in France, the protesters posted the Pancarte last week with the message “Tax on the rich” and chanted calls to “fiscal justice”.
A group of demonstrators entered the Ministry of Finance in Paris, shouting that the government “has solutions to find money; all you have to do is look in the billionaire pockets.”
The problem has reached a critical point after the Bayrou government fell due to the austerity budget that would have affected the social expenses.
Macron has a problem.
A recent report by the Court of Accounts in France showed that the country's finances have deteriorated in part due to the tax reductions granted by president to companies and individuals with high incomes, which led to annual losses of 50 billion euros for the treasury.
One of the first measures taken by the president in his first mandate was to reduce the tax on the net assets of natural persons who exceed a certain threshold, replacing it with a narrower tax on real estate assets.
He also gradually reduced the profit tax from 33% to 25% and applied a fixed 30% tax on capital earnings.
But Macron paid for a high political price for these tax reductions, his opponents quickly charging him as the “president of the rich”.
A “crazy” and “communist” proposal
The French business leaders qualified the proposal as “crazy” and “communist”.
Bernard Arnault, the executive director of the LVMH luxury conglomerate, said that this initiative is “a clearly expressed desire to destroy the French economy.”
“I cannot believe that the French political forces that govern or govern the country could give any credibility to this offensive, which is deadly for our economy,” the billionaire said in a statement.
Arnault cataloged Zucman as a “far -left activist” whose “ideology aims to destroy the liberal economy”. Arnault is one of the richest people in the world, largely due to its majority participation in the Luxury group listed in Paris, worth 256 billion euros, which it built.
“Zucman's pseudo-academic competence is widely debated,” said Arnault, adding that she was directed against her personal, given that she was “certainly the largest individual taxpayer and one of the greatest corporate taxpayers through the companies they run.”
Zucman described Arnault's criticism as “unfounded.”
“Coming from one of the richest people in the world and in a context in which academic freedom is questioned in a growing number of countries, this rhetoric … should worry us all,” Zucman wrote on X, adding: “It is time to tax billionaire at a minimum rate.”
The criticisms of business people
Arnault is not the only one who opposes this idea.
Éric Lachevêque, co -founder of the company of Ledger cryptographic wallets, told the Financial Times: “It is collectivism, it is communism, it is a fundamental attack on freedom and my right to property,” he said.
With an estimated value by risk capital investors at 1.3 billion euros, Larchevêque's participation provides a fortune to pay the new wealth tax, even if the start-up on the stock exchange does not make a profit and does not pay dividends.
This is also one of the objections of business people.
French giants in the field of technology have warned that the tax could be interpreted as applying to companies' evaluations and could oblige them to pay billions of euros to the Fiscal for unrealized winnings.
The pro-Zucman camp claims that the founders of the start-ups could pay their taxes by assigning shares to a French sovereign fund or by loans-both ideas being strongly challenged.
Critics also claim that the tax could be unconstitutional, given that it would affect a small group of about 1,800 people.
But the argument of the taxation of superbogists is a popular one in a country that houses some of the richest people in the world, such as Arnault or billionaire families behind Hermès and L'Oréal.
Many leaders in the business environment now believe that a form of wealth tax has become inevitable, but hopes in a more moderate version.
Macron remains firm against wealth taxes and considers Zucman's proposal an aberration, a person familiar with his thinking.
Prime Minister Lecornu told the French regional newspapers that he is open to discussions on “fiscal equity and task division”, but warned that “professional assets” must be treated with “attention”.
For Zucman, the answer is clear. “Extremely rich people do not pay income tax almost at all, and in the last 15 years there has been an explosion of billionaire assets,” he said in an interview on Thursday.
