French court rejects 75 percent millionaires' tax

France's President Francois Hollande speaks at a news conference at the end of the first session of a two-day European Union (EU) leaders summit in Brussels October 19, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Christian Hartmann

By Emile Picy and Catherine Bremer

PARIS | Sat Dec 29, 2012 11:25am EST

PARIS (Reuters) - France's Constitutional Council on Saturday rejected a 75 percent upper income tax rate to be introduced in 2013 in a setback to Socialist President Francois Hollande's push to make the rich contribute more to cutting the public deficit.

The Council ruled that the planned 75 percent tax on annual income above 1 million euros ($1.32 million) - a flagship measure of Hollande's election campaign - was unfair in the way it would be applied to different households.

Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said the government would redraft the upper tax rate proposal to answer the Council's concerns and resubmit it in a new budget law, meaning Saturday's decision could only amount to a temporary political blow.

While the tax plan was largely symbolic and would only have affected a few thousand people, it has infuriated high earners in France, prompting some such as actor Gerard Depardieu to flee abroad. The message it sent also shocked entrepreneurs and foreign investors, who accuse Hollande of being anti-business.

Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici said the rejection of the 75 percent tax and other minor measures could cut up to 500 million euros in forecast tax revenues but would not hurt efforts to slash the public deficit to below a European Union ceiling of 3 percent of economic output next year.

"The rejected measures represent 300 to 500 million euros. Our deficit-cutting path will not be affected," Moscovici told BFM television. He too said the government would resubmit a proposal to raise taxes on high incomes in 2013 and 2014.

The Council, made up of nine judges and three former presidents, is concerned the tax would hit a married couple where one partner earned above a million euros but it would not affect a couple where each earned just under a million euros.

UMP member Gilles Carrez, chairman of the National Assembly's finance commission, told BFM television, however, that the Council's so-called wise men also felt the 75 percent tax was excessive and too much based on ideology.

FRANCE UNDER SCRUTINY

Hollande shocked many by announcing his 75 percent tax proposal out of the blue several weeks into a campaign that some felt was flagging. Left-wing voters were cheered by it but business leaders warned that talent would flee the country.

Set to be a temporary measure until France is out of economic crisis, the few hundred million euros a year the tax was set to raise is a not insignificant sum as the government strives to boost public finances in the face of stalled growth.

Hollande's 2013 budget calls for the biggest belt-tightening effort France has seen in decades and is based on a growth target of 0.8 percent, a level analysts view as over-optimistic.

Fitch Ratings this month affirmed its triple-A rating on France but said there was no room for slippage. Standard & Poor's and Moody's have both stripped Europe's No. 2 economy of its AAA badge due to concern over strained public finances and stalled growth.

The International Monetary Fund recently forecast that France will miss its 3 percent deficit target next year and signs are growing that Paris could negotiate some leeway on the timing of that goal with its EU partners.

The INSEE national statistics institute this week scaled back its reading of a return to growth in the third quarter to 0.1 percent from 0.2 percent, and the government said it could review its 2013 outlook in the next few months.

Saturday's decision was in response to a motion by the opposition conservative UMP party, whose weight in fighting Hollande's policies has been reduced by a leadership crisis that has split it in two seven months after it lost power.

The Constitutional Council is a politically independent body that rules on whether laws, elections and referenda are constitutional.

($1 = 0.7564 euros)

(Reporting by Emile Picy; Writing by Catherine Bremer; Editing by Alison Williams)

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Argentina asks U.S. court to block payouts for debt holdouts

By Nate Raymond and Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK | Sat Dec 29, 2012 12:44am EST

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Argentina is urging a U.S. appeals court to reverse an order requiring the country to pay $1.33 billion to creditors who did not participate in its two debt restructurings, a legal case that could have huge ramifications for global debt markets.

Lawyers for Argentina's government said in court papers filed late on Friday that a trial judge was "wrong to ignore the chorus of voices" who opposed his November order on payments to so-called "holdout" creditors.

Those payments, to a court-controlled escrow account, would threaten the service of $24 billion in restructured debt, Argentina's lawyers wrote in papers filed in the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York.

"There is no authority permitting a U.S. court to order a sovereign to bring its immune assets into the United States in order to 'turn over' or distribute them to its creditors," lawyers for the Argentine government said in the 69-page filing.

The appeals court is expected to decide next year whether to force Argentina to pay the $1.33 billion to investors in the defaulted debt. The decision could have broad impact on the ability of governments to raise money by selling bonds and on strained countries' response to economic crises.

The case stems from Argentina's $100 billion sovereign debt default 11 years ago. Argentina is trying to avoid paying the holdout creditors, who refused to take part in massive debt restructurings in 2005 and 2010.

About 92 percent of the bonds were restructured, giving holders between 25 cents and 29 cents on the dollar.

But the holdouts, led by Elliot Management Corp affiliate NML Capital Ltd and the Aurelius Capital Management funds, demanded to be paid in full. Argentina calls the holdouts "vultures" and has resisted.

The case has run for years in U.S. courts. Oral arguments before the 2nd Circuit on the appeal are set for February 27, 2013.

A decision against Argentina would deal a setback to President Cristina Fernandez, who is trying to avert the fallout of a potential technical default on tens of billions of dollars of debt.

In a statement late on Friday, an NML spokesman said Argentina was well placed to compensate the holdouts, citing its "more than $43 billion in foreign currency reserves" and billions more in other resources.

"Today's filing by the Republic once again demonstrates Argentina's irrational persistence in evading its contractual obligations and the orders of U.S. courts," said Peter Truell, a spokesman for NML.

Also on Friday, the U.S. government filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of Argentina's bid for the appeals court to reconsider its October ruling that found Argentina had improperly discriminated against bondholders who did not participate in the debt swaps.

The U.S. government said countries needed leverage to garner broad creditor support for a restructuring. It cited the recent debt exchange in Greece as an example of a situation in which holdouts can threaten orderly bond restructurings.

JUDICIAL REPRIEVE

Following the appeals court's October decision, U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa in Manhattan on November 21 commanded Argentina to put the payments for the holdouts into escrow by December 15.

But on November 28, the 2nd Circuit gave Argentina a reprieve, saying it did not need to make the escrow payment for now.

The battle has even extended to the 2-1/2 month seizure of the Argentine naval vessel ARA Libertad in Ghana at the request of NML. The boat was freed on December 19 following a ruling by an international admiralty tribunal.

In its court papers, Argentina said that if Griesa's orders were allowed to stand, "we may very well see the end of such restructurings and enter an era where debt crises are unresolvable. This will increase litigation, not reduce it."

At the same time, the country's lawyers said Argentina understood the appeals court's desire to resolve the litigation, and "is prepared to do what it can to end it."

Argentina's lawyers said Fernandez was "prepared once again" to ask Argentina's Congress to end the litigation by treating the holdout bondholders the same as those who participated in the 2010 debt swap.

In a separate court filing, lawyers for holders of restructured bonds said that holdouts should not be treated better than "innocent" bondholders who took part in the swaps. The restructured bondholders include funds managed by Gramercy Financial Group LLC and BlackRock Inc (BLK.N), according to the court papers from the group.

The case is NML Capital Ltd et al v. Argentina, 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 12-105.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel, Nate Raymond and Martha Graybow in New York; Editing by Ron Popeski)

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