France introduces new tax on high incomes

France introduces new tax on high incomes

 

The French government is to impose an extra tax of 3% on annual income above 500,000 euros (£440,000; $721,000).

It is part of a package of measures to try to cut the country's deficit by 12bn euros over two years.
The tax increase came after some of France's wealthiest people had called on the government to tackle its deficit by raising taxes on the rich.
Paris has also reduced its economic growth forecast for 2012 to 1.75% from a previous 2.25%.
'Rigorous' And it has cut its 2011 growth forecast from 2% to 1.75%, Prime Minister Francois Fillon has said.
He said the new tax would remain in place until France reduces its budget deficit back under the EU's intended limit of 3% of GDP, which should occur in 2013.
France plans to trim its public deficit to 5.7 % this year, 4.6 % next year and 3% in 2013.
"This is a rigorous policy that will allow France to remain relaxed," Mr Fillon said. "Our country must stick to its [deficit] commitments. It's in the interest of all French people."

Sixteen executives, including Europe's richest woman, the L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, had offered in an open letter to pay a "special contribution" in a spirit of "solidarity".

It appeared on the website of the French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur.
It was signed by some of France's most high-profile chief executives, including Christophe de Margerie of oil firm Total, Frederic Oudea of bank Societe Generale, and Air France's Jean-Cyril Spinetta.
They said: "We, the presidents and leaders of industry, businessmen and women, bankers and wealthy citizens would like the richest people to have to pay a 'special contribution'."
They said they had benefited from the French system and that: "When the public finances deficit and the prospects of a worsening state debt threaten the future of France and Europe and when the government is asking everybody for solidarity, it seems necessary for us to contribute."
They warned, however, that the contribution should not be so severe that it would provoke an exodus of the rich or increased tax avoidance.

Libya crisis: Doha meeting seeks to raise $2.5bn aid

A donors' meeting is being held in Doha, capital of Qatar, to raise funds for Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC).

 

The target is to raise $2.5bn (£1.5bn) to pay the salaries of government workers as well as funding treatment for people injured in the fighting.
Countries represented are the US, the UK, Turkey, Germany, France, Italy and Qatar.
The fighting has brought the economy to a near standstill.
'Responsibilities' Production of oil, Libya's main export, has fallen from 1.6 million barrels a day to fewer than 100,000.
"The countries in the contact group must ensure that the NTC is provided with the required resources and support to assume its responsibilities to the Libyan people," Qatar's minister of international cooperation, Khalid al-Attiyah, said.
But with the potential to regain the oil wealth, analysts say that in the medium term it may not be foreign money that Libya needs.
"It's a very rich country with very poor people," said David Hartwell from IHS Global Insight.
"What it needs is transparency, better and more equitable investment, and it needs to iron out the discrimination between the [richer] west of the country and the [poorer] east of the country."
Further meetings The meeting is being held in Qatar, which was the first Arab state to support the no-fly zone in Libya.
Qatar has also become a base for rebel leaders, offering them help in marketing oil from rebel-held areas and giving them a place to voice their opinions against Col Muammar Gaddafi.
Speaking in Doha, NTC Prime Minister Mahmud Jibril announced the conference and said Libya's transition "begins immediately".
A meeting of senior diplomats is also due to take place in Istanbul on Thursday, at which ways of helping with reconstruction and transition into a democratic state will be discussed.
French President Sarkozy hopes that the Istanbul meeting will finalise plans for a "Friends of Libya" conference to be held in Paris in the next 10 days, which will include heads of state and international organisations.