Gerard Depardieu to French Government: “I Leave After Paying 85% Tax on my Income”:

Gerard Depardieu may be an obscure figure to most Americans, remembered, if at all, from the ill-fated movie, Green Card, but he’s a famous and successful actor and businessman in France who has decided to get out.

Nor is Gerard Depardieu any kind of right-winger. His goodbye letter boasts that he is a European and a true citizen of the world. But he is tired of paying a ridiculous amount of money in taxes and of being insulted for it. While other wealthy Frenchmen who left the country have tried to cover up their reasons, Depradieu, true to form, has been openly confrontational about it.

And in response to being called pathetic and unpatriotic by Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, had this to say.

Shabby, you say “pathetic”?

I was born in 1948, I started working at the age of 14 years as a printer, then as a warehouseman and as a dramatic artist. I always paid my taxes regardless of the rate under all governments…

I’m leaving because you consider that success, creativity, talent, actually and anything different must be punished…

I leave after paying, in 2012, 85% tax on my income. But I keep in mind that France was beautiful and I hope it will remain so…

I paid 145 million (190 million US dollars) tax in forty-five years, I have 80 people working in companies that were created for them and which are managed by them.

I do not wish to complain or to brag, but I refuse the word “pathetic”.

Who are you to judge me so I ask you Mr. Ayrault, Prime Minister, Mr. Hollande, I ask you, who are you? Despite my excesses, my appetite and my love life, I am a free being, sir…

Gérard Depardieu

So looks like Atlas just shrugged.

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