France's Hollande seen losing 2017 presidential election: poll

France's President Francois Hollande listens to a speech during a meeting called ''Reporters of Hopes, Solutions for France'' at Iena Palace in Paris October 18, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Francois Mori/Pool

PARIS | Thu Oct 24, 2013 12:05am EDT

PARIS (Reuters) - Four fifths of French voters believe President Francois Hollande will not win the next presidential election in 2017, a poll showed on Thursday, a fresh blow to the leader of the euro zone's second-biggest economy.

Raging unemployment, anger with tax hikes and rows within his government and party have pushed the Socialist president's popularity to its lowest since he was elected in May last year.

In a further blow, 76 percent of those surveyed in the Harris Interactive poll for Le Figaro daily and LCP television said they did not see Hollande as someone who keeps his promises and 68 percent did not consider him competent.

In contrast, 54 percent of those surveyed on October 21-22 said they believed hardline Interior Minister Manuel Valls would beat a right-wing candidate in the 2017 presidential election. Only 16 percent said Hollande could achieve that.

In France, the outgoing president traditionally represents his party in the next election and in past decades most, with the exception of former conservative president Nicolas Sarkozy, won a second mandate.

Hollande saw his popularity sink lower after he was widely criticized on Sunday for offering to allow a deported immigrant teenager to return to France but without her family.

Valls has toughened his rhetoric against illegal migration and makeshift Roma camps as the far-right National Front party surged in popularity ahead of municipal and European elections next year.

(Reporting by Ingrid Melander; editing by Tom Pfeiffer)

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CORRECTED-UPDATE 2-Obama's income fell in election year, paid 18.4 pct tax rate

(Corrects dates of publication of books in paragraph 7)

By Jeff Mason and Kevin Drawbaugh

WASHINGTON, April 12 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama paid an effective federal tax rate of 18.4 percent in 2012 and saw income from his best-selling books drop as he ran for re-election, according to his tax returns released by the White House on Friday.

Obama and his wife Michelle had adjusted gross income of $608,611 last year, down from $789,674 in 2011, and paid $112,214 in total taxes, compared to $162,074 in 2011.

Their total income came in at $662,076 - down almost 22 percent from $844,585 the previous year.

As president, Obama is entitled to a $400,000 annual salary. He reported salary income in 2011 and 2012 of $394,800, however, after deducting pre-tax amounts he paid for his health insurance premium, according to a White House official.

The Obamas' outside business income fell sharply as the president's book sales declined. In 2012, the couple had business income of $258,772, down from $441,369 in 2011.

Book sales have declined dramatically since the early days of his presidency. In 2009, his business income from book sales came in around $5.2 million.

"Dreams From My Father," an autobiographical look at his early life, was published in 1995, and "The Audacity of Hope," which sketched out his policy vision, was published in 2006.

The Obamas reported giving $150,034 to charities, representing roughly 25 percent of their adjusted gross income. The largest gift was $103,871 to the Fisher House Foundation, an organization that provides housing for military families near military hospitals.

Michelle Obama has made supporting the military one of her top public causes as first lady.

The couple also gave $1,000 to the Palm Beach County Law Enforcement Foundation. One of its police officers was killed in September 2012 while working in the presidential motorcade.

Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, reported adjusted gross income of $385,072 and paid $87,851 in total federal taxes last year. Their charitable contributions amounted to $7,190, including some $2,000 in donated clothing and other items.

According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, which tracks the non-profit world, Americans on average give about 4.7 percent of their income to charity. Those who make more than $200,000 annually give about 4.2 percent of their income away.

PAYING THEIR SHARE

Obama has pressed for wealthy people like himself to pay a greater share in taxes.

The issue was a sticking point in his campaign against Republican Mitt Romney, a wealthy former private equity executive who had an effective tax rate of 14.1 percent in 2011.

"Under the president's own tax proposals, including limitations on the value of tax preferences for high-income households, he would pay more in taxes while ensuring we cut taxes for the middle class and those trying to get in it," White House spokesman Jay Carney said in a statement.

The president's effective tax rate in 2011 was 20.5 percent.

Effective tax rates vary wildly from one taxpayer to another because of the many tax breaks available, but counting all U.S. taxpayers, the average income tax rate in 2010 was 11.8 percent, according to the Tax Foundation, a business-oriented tax research group in Washington.

