Here in the United States we’re having very bitter debates about a relatively small increase in the top marginal income tax rate that Barack Obama wants to impose. In France, by contrast, president-elect François Hollande has proposed a 75 percent marginal tax rate on earned income over 1 million euros (capital gains, dividends, and interest would be exempted as I understand it). This is in fact what cutting-edge French tax scholarship suggests should be done, but it strikes many as implausible.
Will Smith, it seems, is among the baffled, endorsing Obama’s tax proposals but shocked into incredulity by Hollande’s:
