As much as I support governments cracking down on companies trying to dodge paying taxes, I can't help but feel like this is just for show.
Since the yellow vests protests started last year(yes, they are still happening, although the number of protesters has been decreasing rapidly), the French government has been under pressure to stop taxing the middle class and go after other entities/individuals to raise money.
It is no secret that France and most of the developed world is technically broke. With a debt to GDP ratio approaching 100%, the French leaders have to find money quickly or the whole welfare state will come to an end sooner than later.
Considering the fact that this tax is supposed to bring in 400m per year, it is basically a drop in the ocean.
But, what will happen is that Macron will spin it as a success and will tell people: "See we are taxing the bad guys."
In the meantime, he will keep on increasing the taxes on the middle class covertly.
The problem is that in a normal functioning democracy, the proceed of the taxes is used to increase the well being of the population.
In France though, all new taxes raised are not used to create or maintain infrastructure or even subsidize basic services for its citizens.
Most of the proceeds are actually used to pay off the debt. See the carbon tax from last year when the government admitted that only 50% would be allocated to actually fight climate change and the rest would be used for some other unrelated things.
France as a whole has never been more taxed than now, and yet public services and public infrastructure(or whatever is left of it, after they nearly sold everything to private corporations) is falling into disarray.
Emergency rooms are closing(They have been on strike for the last 3 months now), social services have been cut back, roads on the countryside are full of potholes, electricity/gas prices keep on increasing.
The middle class is being bled dry by an overzealous state that does not know what to do anymore to fix the problems it created in the first place.
For the last 30 years politicians from all sides of the political spectrum have done one thing and one thing only. Instead of reforming, they just tax, tax and tax more. Until there nothing left.
That's why France is dying. That's why people like me who do not like what France has become have left to create companies/ pay taxes somewhere where I don't feel like I have to share 50% of my money with a state that provides very little to me.