France plans tax cuts to quell yellow vest anger
Published: 09 April 2019, 2:09:21
France has the highest taxation rate among developed countries.
Data from the OECD economic think-tank for 2017 shows France top, with taxes equivalent to 46.2% of national output (GDP), with Denmark second (46%) and Sweden third (44%).
But France also has the highest level of social spending, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
That spending was 31.2% of GDP in France in 2018; in second place was Belgium (28.9%) and third was Finland (28.7%). The UK figure was 20.6%.
Tax cuts have been a key demand of the yellow vest (“gilets jaunes”) movement that has taken to the streets in France every weekend since mid-November.Initially the protesters demanded lower fuel taxes, but the movement quickly morphed into a general rejection of President Emmanuel Macron’s economic policies.
