1124
submitted 1 month ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

Multiple parties are jockeying for position in the aftermath of France's seismic snap election. The leftist New Popular Front (NPF) insists its ideas should be implemented.

France's left wing New Popular Front (NPF) - now the largest group in parliament - has called for a prime minister who will implement its ideas including a new wealth tax and petrol price controls.

The leftist alliance secured the most seats in the recent French elections but fell short of the 289 needed for a majority in the National Assembly, France's lower house of parliament.

President Emmanuel Macron's Together bloc came in second and Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally (RN) party finished third.

France's parties are now jockeying for position and it's unclear exactly how things will shake out, but the NPF has insisted it will implement its radical set of ideas.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] steeznson@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month ago

Back in the 50s and 60s after WW2 the UK had a 95% tax band for the highest earners. This was due to the country struggling to pay off its debts to the USA after WW2. The Beatles even wrote their song Taxman about it in 1966.

Ultimately there is a problem with these super high taxbands whereby countries that try them will often encounter something called the Laffer Curve whereby overall tax take decreases as the tax rate increases. This isn't even necessarily tax evasion, all it takes is for wealthy people to be suitably motivated to avoid taxes.

In the UK now if your income breaches £100k then you are paying a higher rate of tax on everything earned over that amount but also you lose the £12.5k tax free allowance that all citizens are entitled to. Overall breaching £100k leads to you paying a marginal rate of tax of 60% even if you don't earn much over it. Because of this high earning jobs often let you put money into salary sacrifice pension schemes to avoid breaching the £100k mark. It only becomes worthwhile earning over £100k when you reach the region of ~£130k, which is substantially more. Essentially the system encourages tax avoidance by having this cliff which people who are behaving like rational agents will do anything to avoid. If it were less punative then some economists argue that the government would raise more money.

[-] marble@sh.itjust.works 20 points 1 month ago

You make it sound like a cliff, but you lose £1 of the £12.5k allowance for every £2 over £100k you earn. You don't suddenly lose the whole allowance at £100,001.

[-] steeznson@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

That's interesting - I had read it being described as a cliff in various places online where people were discussing personal finances. Double checked now and you are right that it is less of a cliff than I'd thought. Good to know in case I ever get close to that tax bracket!

[-] undergroundoverground@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

Oh yeah, those personal finance places all want to talk about the laffer curve, right up until you remind people how high the X value would be. Then, as if by magic, they dont want to talk about them anymore.

To me, those places always seems full of AstroTurfing for the idea of lowering taxes for rich people. There might be some good stuff in there but I would take them main political thrusts made with about as much salt as you can find.

Never ask a man his salary, a woman her age or a neoclassical economist what economic problems tax breaks for the rich won't fix.

To much money to spend on health care?

Tax breaks for the rich.

To little money to spend on healthcare?

Tax cuts for the rich.

Just the right amount of money to spend on healthcare?

Just the right time to cut taxes for the rich.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (16 replies)
this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2024
1124 points (98.9% liked)

World News

38147 readers
3256 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS