France Pursues Tax Payments for Illegal Drug Sales

Well, they've taxed everything else

PARIS—It seems France's love affair with taxing its citizens has reached a new high: the French Treasury sought full income tax payments from a 37-year-old convicted drug dealer for the sum he'd earned selling cannabis.

According to Le Monde, two weeks before Farid, a former drug-dealer, got out of prison in December 2012 after serving 20 months, he was asked to immediately pay 23,933 euros in taxes and another 15,227 in social security to the French state. These amounts were calculated on the basis of the 60,700 euros in cash they found when he was arrested.