this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2024
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Multiple parties are jockeying for position in the aftermath of France's seismic snap election. The leftist New Popular Front (NPF) insists its ideas should be implemented.

France's left wing New Popular Front (NPF) - now the largest group in parliament - has called for a prime minister who will implement its ideas including a new wealth tax and petrol price controls.

The leftist alliance secured the most seats in the recent French elections but fell short of the 289 needed for a majority in the National Assembly, France's lower house of parliament.

President Emmanuel Macron's Together bloc came in second and Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally (RN) party finished third.

France's parties are now jockeying for position and it's unclear exactly how things will shake out, but the NPF has insisted it will implement its radical set of ideas.

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[–] NotMyOldRedditName 22 points 5 months ago (1 children)

That's uh.... pretty fucking dumb.

How the fuck did anyone think a cliff like that would be smart.

[–] steeznson 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

It's especially bad with the recent inflation here causing fiscal drag. People are being dragged into higher tax brackets by their incomes rising in line with inflation (if they are lucky) but the tax bands are remaining at their pre-inflation levels so in real terms we are taxed more while earning less.

I think "the cliff" ended up being introduced in better times when £100k was an extremely good salary. It still is a good salary but it seems like when they introduced the policy they were likely thinking that folks earning it were making so much that it wouldn't be worth their while to put the effort into avoiding it. However with recent cost of living challenges the demand for avenues to avoid the cliff rose and employers started to respond by offering schemes like the salary sacrifice pension one I mentioned in order to keep their employees happy.

Edit: There are many ways to avoid taxes such as creating your own limited company, paying for your lifestyle as a business expense and then only paying corporation tax on those expenses (currently 20% in the UK). At the same time you draw a "salary" from your own company which is substantially lower than what you would be getting if you include the expenses and then pay income tax for a lower band. The reason most people don't do this - aside from the obvious moral implications - is that it's usually more effort than it's worth for them. At a certain point though, tax avoidance becomes so worthwhile that the temptation is too great for many to ignore.