Le Traitre Ou Le Pragmatique?

[PetitAnglais]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20921208
would we all do similar in the circumstances?

[Zacs-Master]

Tax avoidance.

[ichkeria]

I love your country, your people, your culture, your 13% flat tax rate for billionaires and paupers alike.
Lol
Apparently Brigitte Bardot's off as well. That's 2 foreigners in a single month who actually want to move to Russia. Putin must think Christmas has come early (bearing in mind it's not Christmas in Russia till next week :-)

[Prudie]

I might but I wouldn't pick Russia

[sandyRoe]

Why didn't he run off to Switzerland? Tax is low, I believe, and no problems with the language.

[NOX]

I have to be deadly honest, I pay a lot of tax and as long as I see some benefit to society from it I don't actually mind too much, but 75% is too much and I think I would be offski as well if it ever came to that here.

[askyourgran]

That would be the last place I would think of going. It always looks so cold and pinched, I would choose somewhere a bit warmer with brighter people and a less sinister Head of State.

[sandyRoe]

If he's earning millions why should he mind paying tax? He'll still be a millionaire.

[New Judge]

It’s because he’s earning millions that he does mind paying tax, Sandy.

In France (and to a lesser degree in the UK) high earners are hit with disproportionately high rates of tax and the sums they pay in absolute terms are staggering. It should come as no surprise to the French authorities that their wealthy citizens are taking steps to avoid having large sums of cash forcibly removed from them. In my view the rate of tax taken should diminish as one’s income rises so as to keep the absolute sums charged more reasonable. There is no justification for taking an ever increasing percentage of tax as one’s income rises.

[jno]

I look forward to his role as Obelix in Asterix and the Russians

[ichkeria]

Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the tax system, Depardieu is plainly a sycophantic creep if the comments ascribed to him in that article are correct. I don't imagine too many French will mourn his leaving or lose too much sleep over any lost tax revenue.

[FredPuli43]

Depardieu, a mere actor, is surely no billionaire, but he is a luvvie and self-publicist. When the likes of Bernard Arnault ( worth $ 41 billion according to Forbes) up sticks and leave then President Hollande may have a problem

[shoota]

I'm thinking of not going back as well - leastways not for a few weeks!

[FredPuli43]

Me too, shoota. The French have been curiously lax with taxing foreigners. Until recently their rule that your main residence did not attract capital gains tax, a sensible one like ours, applied to foreigners who owned just one house in France. Of course, if you, a Brtish tax resident, sold it, you were liable to declare to HMRC not only any euro profit but any currency profit made because the exchange rate had changed from when you bought it to when you sold it. Needless to say, many people had French bank accounts to deal with the expenses of running it and simply kept the sum realised on selling it in that account and 'forgot' to mention that fact to HMRC. But often the gain was very slight for French tax purposes, because of the peculiar, arcane, allowances allowed for certain properties and certain periods of ownership and the owner was still well off under the new rules.
Overall, the French have not been particularly highly taxed. Their billionaires.like billionaires everywhere, have good accountants too.

[emmie]

yes i would, punishing people with such punitive taxes is the way to make them leave, add in the insult that he was not a true patriot, what a bunch of morons. Gerard is one of my favourite actors, larger than life, i hope he gave a gallic two fingers to Francois Hollande

[abstibus]

Go, em, go. A true bon viveur. I thought he was gorgeous and such a character. No Hollywood massaged nonsense for him.

[emmie]

i thought i posted about this a while back but can't find it, maybe on someone else's thread. I really don't see why Monsieur Hollande has such a bee in his bonnet. So he and his socialist government get 75 percent of nothing, had it been say 40 percent then i am pretty sure Gerard would have stayed put and more than likely spent more or the rest in France, talk about being spiteful and shortsighted. Didn't Cameron say that if france brings in these high rates of taxes that many will leave, well there is one who has. From what i remember he didn't initially go to Russia, but directly over the border into Belgium.

[anotheoldgit]

Why is this news, after all our politicians hand out British passports, as if they are 'greeting cards'.

Wait a minute though, that's precisely what they are.

[ichkeria]

Like I hinted before this has nothing really to do with saving money. Depardieu has shot his mouth off about Hollande's tax policy, the President has made some ill-advised comments in return and the actor's ego has in turn over-reacted. It's easy to get a Russian passport especially if you're wealthy and famous and there isn't exactly a waiting list. While Russia wouldn't be everyone's choice it'll suit someone like him fine: he won't live like an ordinary Russian citizen you can be sure of that.
Old Gerard reminds me of my student days in France when he seemed to be in just about every film going to the extent that he was something of a joke figure to us even then but I guess he appealed to the housewives.
As for the actual tax issue if it's 75% of total earnings then I don't support that but if it's 75% over a certain salary then that's a lot different.

[jno]

he won't live like an ordinary Russian citizen

Indeed, he won't be living in Russia at all, will he? He'll be a Russian and French citizen living in Belgium.