In 2011, about 46 percent of Americans paid no federal income tax, most of them because they were poor or elderly, according to the Tax Policy Center, a centrist tax think tank. Almost two-thirds of those who paid no federal income tax did pay federal employment taxes that support the Social Security pension system and the Medicare health program, the center said.

The Obamas were subject to the alternative minimum tax (AMT) - a parallel tax system set up to ensure the affluent do not avoid tax altogether. They paid about $21,220 extra in tax because the president was subject to the AMT in 2012, up from about $12,500 in 2011.

The 2014 White House budget released this week proposed a new type of minimum tax for the wealthy known as the Buffett Rule, named for billionaire Warren Buffett, who has complained that his tax rate is lower than that paid by his secretary.

The wealthiest taxpayers get most of their income from investments - which are taxed at about half the rate of ordinary wages. Virtually all of the Obamas' income was subject to the top tax rate of 39.6 percent in 2012.

For 2012, the Obamas overpaid their taxes, which entitled them to a refund of $16,815. They chose to apply that total to their 2013 estimated tax. They made the same decision for 2011, applying their $24,515 refund for that year to their 2012 estimated tax.

In 2013, Obama plans to give back 5 percent of his pay in a gesture of solidarity with government workers who must take unpaid leave as a result of deep spending cuts that went into effect last month. (Additional reporting by Kim Dixon and Roberta Rampton; Editing by Eric Walsh)

View the original article here

UPDATE 2-Obama's income fell in election year, paid 18.4 pct tax rate

By Jeff Mason and Kevin Drawbaugh

WASHINGTON, April 12 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama paid an effective federal tax rate of 18.4 percent in 2012 and saw income from his best-selling books drop as he ran for re-election, according to his tax returns released by the White House on Friday.

Obama and his wife Michelle had adjusted gross income of $608,611 last year, down from $789,674 in 2011, and paid $112,214 in total taxes, compared to $162,074 in 2011.

Their total income came in at $662,076 - down almost 22 percent from $844,585 the previous year.

As president, Obama is entitled to a $400,000 annual salary. He reported salary income in 2011 and 2012 of $394,800, however, after deducting pre-tax amounts he paid for his health insurance premium, according to a White House official.

The Obamas' outside business income fell sharply as the president's book sales declined. In 2012, the couple had business income of $258,772, down from $441,369 in 2011.

Book sales have declined dramatically since the early days of his presidency. In 2009, his business income from book sales came in around $5.2 million.

"Dreams From My Father," an autobiographical look at his early life, was published in 2008, and "The Audacity of Hope," which sketched out his policy vision, was published in 2004.

The Obamas reported giving $150,034 to charities, representing roughly 25 percent of their adjusted gross income. The largest gift was $103,871 to the Fisher House Foundation, an organization that provides housing for military families near military hospitals.

Michelle Obama has made supporting the military one of her top public causes as first lady.

The couple also gave $1,000 to the Palm Beach County Law Enforcement Foundation. One of its police officers was killed in September 2012 while working in the presidential motorcade.

Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, reported adjusted gross income of $385,072 and paid $87,851 in total federal taxes last year. Their charitable contributions amounted to $7,190, including some $2,000 in donated clothing and other items.

According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, which tracks the non-profit world, Americans on average give about 4.7 percent of their income to charity. Those who make more than $200,000 annually give about 4.2 percent of their income away.

PAYING THEIR SHARE

Obama has pressed for wealthy people like himself to pay a greater share in taxes.

The issue was a sticking point in his campaign against Republican Mitt Romney, a wealthy former private equity executive who had an effective tax rate of 14.1 percent in 2011.

"Under the president's own tax proposals, including limitations on the value of tax preferences for high-income households, he would pay more in taxes while ensuring we cut taxes for the middle class and those trying to get in it," White House spokesman Jay Carney said in a statement.

The president's effective tax rate in 2011 was 20.5 percent.

Effective tax rates vary wildly from one taxpayer to another because of the many tax breaks available, but counting all U.S. taxpayers, the average income tax rate in 2010 was 11.8 percent, according to the Tax Foundation, a business-oriented tax research group in Washington.

