Escape From France



François Hollande
(Paris, France) With payroll taxes jacked up to an irrational 85%, French citizens are leaving the country.

The fiscal frenzy that has seized French socialists is not only grinding France’s economy to a halt; it is also attacking the very foundations of French society by destroying entrepreneurship and responsibility. Taxes are raining down on French citizens, and the promised shelters often disappear before they have even been introduced.

The French government’s 2013 finance bill has announced confiscatory tax rates on incomes and capital gains, and payroll taxes will be increased as well. But the socialists are shooting themselves in the foot, as such tax rates will destroy wealth and drive out entrepreneurs, capital, businesses, and young people. Thus, tax revenues will ultimately not rise but fall.

The message could not be clearer: The number of requests by French citizens to leave France are suddenly up by 400 to 500 percent. As far as my business is concerned, we used to have three to five such cases a year, and we are already facing more than 20 this year. We are witnessing an explosive rise in tax exile since April 2012. On a national scale, the number of tax exiles was previously estimated at some 1,000 per year; today, it is expected to multiply by as much as five.

Apparently the French people desire a constricted economy. By electing President Francois Hollande, they voted for it.