“If Mr. Buffett (or anybody else) isn’t paying enough in taxes, then he’s only got himself to blame. He could easily choose to make an extra contribution to the I.R.S.”
NO, NO, NO, NO!!! This is where the conservative argument - “let the rich voluntarily pay more if they want” - loses power.
IN FACT: they already pay more. Buffet and obama lie.
See...
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-29/buffett-tax-explained-using-hippopotamus-and-oxpecker
That is disgusting. To the extent that it is true - that some members of the middle class would be cheered up to see taxes raised on the wealthy - the idea of America has failed. What would improve my morale would be to see government spending cut to the levels under Bill Clinton's last budget (not enough of a cut but a great start!), and taxes cut by the same percentage of taxes paid for all Americans, or even better to a flat tax. Warren Buffet and his companies (Geico, Fruit of the Loom, Benjamin Moore, Pampered Chef, See's Candies, Dairy Queen, and others) have now joined GM, Chrysler, CITI, and the other TARP/Bailout companies on my permanent boycott list.
Mr. Buffett seeks to capitalize, however on the far more base emotion of envy, to justify taking the rewards of hard work, risk taking, and, in some cases dumb luck.
That is not the ticket to riches for anyone, especially as the onus will likely fall not on those who are genuinely rich, but on the more prosperous of the middle class instead.
That's an interesting question. What makes it even more interesting is that higher tax rates for "the rich" will result in lower revenue from "the rich," just as the lower tax rates resulted in higher revenue. Therefore, the rich will actually pay lower taxes, while the envious are simply imagining they pay more. What a waste of a life, being that person.
Buffet’s father was a Republican congressman, but I don’t know if he was “republican”?
The article’s argument regarding double taxation of dividends fails to take into account the most important fact. That is, dividends are typically paid out from AFTER-TAX corporate profits.
Corporate income tax rates run 35% at the Federal level, another 5% at the State level: that’s a 40% tax before any dividend is distributed. Add the 15% personal tax rate for the dividend on the remaining 60% of after-tax profit, and you’ve got a 49% rate paid on corporate profits. The byzantine IRS code has all sorts of preferences, credits, and so forth that reduce the effective corporate tax rate, so call it 45%.
Raise the personal tax rate to 43% and government gets a whopping 62% of all corporate profits. It is, in effect, the majority shareholder in every enterprise. And this analysis doesn’t include the sales taxes, property taxes, severance taxes, payroll taxes, excise taxes, etc., etc., etc. that corporations pay.
Warren Buffet knows this perfectly well, and his statements are downright Clintonian.
A high dividend tax rate actually makes things easier for the elites who yearn for a coalition of big business and big government. A high dividend rate reduces the pressure to pay dividends, which enables crony capitalists and entrenched corporate executives to retain earnings at the expense of shareholders.
George W. Bush, a guy who every liberal knows is a blithering idiot, was smart enough to understand all of this. That’s precisely why his tax reform cut the dividend tax rate.