Gerard Depardieu was right! France scraps its 75% 'super tax'

Greg P. | 9:15 PM on December 28, 2014

Wow. Who could have seen this coming? (We really need that sarcasm font):

So, France is Scrapping its 75% Tax Rate: http://t.co/uFytN5bQXp

— RedState (@RedState) December 24, 2014

#France bids adieu to 75% super-tax http://t.co/LwumOTWHRV
2 years after #Hollande introduced it, will discreetly expire at end of month

— Linda Yueh (@lindayueh) December 26, 2014

France is shocked that their 75% tax on the rich hurt job growth, failed to attract businesses to France. pic.twitter.com/A2rGuVbmh3

— Pepper (@WineAndLiberty) December 26, 2014

Reuters has more on why the tax, popular with left-wing voters, ultimately failed:

Hollande first floated the 75-percent super-tax on earnings over 1 million euros ($1.2 million) a year in his 2012 campaign to oust his conservative rival Nicolas Sarkozy. It fired up left-wing voters and helped him unseat the incumbent.

Yet ever since, it has been a thorn in his side, helping little in France’s effort to bring its public deficit within European Union limits and mixing the message just as Hollande sought to promote a more pro-business image. The adviser who made the “Cuba” gag was Emmanuel Macron, the ex-banker who is now his economy minister.

Flashback: It was about a year ago that French actor Gerard Depardieu made headlines for becoming a Russian citizen for tax purposes to protest the tax:

French actor Gerard Depardieu meets with Putin, receives Russian passport http://t.co/z7lU1pcZ

— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) January 6, 2013

Paul Krugman is on board with some other top economists who say that the U.S. should tax top earners up to 90 percent.

“What you really should want to do is to soak the rich as much as possible,” Krugmansaid in an appearance on HuffPost Live Wednesday afternoon. “So the top tax rates should be whatever it is that collects the most revenue, and now the question is, how high is that?”

The Nobel Prize-winning economist was asked about a new working paper by economists Fabian Kindermann and Dirk Krueger, which found that a top marginal income tax rate of 85 to 90 percent would improve all Americans’ wellbeing, reduce inequality and bring in more revenue for the government.

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