With one of his dribbles, Zlatan Ibrahimovic dodges the assets and enjoys his 14 million euros per season. The Swedish striker was perhaps the shrewdest of the French scrooges: when he negotiated his transfer from Milan to PSG, he was careful to specify in the contract that his salary had to be strictly net of taxes .
Evidently Zlatan - or whoever - had taken François Hollande's socialist promises seriously. A forward-looking precaution, given that on Sunday evening the French President announced on live TV a heavy sting on the richest: incomes exceeding 150 thousand euros will be taxed at 45%, while those exceeding one million euros at 75% for the portion exceeding this sum. But the Qatari sheikh Al Thani, owner of the Parisian dream team, will take care of Ibra's taxes.
Less elegant is the attempted escape from the taxman staged by Bernard Arnault, owner and CEO of Lvmh: last week the richest man in France (number four in the world rankings) applied for Belgian citizenship. The hearing from the Elysée was not long in coming: “Arnault should have reflected on what it means to ask for another nationality – thundered Hollande – because we are proud to be French. We have to be patriotic right now." In the end, the king of Louis Vuitton gave in: he will continue to pay taxes in France.
