British prime minister David Cameron declared at the G20 summit in Mexico that Britain would open its door wide to France's rich if they flee abroad from sleep tax hikes proposed by the new French government. During this year's political campaign, France's newly-elected president, Francois Hollande, proposed hitting France's wealthy with a 75 percent tax on any annual income beyond one million euros.
Anticipating a mass exodus of French top earners, Cameron said refugees from the tax would be welcome across the English Channel. Later, the French Labor Minister Michel Sapin, also Mexico for the G20, suggested Cameron's comment had just spilled out without much forethought. Cameron, faced with his own weak economy, has resisted hiking taxes to boost state income, believing then a drag on growth, while Hollande is pushing to increase government income to help cut the French deficit and allow the government oto boost economic activity.
