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French actor Gerard Depardieu has bought a home and set up legal residence in a small Belgian town, lured by the food, the people, the lifestyle – and lower tax rates than back home, according to the town’s mayor.

The Socialist Government under French President François Hollande has infuriated many of the ultra-rich in France by presenting a 2013 budget that would tax top earners at 75 per cent over the first €1 million of annual income. Belgium’s top rate is 50 per cent.

Mayor Daniel Senesael, of Nechin, just inside Belgium near the French city of Lille, said that “in our conversation, his reasons were also other than those about taxes”, it is reported.

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