Posted on 09/30/2011 9:33:19 AM PDT by bobsunshine
CNBC: "Are you happy that the way it is being described. Is the program that the White House has presented a million dollars and over your program? " Warren Buffett: "Well, the precise program which will -- I don't know what their program will be. My program would be on the very high incomes that are taxed very low. Not just high incomes. Somebody making $50 million a year playing baseball, his taxes won't change. Make $50 million a year appearing on television, his income won't change. But, if they make a lot of money and pay a very low tax rate, like me, it would be changed by a minimum tax that would only bring them up to what other people pay." CNBC: "Does that mean you disagree with the president's new jobs proposal which would be paid for by raising taxes on households with incomes of over $250,000." Buffett: "That's another program that I won't be discussing. My program is to have a tax on ultra-rich people who are very tax rates. Not just all rich people. It would probably apply to 50,000 people in a population of 300 million."
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
By the way, Warren, when do we get to see your tax return so we know exactly what we need to fix???
Dear warren....and the horse you rode in on.
What confuses me about this whole thing is that, aside from the wisdom of any increase in taxes, the Buffett Rule doesn’t really solve the perceived problem.
For starters, if you are a top income earner, your income tax rate is higher than those who make less money, so the premise that Buffett’s starting rate is lower than his secretary’s is incorrect. If he ends up paying at a lower rate, that is due to exemptions and other loopholes. The Buffett Rule does not address those loopholes, so the wealthy can still utilize them to trim their tax rate (or eliminate it).
If the argument is that those who are wealthy derive their wealth less from income than investments, and that the capital gains tax is lower than some people’s income tax, its an apples to oranges comparison. Moreover, if we assume that is true (rich get money from investments; cap gains is less than income tax), the Buffett rule does not address that.
Long story short, if there is a “problem” with the tax rates, the Buffett Rule doesn’t fix it.
That old brain is losing it’s mojo quickly!
Similar arguments were made for the monstrous alternative minimum tax. Heck, similar arguments were made for the original income tax in 1913.
I haven't seen any specifics laid out, but it sounds like an alternative alternative-minimum-tax which will hit those who make most of their money from capital gains and dividends. So if you are a successful business man who has built up a business over a lifetime and you decide to sell - bam! extra tax over the capital gains rate. If you are a farmer whose land has become valuable because people are moving into the area - bam! extra tax if you sell a few hundred acres to a developer. Have a second home that you decide to sell - bam! pay a rate well above the normal capital gains rate.
We'll call it the "Warren Buffet / Emeril Lagasse" tax.
I am as shocked to hear this as I was to learn that Buffett also doesn’t endorse paying his own income taxes.
Could there be a Nobel Prize for economics in the works for this genius?
“By the way, Warren, when do we get to see your tax return so we know exactly what we need to fix???”
Apparently, Warren is in ‘discussion’ with the IRS concerning overpayment of taxes. Mr. ‘I want to pay more in taxes’ believes he’s paid too much according to today’s tax regulations.
If he is claiming his rate is lower, that I might believe. He is a guy who lives by creating capital gains. Still, he would be paying way, way more tax than his secretary.
Are his deductions from his big foundation so big that it shelters all his income? If so, show us the numbers.
He needs to come clean before the country makes a policy mistake based on a false premise that Warren's class pays no taxes.
This guy is such a dumb ass. From an article on the forum 7 to 10 days ago, out of 237,000 people who earned more than a million dollars per year, only 1470 paid no taxes. That’s about 0.6%. That means that 99.4% paid taxes, and the article pegged the average at 29.1%.
Any guy that’s paying $291,000 on every million they made in a tax year, is paying their fair share. IMO, they’re paying far more than their fair share.
Buffet misled the public. He enabled Obama to mess with millionaires. Every $291,000 taken from the public sector, is $291,000 that won’t be re-invested in the private sector.
Taking at least $291,000 from each person who earned a million dollars, removes $68.967 billion from our economy, and that’s just if they made only a million. Many of these folks earn multiple millions. We could easily be talking about half a trillion dollars removed from the private sector each year by this level of taxation on ‘the rich’.
Payrolls, reinvestment, job creation, overall tax revenues, they all suffer due to over taxation.
The Obama administration can’t focus on creating jobs, since they’re obviously so focused on exterminating them.
Greedy rich people invest their money. Those investments create jobs. I have never seen even one job created by a poor non-greedy person.
Entrepreneurship, is not evil Mr. President, and it puts the socialist collective to shame every time they go up against each other.
Have you ever heard of China, Mr. President? Do you think poor people caused the explosion in business over there? No, the companies that used to operate in the United States did.
Even a fifth grader should be able to figure this one out. Sadly our president is stuck on nine years old.
Oops. (chuckle, snort)
Buffett deserves to fail. When he attacks wealth creators, who of course are the major investors, he is directly attacking his client base.
I hope he fails.
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