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| Europe |
| French tax exiles get to like boring Belgium |
| 2005-09-26 |
| Boring, the belgians? Well, perhaps, but they do have excellent beer and good chocolate, Jacques Brel was a great singer, and I love Jean Ray's novels. Matthew Campbell, Paris THE French like to tell rude jokes about Belgians, but this time the laugh is on them. To escape their punitive tax regime, the Gallic elite are fleeing to the flat country mocked in France for its dismal weather and enjoyment of chips. âBoring Brusselsâ is the bolthole of choice for French tax exiles, and Belgium is laughing all the way to the bank. Having flown the draconian French tax coop, well-endowed industrialists are helping to balance Belgian books with their taxes. âIt means less money for the French government,â said Claude Taittinger of the champagne-making family, who blamed a wealth tax introduced in 1981 by François Mitterrand, the late Socialist president, for forcing his family to sell out to an American hotel chain. The Halleys, of the Carrefour supermarket chain, have also settled in Belgium, joining such pillars of the French Establishment as Philippe Jaffré, former head of Elf Aquitaine, the state oil company. The French Whoâs Who of fiscal exiles includes the singers Charles Aznavour and Patricia Kaas; the actresses Emmanuelle Béart and Isabelle Adjani; and the tennis player Amélie Mauresmo, who are resident for tax purposes in Switzerland. For the Taittingers, the last straw came when, instead of following the EU trend of cutting wealth tax, France held to its revolutionary creed of égalité and fraternité to abolish a cap that until 1997 had limited the amount of tax a person could pay to 85% of their income. For members of the champagne clan who were also paying the âsolidarity tax on wealthâ, which targets those with assets above £500,000 regardless of earnings, it meant an annual tax bill greater than their income. âSome members of the family had to sell shares in the company each year just to pay their tax bills,â said Claude Taittinger. âIt was unbearable.â Some of the family moved to Switzerland and Britain. Jean Taittinger, who like Claude is a son of Pierre Taittinger, the companyâs founder, went with his family to Belgium. Jokes aside â French humour has traditionally cast the Belgians in the role reserved by snobby Britons for the Irish â Belgium has the advantage of speaking French and being only 85 minutes from Paris by train; and although its tax rate of 53.5% on income above £26,200 is higher than Britainâs, it does not impose a wealth tax. âAny Frenchman who wants to make money goes to Britain or America these days,â said Claude. âIn France, it is virtually impossible to build up a fortune any more.â This flight of the most successful does not bode well for France, whose government is accused of concealing the impact of emigration by putting the amount of capital leaving the country at just £1.3 billion a year, when unofficial estimates put it closer to £55 billion. To lure back some of the money, Dominique de Villepin, the prime minister, has pledged tax reform and a top rate of 60%. But he has dismissed the idea of ditching the wealth tax. As the extremely wealthy leave at the rate of about one a day, however, it is left to others to foot the bill. Thanks to rising property prices, a Breton farmer with an attractive holding on the coast or a middle-class Parisian family with a two-bedroom flat and no mortgage are as vulnerable to the wealth tax as a Taittinger. Anne-Marie, Claudeâs niece, one of the most recent victims seeking refuge in Brussels, celebrated her acquisition of Belgian nationality with a champagne reception. If all the tax exiles were to do likewise, life for the French community there would be an endless party. |
| Posted by:anonymous5089 |
| #11 Thank you, President Reagan. |
| Posted by: Matt 2005-09-26 14:08 |
| #10 You're reading it right Mitch, wealth taxes just tally up your net worth and take a percentage of that every year. For those with high net worths relative to their incomes that can force annual liquidations to meet tax obligations. Sadly such things aren't completely foreign to us here in the US. E.g., the state where my parents live still authorizes the collection of an "intangibles tax" whereby one's non-real property assets are valued annually and a percentage of the value is collected as tax. |
| Posted by: AzCat 2005-09-26 14:04 |
| #9 I believe they treat capital gains as current income. Thus if your house goes up in value, you must pay tax on the increase -- and if you can't come up with the cash, you might have to sell that house to pay the tax. |
| Posted by: lotp 2005-09-26 13:42 |
| #8 I may be misreading the article, but it sounded like the tax was, in some cases, in excess of 100% of income, since there were people who supposedly were liquidating principal to keep up on their "wealth taxes". For some reason, I thought Charles Aznavour was dead. Is there a French equivalent of the old game "Dead or Canadian"? |
| Posted by: Mitch H. 2005-09-26 13:24 |
| #7 Don't call it Taxation call it a success fine/punishment. Don't call it the welfare state safety net, call it a irresponsbility reward. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2005-09-26 12:41 |
| #6 âAny Frenchman who wants to make money goes to Britain or America these days,â said Claude. âIn France, it is virtually impossible to build up a fortune any more.â And the Dims still want to raise taxes in this country. Amazing! |
| Posted by: DragonFly 2005-09-26 10:33 |
| #5 Belgian jokes have fallen out of fashion lately (or perhaps it is because I no longer listen French MSM) and most of them were definitely not funny, except for this one: "How do you sink a Belgian submarine? You knock at the door" The Belgians are far too busy manufacturing racist jokes between Flemish and Wallonians for retaliating but they came with this one: "How do you kill a French? Shoot above the head, in his complex of superiority" |
| Posted by: JFM 2005-09-26 10:02 |
| #4 Hmm, that's "quickly." |
| Posted by: Ernest Brown 2005-09-26 09:05 |
| #3 what else can the frogs do to commit suicide slowly? Become enemies of Americans. |
| Posted by: abu Python 2005-09-26 08:47 |
| #2 Let's see, corrupt government, muzzie immigration, low birth rates, wealth tax...what else can the frogs do to commit suicide slowly? |
| Posted by: Spot 2005-09-26 08:36 |
| #1 80%,sheesh! |
| Posted by: raptor 2005-09-26 08:23 |