[aktiur]

Here's what three researchers actually found regarding real tax rates in France two years ago :

http://www.revolution-fiscale.fr/img/g1-1.pdf

If you cannot understand French : on the horizontal axis you got the income percentile, and the real tax rate on the vertical axis. The real tax rates may seem high, but they are pretty average for Europe.

The nominal tax rate is not enough to gauge the real tax pressure. The French system is well known for having many "tax niches" (as we call the tax loopholes)

The three researchers are Camille Landais (Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research), Thomas Piketty (Paris school of Economics) and Emmanuel Saez (Berkeley).

Edited to correct : wealth percentage --> income percentile