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发帖数: 29846 | 1 加税到底好还是坏现在可以拿法国做例子了.
PARIS—-The French Socialist government on Friday unveiled the country's
toughest budget in decades, hiking taxes for the rich and big business in a
bid to slash its deficit while facing a stalled economy.
President François Hollande, in his first budget since being elected
five months ago, has pledged to balance public accounts by the end of his
mandate in 2017 and given himself two years to turn around the French
economy.
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According to documents presented at the weekly cabinet meeting Friday, the
government aims to lift revenue from household income taxes by 23% next year
, while revenue from business taxation is expected to rise almost 30%.
"We're asking the wealthiest taxpayers to make an effort," Prime Minister
Jean-Marc Ayrault said after the weekly cabinet meeting. "As for companies,
we're bringing back justice. CAC-40 firms pay less taxes than small
companies…now we're asking them to contribute."
The budget increased the top marginal income-tax rate to 45% from 41%, and
detailed plans for a special tax on incomes above €1 million ($1.29
million) a year, with 1,500 individuals paying an overall rate of 75%. They
will pay on average €140,000 more in taxes next year, the government
said.
The biggest new tax-take from business will come from limiting the deduction
of financial charges from a company's taxable income. Now, businesses can
deduct financial charges from their declared taxable income, a measure the
government said benefits large companies and encourages debt financing over
capital. Limiting the possible deduction to 85% of a company's financial
charges will increase tax intake by €4 billion in 2013, the finance
ministry said.
The budget comes at a difficult time for the euro zone's second-largest
economy after growth ground to a halt in the final quarter of last year and
failed to expand for the following nine months. Flagging growth has pushed
unemployment above 10% this year.
A spate of plant closures that started last summer, with large French
companies such as car maker PSA Peugeot CitroënUG.FR +0.62% and drug
maker Sanofi SA SAN.FR +3.39% cutting hundreds of jobs, has seen the
government's approval rate plunge. Mr. Hollande is counting on economic
growth to pick up from next year, reaching 0.8% in 2013 and 2% a year after.
The conservative opposition slammed the government's plans to repair France'
s finances and boost its economy.
"This all-tax budget doesn't bring a solution to our two main challenges:
how to cut public expenditure and how to improve the competitiveness of our
companies," Gilles Carrez, the conservative head of the National Assembly,
said in a statement.
Total government expenditure is still slated to increase marginally next
year, although less than inflation and at a significantly slower pace than
government revenue. The budget will push up the overall tax burden to 46.3%
of gross domestic product, a measure that will peak to 46.7% in 2015 before
receding slowly.
Financial markets have so far shown more leniency with France than other
debt-ridden economies in the euro zone. As investors loaded up on French
debt, borrowing costs fell to historical lows this year. France's 10-year
government benchmark bond is yielding around 2.18% according to Tradeweb
data Friday. The budget shows the government isn't counting on this
exceptional situation lasting much longer. Interest rates on 10-year debt
are expected to rise to 2.9% next year and continue rising to reach 3.65% in
2015, making it more costly to service its debt.
Fresh figures published Friday showed the country's debt pile kept climbing,
reaching 91% of gross domestic product in the second quarter of the year,
up from 86.2% a year earlier. The debt is forecast to peak at 91.3% next
year, and then fall to 82.9% of GDP by the end of Mr. Hollande's mandate.
The government aims to cut the budget deficit to 3% of gross domestic
product next year from 4.5% this year.
"If we don't put a stop to this, taxpayer money will keep paying for debt
reimbursement," Mr. Ayrault said.
Investors are also closely watching France's credit rating after Standard &
Poor's downgraded France from triple-AA to double-A plus in January. Moody's
has a negative outlook on its triple-A rating for France and said earlier
this month it will conclude an assessment of the impact of the euro-zone
debt crisis on the country's credit-worthiness in October. |
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