Raise Taxes for Super Rich..

Johnny_Doe

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/investing/article-2026326/Warren-Buffett-says-raise-tax-stop-coddling-super-rich.html

Interesting article... Any views?

Loughton_Monkey

Don't pay any attention. The poor boy's 81 later this month, and is clearly demonstrating Alzheimer's.......

It'll be OK once 'nurse' has given him his medication and put him back to bed....

Mr_Mumble

Warren Buffett pays nearly $1bn in corporate taxes per year due to his stake in Berkshire Hathaway.

Buffett hardly pays any income tax because Berkshire Hathaway doesn't pay a dividend.

Warren Buffett probably consumes less than anyone else on the planet as a percentage of his wealth. So, he's not an ordinary taxpayer whether the taxpayer be "super rich" or "poor".

Warren can voluntarily give as much as he likes to the US government but prefers to give it to the Gates Foundation. Why? He obviously think Bill & Melinda Gates are better allocators of capital. Why should other people be forced to give money to the US government due to his advocacy when he doesn't give voluntarily?

Buffett recently complained about Obama's attack on corporate jets.

Plenty more counterpoints at:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterjreilly/2011/08/15/the-real-reason-warren-buffetts-taxes-are-low/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/08/15/warren-buffetts-very-strange-tax-argument/
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2011/08/stop_coddling_w.html
http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2011/08/15/warren-buffetts-fiscal-innumeracy/

bendix

When future dictionaries struggle to come up with a definition for gross hypocrisy, all they need to do is print two words: Warren Buffett.

IronWolf

Dunno why he's getting a hard time, he's always said that the rich need to be taxed more. He's referring to the differences between income tax and capital gains tax.

Poorer people pay more tax as a percentage because they pay it as income tax, whereas the super rich make most of it through capital gains, and therefore pay a lower % of tax.

Thats why he thinks the system is unfair. Hes NOT saying that he doesn't pay enough in income tax and thats why all the talk of dividends is irrelevant. He doesn't pay a dividend because he wants to reinvest in the company, if he needed more money he'd increase his salary.

Also, slagging off his investment strategy as a tax avoiding technique? LOL I think they'll find that his impressive investment returns are not to do with tax avoision its because holding companys long term is a good investment strategy.

FTBFun

IronWolf wrote: »

Dunno why he's getting a hard time, he's always said that the rich need to be taxed more. He's referring to the differences between income tax and capital gains tax.

Err, no he isn't. He's referring to the US system in this article and the Mail have tagged on a bit about how it is in the UK (he says nothing about this - and why should he?)

Does anyone actually bother reading these links?

IronWolf

FTBFun wrote: »

Err, no he isn't. He's referring to the US system in this article and the Mail have tagged on a bit about how it is in the UK (he says nothing about this - and why should he?)

Does anyone actually bother reading these links?

I don't need to read it, I've heard him talk of this numerous times in the past.

But to quote some lines from the article

"Some of us are investment managers who earn billions from our daily labors but are allowed to classify our income as “carried interest,” thereby getting a bargain 15 percent tax rate. Others own stock index futures for 10 minutes and have 60 percent of their gain taxed at 15 percent, as if they’d been long-term investors."

"Last year my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf — was $6,938,744. That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent."

ultrawomble

Seems to me that rich people like to keep their money and assets in relatively secure societies - so tax their houses and lands etc. It's not as if they can move them away.