And You Thought It Was Bad in America!

[Guest Taxed]

More than 8,000 French households' tax bills topped 100 percent of their income in 2012, according to a French newspaper report.

Citing data from France's finance ministry, the business newspaper Les Echos reported on Friday that in addition to those taxed at over 100 percent last year, almost 12,000 households paid taxes worth more than 75 percent of their 2011 income and that a further 9,910 households were taxed at more than 85 percent of their income.

The paper said this was due to a one-off levy imposed on the 2011 incomes of households with assets of more than 1.3 million euros ($1.67 million) . The surcharge was introduced by socialist President Francois Hollande in an attempt to offset the cost of a rebate scheme and taxation cap introduced by former President Nikolas Sarkozy, the paper added.

[JohnH]

But we have people in this country stupid enough to suggest we should emulate the French.

[David1980]

Wouldn't that be a property tax, not an income tax? There's going to be a lot of people who pay more "tax" than their income. Consider any taxpayer that's had a NOL. That year they incurred the NOL they are still paying sales tax, property tax, etc... So their taxes would exceed their income and if you viewed it as an income tax would be greater than 100%.

[Guest Taxed]

Well if you want to broadly define tax as including sales tax, property tax etc. then yes even those who do not pay any income tax because their income is below the threshold DO pay taxes!