[lke]

What don't you understand in "over one million" ?

If you sell it for 1,000,001 the 75% rate only applies to the extra 1. Not the whole 1,000,001 just the 1 that is over the million.

That's what is called a marginal taxe rate. Each tax braket only applies to the money within the backet range.

If you make 1,000,001 the first 6,000 are not taxed and the last one is taxed at 75%. (Or will be if we ever get that).

--

Edit : There also seems to be a concensus about selling not being taxed like a salary. I wouldn't know. But there was also quite a debate on whether the taxes on selling companies was to high.

[LekkoscPiwa]

True. But the first million is not tax free neither. If over 1,000,000 is 75% then I'd assume that below 1,000,000 isn't much better. I'd assume if I sell for 2,000,000 the total tax will be at least 50%. How is this fair?

[wazoox]

It's fair because you're driving on roads, bring your children to school, may need to go to hospital at times, and profit from a judicial system able to enforce law and your company's contracts, among other things. If you want to live in a country without taxes, try Somalia, or Congo.

[rfrey]

The debate is not between "taxes" and "no taxes." We're all clever enough to understand shades of gray.

[eli_gottlieb]

No, in my experience there are no shades of gray. It's just "taxation is theft". There is no level of taxes, no matter how low in real terms, where people actually stop complaining.

[LekkoscPiwa]

It's not about complaining. It's about policies that make sense.

Look, I have saved for few years to have initial funding for my business. This means I had to take away from myself and my family. To save for future business. So, in that period of time, I had lower standard of living that my coworkers. Right? Maybe my daughter couldn't get the toys her friend. could. Maybe we couldn't go for a vacation in 5 years. Maybe we had to live is small apartment vs. a house. Drive car that's not really nice. All of this to save money to invest in future business. Once the money was saved, I quit the regular job. Now, it's even worse. I have no income at all. And still have to pay bills for the family + spend on the business.

The statistics are 1 in 10 startups make it. 10% chances. So after additional 2 years working on the startup and burning all the savings, let's say - 10% chance - it worked. I made it, I sold the business.

You are telling me to tax people like me at 50%. And how do you think now, why in France there is no Silicon Valley? Because nobody in their right mind is going to work their butt off to be taxed at the end at 50%. It just doesn't add up. It would be better for me to stay with a regular job if I were in France. And in the end that's bad for France. It makes it much less competitive, much less innovative, and scares prospect capital off its borders. California alone has bigger economy than France. But in California nobody will punish you with a tax at 50% for trying to be innovative. And California has good roads and sewage system too. Without extreme taxation and business unfriendly environment.

[eli_gottlieb]

Marginal tax rates on the top earners (ie: the high-tech sector) are 46% here in Israel and we've got plenty of start-ups.

And yes, it's about policies that make sense for the economic constraints of the government and the values of the voters. Key words there being values of the voters. France might have a very state-driven economy, but most of the world's top economies certainly don't take the American neoliberal wannabe-anarcho-capitalist approach.

[crusso]

Everyone drives on roads, takes their kids to school, and may need to go to the hospital at times. Some of us pay extra for private roads to be built and for private schools for our children to attend because the government equivalents are crap.

As the poster mentioned, if you are an entrepreneur, normally you forgo a steady salary and corporate benefits in order for a big payout later. When the government is going to take a huge chunk out of that payout when you've already been sacrificing hard just to get there - it begins to look less and less worth it.

I've spent my adult career going from startup to startup. Looking at the current regulatory and confiscatory tax environment, I don't know if I'd do the same starting over.

If I could go back 20 years, I'd probably just go work for a big company like IBM or UPS and stay there. If I'm noticing that pressure against entrepreneurs then others are noticing it too. The government is slowly but surely killing off drivers that increase risk taking.

That's a bad thing.

[wazoox]

> As the poster mentioned, if you are an entrepreneur, normally you forgo a steady salary and corporate benefits in order for a big payout later.

Utter bullshit. I'm an entrepreneur, and you know why I was able to create a company? Because of the very good French unemployment benefits that allowed me to build up my business for nearly two years after my previous startup failed! Without that, lacking a personal fortune I just wouldn't have been able to create the company.

[dagw]

The 75% proposed tax is for earned salary not sales of shares. Thus it will only be relevant to you if you get your company to a point where you are taking out over 1 million euros a year in salary, not if you simply sell your company for over 1 million.

[lke]

See for yourself : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baremes_de_l_impot_sur_le_reven...

Now you may not understand french but the table is quite understandable. Fist column the brackets, last column the marginal taxe rate.