In 2011, about 46 percent of Americans paid no federal income tax, most of them because they were poor or elderly, according to the Tax Policy Center, a centrist tax think tank. Almost two-thirds of those who paid no federal income tax did pay federal employment taxes that support the Social Security pension system and the Medicare health program, the center said.

The Obamas were subject to the alternative minimum tax (AMT) - a parallel tax system set up to ensure the affluent do not avoid tax altogether. They paid about $21,220 extra in tax because the president was subject to the AMT in 2012, up from about $12,500 in 2011.

The 2014 White House budget released this week proposed a new type of minimum tax for the wealthy known as the Buffett Rule, named for billionaire Warren Buffett, who has complained that his tax rate is lower than that paid by his secretary.

The wealthiest taxpayers get most of their income from investments - which are taxed at about half the rate of ordinary wages. Virtually all of the Obamas' income was subject to the top tax rate of 39.6 percent in 2012.

For 2012, the Obamas overpaid their taxes, which entitled them to a refund of $16,815. They chose to apply that total to their 2013 estimated tax. They made the same decision for 2011, applying their $24,515 refund for that year to their 2012 estimated tax.

In 2013, Obama plans to give back 5 percent of his pay in a gesture of solidarity with government workers who must take unpaid leave as a result of deep spending cuts that went into effect last month.

View the original article here

Kenyan Panel Warns Against Nullifying Election

Kenya’s Supreme Court, which was recently overhauled through the passage of a new Constitution, has been asked to play referee in the disputed election, in which Uhuru Kenyatta, son of Kenya’s first president, was declared the winner this month. Mr. Kenyatta beat Prime Minister Raila Odinga in the first round of voting and averted a runoff, clearing the majority threshold by a wafer-thin margin of less than one-tenth of a percent.

On Thursday, Ahmednasir Abdullahi, a lawyer for Kenya’s election chairman, told the court that “in every election, votes get stolen.”

He then played down video images that appeared to show vote rigging, saying they were fraudulent, produced in a notorious, crime-ridden neighborhood of Nairobi. And he warned the Supreme Court that “there would be an enormous constitutional crisis” if the justices deemed the election invalid and called for a new one.

All eyes in Kenya are on the five men and one woman who sit on the Supreme Court, which is now widely considered one of the most professional and trusted public institutions in a country with a long history of corruption.

But that did not stop Mr. Kenyatta, the president-elect, from making a disparaging remark about the justices. On Wednesday, he was filmed at a meeting with political allies, offhandedly saying he was ready to start his job “once some six people decide something or other.”

On Thursday, he apologized via a Facebook message, saying, “My informality may be interpreted as disrespect for the court, and that is not the case.”

Kenyan voters streamed to the polls on March 4 in the first presidential election since 2007. In that contest, Mr. Odinga asserted that the presidency had been stolen from him through electoral fraud, stirring longstanding ethnic grievances and leading to clashes that killed more than 1,000 people.

Since then, Kenya has overhauled some of its public institutions — including the Supreme Court and the election commission — but ethnic identity remains a stubborn undercurrent of political life. Ethnicity has even come up in the choice of lawyers in this landmark election case, as lamented by letters to the editor on Thursday in the newspaper Daily Nation.

Mr. Odinga, the second-place finisher in the election, chose a lawyer from his Luo ethnic group; Mr. Kenyatta put his case in the hands of a lawyer from his Kikuyu ethnic group; William Ruto, Mr. Kenyatta’s running mate, picked a Kalenjin lawyer from his ethnic group; and even the election chairman, Isaack Hassan, selected a fellow Somali-Kenyan to represent him.

“We may need the intervention of psychologists,” said the first letter to the editor.

“It’s a big shame and a pity,” said another.

Mr. Odinga’s lawyers and several nonprofit groups have claimed that there was a conspiracy to pad the vote for Mr. Kenyatta, whose ethnic group has dominated much of politics and economics since Kenya’s independence in 1963. On Wednesday, they presented videotaped evidence that appeared to show that election results certified by the election commission differed from those announced at local tallying centers, giving Mr. Kenyatta an extra edge of several thousand votes, just enough to clear the 50 percent bar and be declared the winner.

“It would be a sad day if these grave irregularities can be ignored,” said George Oraro, Mr. Odinga’s lawyer.

