By Mark Baber
January 4 – The French Football League (LFP) has welcomed France’s Constitutional Council’s ruling that a proposed 75% upper income tax rate would be unconstitutional.
The Socialist government of President Francois Hollande (pictured) was elected on a pledge to introduce a temporary two-year 75% upper income tax rate to anyone earning over €1 million per year as a means of helping the economy and a symbol of its commitment that the wealthy should contribute in a time of crisis.
The LFP president Frédéric Thiriez has campaigned against the proposed super tax arguing that it would spell the “death of French football”.
He argued that it would have effected over 100 of Ligue 1’s top earners, many of whom may have moved abroad, so professional football had a “good reason to fight.”
“Right from the start we had sounded the alarm on the dangers of such taxation – dangers for French football with
disastrous consequences for clubs.”
Thirez also argued that the Council had heard the LFP’s warnings and called the Council’s ruling a “beautiful and necessary collective victory.”
Chairman of the Union des Clubs Professionnels de Football, Jean-Pierre Louvel said that, aside from PSG, no club in France would have the resources to pay the tax hence so there would have been an “outflow of talent”.
The Constitutional Council ruled the temporary measure was unconstitutional because it was to be applied to individuals rather than to whole households. If a couple were living together and both earned €950,000 they would escape the tax whereas a single person earning over €1,000,000 would not – so the proposed law was a “breach of equality under the ability to pay”.
The government immediately announced it would bring in an amended measure which meets constitutional requirements.
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