France is tax-free 'for rest of 2014'

YESTERDAY marked the day that millions of employees in France finally “paid off” their tax burden for the year and started earning for themselves.

This year, the symbolic “Tax Freedom Day” arrived two days later than it did in 2013, according to Brussels-based think-tank the Institut Economique Molinari, which means that for the previous 209 days, every cent earned by the average French employee was taken by the government in tax.

Only workers in Belgium have to toil for longer to pay off their obligations to the state. Their tax freedom day, according to the Institut Economique Molinari, will arrive on August 6.

Cypriot employees earned enough to pay off their taxes for the year on March 21. Ireland followed on April 28, and the UK on May 12 - though the Adam Smith Institute said Britons would have work for 16 days longer to be free of tax.

In its calculations, the Institut Economique Molinari includes at income tax, social security contributions and VAT.

The effective tax rate for the average worker reached 45.27% in the EU this year, but it jumped to 57.17% in France. For Belgians, the figure, including all taxes and official charges, for 2014 is 59.6%.