Posted on 09/17/2011 4:54:13 PM PDT by kristinn
WASHINGTON — President Obama on Monday will call for a new minimum tax rate for individuals making more than $1 million a year to ensure that they pay at least the same percentage of their earnings as middle-income taxpayers, according to administration officials.
With a special joint Congressional committee starting work to reach a bipartisan budget deal by late November, the proposal adds a new and populist feature to Mr. Obama’s effort to raise the political pressure on Republicans to agree to higher revenues from the wealthy in return for Democrats’ support of future cuts from Medicare and Medicaid.
Mr. Obama, in a bit of political salesmanship, will call his proposal the “Buffett Rule,” in a reference to Warren E. Buffett, the billionaire investor who has complained repeatedly that the richest Americans generally pay a smaller share of their income in federal taxes than do middle-income workers, because investment gains are taxed at a lower rate than wages.
Mr. Obama will not specify a rate or other details, and it is unclear how much revenue his plan would raise. But his idea of a millionaires’ minimum tax will be prominent in the broad plan for long-term deficit reduction that he will outline at the White House on Monday.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
If we want to talk fairness, how about requiring all welfare recipients in good health to work at least 10 hours a week. They could go to nursing homes and help out. They could clean parks, roads, etc. They could cut the grass of the disabled.
If Buffett and others are inclined, they may donate all of their personal wealth toward debt reduction. Instead, you see Buffett in court attempting to wiggle his way out of millions in tax liability.
I think it would be better if gov’t just confiscated all net worth over $1 million. That would fix it. Right? /s Nobody needs over a $ million and any body has it must be evil anyway.
BFD, it’s the LOOP HOLES Zero. Close those. Oh that’s right your donors wouldn’t like THAT.
So, Barry has named it the “Buffett Rule” in an effort to try to shame Warren Buffett into paying some taxes?
Let’s make the tax rate 13% across the board for everything over $25k (indexed for inflation). No deductions, not tax breaks for anyone.
Agree!
Re-write the tax laws and take out the stupid lookholes that allows GE and millionaires to get away with paying no taxes.
How about a simple flat tax? Everyone pays their share???
Why should one level of income be free while a higher level gets hit hard?
Makes a person not want to climb the ladder of success.
Oh, yeah, I forgot....we have hop0e and change now and everyone is soon going to be in the same level....thanks obummer!
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett triggered a major debate over taxes recently when he wrote in The New York Times that he should be paying more to the federal government. He called on Washington lawmakers to up tax rates on the rich.
But it turns out that Buffett’s own company, Berkshire Hathaway, has had every opportunity to pay more taxes over the last decade. Instead, it’s been mired in a protracted legal battle with the Internal Revenue Service over a bill that one analyst estimates may total $1 billion.
http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/buffett-irs-back-taxes/2011/09/01/id/409520
A new week, a new tax, they both just keep coming
More waivers for donors?
It morphed into the "Alternative Minimum Tax" (AMT) for similar reasons.
Now we're back to the "Minimum Tax" name.
This is more of the same "solution" to the same "problem" expecting a different result.
Somebody making a million dollars a year is a long, long ways from being in Buffett’s league...
That’s not even enough to have your own private jet...
This tax will do nothing positive for the deficit, its just more Obama poison.
You are much too logical. Liberals would swear you are speaking Klingon.
It's the largely Democrats who fight like hell for the corrupt status quo and leviathan code offering favors.
We must ask ourselves: if this REFORM was so CRITICAL, the system so UNFAIR, WHY did Obama and Pelosi and Reid NOT push it through during 2009 & 2010.
And if you don't think it's ever going to apply to you, you must be completely oblivious to the Obama inflation that is about to compound his depression.
Make the tax rate 15% period. Not index, no deductions, no “earned tax credits” nothing. If people want to vote to increase the rate, it applies to everyone equally including themselves.
Or...
If you have a minimum threshold that is indexed to inflation then those who fall under it have no federal vote that year period.
Those are the ONLY ways to have an ethical vote. No more voting to tax someone else for what you want. That is the base source of our governmental problems. The founding father recognized that and only allowed those who paid taxes to vote and those were essentially the land owners.
Let’s be honest.
We have nearly 50% of people not paying federal income taxes. That lies at the feet of both Bush’s who while cutting taxes exempted larger and larger proportions of the public from paying federal income taxes. It is extremely dangerous - as in the country’s economic collapse - to exempt half the population from paying federal income taxes while they retain the right to vote for more goodies from the federal government and to vote to take more from the ones left who do pay the taxes.
“This is the alternative minimum tax all over again.”
Yes it is. Stupid all over again...
Obama, you dense, theiving moron . . . quit talking about more revenue and CUT SPENDING BIGTIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So is he going to raise the upper marginal rate, in which case calling it the “Buffet Rule” will be a complete misnomer, since it has nothing to do with capital gains, which how Buffet earns his income, or is he increasing the capital gains rate? Or is this an entirely new tax on investments? In any event, could it be more of an economy killer? Wow.
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