By Rich Lowry
Tuesday, January 01, 2013
French actor Gérard Depardieu has learned how to go from
a beloved symbol of a nation to an enemy of the state in one easy step. All it
takes is the desire to keep some meaningful portion of his income.
Depardieu is a quintessentially French figure. Appearing
in more than 150 films, he has played Cyrano and Obélix. He is a Chevalier de
la Légion d’honneur. He eats and drinks — a lot. He rides a scooter. It would
take a diagram to follow his romantic entanglements with models and actresses.
It’s all very French, except for the fact that he has earned too much money.
At least it’s too much according to the accounting of the
Gradgrind socialists who govern France. Elected earlier this year, President
François Hollande has imposed a 75 percent marginal income tax on top earners.
To this prospect, Depardieu said, “Non, merci.” He announced his intention to
move to a little village over the border in Belgium where the government imposes
plenty of taxes but doesn’t aim to impose a punishing tax rate on the wealthy
as a matter of justice.
For his offense, Depardieu has been denounced from the
commanding heights of the French state. The prime minister called him
“pathetic.” The budget minister sniffed that his move would be a boon to
Belgian cinema. Hollande urged “ethical behavior” on the part of French
taxpayers. They all agree that it’s wrong of Depardieu not to stand still so
that the government can drastically lighten his wallet.
The “temporary supertax” applies to incomes of more than
1 million euros (roughly $1.3 million). It is said to be no big deal because it
hits only about 1,500 people and is set to last for only two years. But it
comes on top of an already-onerous tax burden and is shocking in its own right.
American actor Will Smith had a commonsensical reaction
when he was in France to promote a movie and was asked by an interviewer if he
would be willing to pay higher taxes. Of course, he said. Then he was told of
the top French rate. “Seventy-five?” he gulped. “Yeah, that’s different, that’s
different. Yeah, 75. Well, you know, God bless America.”
The tax is less fiscal policy than confiscatory policy
motivated by unabashed disdain for the wealthy. Hollande is on the record
saying, “I don’t like the rich.”
One wonders what they have ever done to him. Hollande
believes that the wealthy owe the state. He is like Massachusetts senator
Elizabeth Warren on steroids, in a political culture with a much higher
tolerance for leftist class politics. For a perpetual creature of the state
such as the career politician Hollande, the natural order of things is that he
gets to live off the government and Depardieu gets to fund it. That’s the
definition of “fairness.”
Depardieu’s critics bash his patriotism. But why is it
patriotic to accept financial chastisement by a government headed by someone
who is avowedly driven by animus toward you as a member of a targeted class?
It’s not as though Depardieu is a scofflaw. He claims
that he has paid 145 million euros in taxes during the course of his career and
paid an 85 percent rate in 2012. Maybe Hollande should go all the way in the
tradition of his hero President François Mitterrand — the old-school socialist
who brought the French economy to its knees in the 1980s — and nationalize
Gérard Depardieu.
The French constitutional court ruled against the
supertax the other day on technical grounds. The government promises to make
adjustments and forge ahead. It can shame Depardieu all it likes, but that
won’t stop the flow of other, less famous tax exiles. Hollande doesn’t like
rich people, and he will duly rule a country with fewer of them. Gérard
Depardieu wrote the prime minister to explain himself: “I am leaving because
you believe that success, creation, talent — difference, in fact — must be
punished.”
He’s right. May he — dare we say it? — prosper in his new
home.
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