But the election commission then presented a multifanged defense, citing case law from Uganda to India — even mentioning Bush v. Gore from the 2000 election in the United States — and urging the Supreme Court to consider the consequences of nullifying the results.

“Don’t crucify our nascent institutions,” said Lucy Kambuni, a lawyer for the election commission. “I ask you to be consequentialists.”

The Supreme Court basically has three options: uphold Mr. Kenyatta’s win; call for a runoff between Mr. Kenyatta and Mr. Odinga; or call for a whole new election.

Chief Justice Willy Mutunga, a former human rights lawyer who presides from the bench with an iPad, has said that the court will decide by Saturday.

View the original article here

Kenyan Panel Warns Against Nullifying Election

Kenya’s Supreme Court, which was recently overhauled through the passage of a new Constitution, has been asked to play referee in the disputed election, in which Uhuru Kenyatta, son of Kenya’s first president, was declared the winner this month. Mr. Kenyatta beat Prime Minister Raila Odinga in the first round of voting and averted a runoff, clearing the majority threshold by a wafer-thin margin of less than one-tenth of a percent.

On Thursday, Ahmednasir Abdullahi, a lawyer for Kenya’s election chairman, told the court that “in every election, votes get stolen.”

He then played down video images that appeared to show vote rigging, saying they were fraudulent, produced in a notorious, crime-ridden neighborhood of Nairobi. And he warned the Supreme Court that “there would be an enormous constitutional crisis” if the justices deemed the election invalid and called for a new one.

All eyes in Kenya are on the five men and one woman who sit on the Supreme Court, which is now widely considered one of the most professional and trusted public institutions in a country with a long history of corruption.

But that did not stop Mr. Kenyatta, the president-elect, from making a disparaging remark about the justices. On Wednesday, he was filmed at a meeting with political allies, offhandedly saying he was ready to start his job “once some six people decide something or other.”

On Thursday, he apologized via a Facebook message, saying, “My informality may be interpreted as disrespect for the court, and that is not the case.”

Kenyan voters streamed to the polls on March 4 in the first presidential election since 2007. In that contest, Mr. Odinga asserted that the presidency had been stolen from him through electoral fraud, stirring longstanding ethnic grievances and leading to clashes that killed more than 1,000 people.

Since then, Kenya has overhauled some of its public institutions — including the Supreme Court and the election commission — but ethnic identity remains a stubborn undercurrent of political life. Ethnicity has even come up in the choice of lawyers in this landmark election case, as lamented by letters to the editor on Thursday in the newspaper Daily Nation.

Mr. Odinga, the second-place finisher in the election, chose a lawyer from his Luo ethnic group; Mr. Kenyatta put his case in the hands of a lawyer from his Kikuyu ethnic group; William Ruto, Mr. Kenyatta’s running mate, picked a Kalenjin lawyer from his ethnic group; and even the election chairman, Isaack Hassan, selected a fellow Somali-Kenyan to represent him.

“We may need the intervention of psychologists,” said the first letter to the editor.

“It’s a big shame and a pity,” said another.

Mr. Odinga’s lawyers and several nonprofit groups have claimed that there was a conspiracy to pad the vote for Mr. Kenyatta, whose ethnic group has dominated much of politics and economics since Kenya’s independence in 1963. On Wednesday, they presented videotaped evidence that appeared to show that election results certified by the election commission differed from those announced at local tallying centers, giving Mr. Kenyatta an extra edge of several thousand votes, just enough to clear the 50 percent bar and be declared the winner.

“It would be a sad day if these grave irregularities can be ignored,” said George Oraro, Mr. Odinga’s lawyer.

But the election commission then presented a multifanged defense, citing case law from Uganda to India — even mentioning Bush v. Gore from the 2000 election in the United States — and urging the Supreme Court to consider the consequences of nullifying the results.

“Don’t crucify our nascent institutions,” said Lucy Kambuni, a lawyer for the election commission. “I ask you to be consequentialists.”

The Supreme Court basically has three options: uphold Mr. Kenyatta’s win; call for a runoff between Mr. Kenyatta and Mr. Odinga; or call for a whole new election.

Chief Justice Willy Mutunga, a former human rights lawyer who presides from the bench with an iPad, has said that the court will decide by Saturday.

View the original article here