Johnny Hallyday: Also Bucked Establishment on Taxes

French rocker Johnny Hallyday—the “French Elvis—has passed away at 74. I do not know his music, but it appears that he was an innovator. His sounds were apparently new to French ears, and his willingness to adopt rock styles from the English-speaking world upset the French establishment. But the people adored his music, and he sold 110 million records. So Hallyday and the market got the better of France’s cultural rules.

Hallyday didn’t like French tax rules either. Here is what I wrote in Global Tax Revolution:

The solidarity tax on wealth was imposed in the 1980s under President Francois Mitterrand. It is an annual assessment on net assets above a threshold of about $1 million, and it has graduated rates from 0.55 percent to 1.8 percent. It covers both financial assets and real estate, including principal homes.

One of those hit by the wealth tax was Johnny Hallyday, a famous French rock star and friend of French president Nicolas Sarkozy. Hallyday created a media sensation when he fled to Switzerland in 2006 to avoid the tax. He has said that he will come back to France if Sarkozy “reforms the wealth tax and inheritance law.” Hallyday stated: “I’m sick of paying, that’s all . . . I believe that after all the work I have done over nearly 50 years, my family should be able to live in some serenity. But 70 percent of everything I earn goes to taxes.” A poll in Le Monde found that two-thirds of the French public were sympathetic to Hallyday’s decision.

France still has its wealth tax, but numerous other countries have scrapped theirs as global tax competition has heated up. As for Hallyday, he spent his last decade avoiding the wealth tax in Switzerland and Los Angeles.