YOU’RE ‘PUTIN’ ME ON: High-income French actor Gerard Depardieu (left) pals around with his buddy, Russian boss Vladimir Putin. (
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France’s most famous actor is fleeing the land of wine, cheese and baked snails for the low-tax embrace of Mother Russia.
Gerard Depardieu yesterday was granted Russian citizenship by President Vladimir Putin amid his feud with France’s Socialist leadership over its plans to impose a walloping 75 percent tax rate on incomes greater than $1.3 million.
He’ll get a much better deal from capitalist-friendly Russia, which charges a flat income-tax rate of just 13 percent — low even by American standards.
The star of “Green Card” and dozens of French films is eligible for the 13 percent rate if he spends six months of every year in Russia. The rate goes up to 30 percent if he spends more than half the year abroad.
Even the 30 percent rate is a good deal even compared to France’s current maximum income-tax rate of 41 percent.
“People in the West do not know the details of our tax system. But when they find out, we should expect a mass migration of rich Europeans to Russia,” senior Russian Cabinet minister Dmitry Rogozin crowed yesterday on Twitter.
Depardieu, 64, won’t have any trouble getting a Russian bank account, if he doesn’t have one already. He’s a pitchman for Soviet Bank, and his picture even appears on its credit cards.
Depardieu said yeserday he was grateful Putin granted his request for a Russian passport.
“I love your country, Russia — its people, its history, its writers,” he said in an statement broadcast yesterday on Russian TV.
“My father was a communist back in the day — he listened to Radio Moscow!” Depardieu wrote.
Depardieu has been publicly feuding for months with French President François Hollande, who ran for office last year on a promise to impose a 75 percent “tycoon tax” on France’s wealthiest citizens.
Hollande’s prime minister insulted Depardieu by calling his efforts to avoid paying more taxes “shabby” and “pathetic.”
Depardieu said yesterday that Russia “is not a country where the prime minister treats a citizen as pathetic.”
And he also turned up his nose at France’s culture by effusively praising Russian country life.
“In Russia, there is the good life,” he said. “I prefer the countryside, and I know some marvelous places in Russia . . . I feel good. And I’m learning Russian . . . Glory to Russia!”
Russia seems ready to accept him.
“He is a normal guy. He is fond of drinking, too — I suppose the Russian way — so let him come here,” Moscow resident Lev Nikolaevich told Reuters.
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