No - he is doing the same for both: counting the total of federal income tax and payroll taxes.
Others have explained why this is wrong.
The numbers at the link are if all income both earned and capital gains are taxed at certain rates.
Tax incidence is the most important part of tax policy, as the object of tax policy is to raise as much money with as little harm as possible. Knowing the tax incidence will let us know how much harm is done and to whom. Tax incidence is important because if the purpose of a tax is to target rich people but the incidence falls on the poor or middle class then the tax policy has failed.
The wikipedia article about tax incidence is a good one
Cite that Buffet has a modest lifestyle.
Cite that Berkshire Hathaway paid 5.6 billion in tax
Are there any other factual claims I have made that I did not have cites for?
For those who do not want to wade through the article about tax incidence the upshot in this case is that whatever tax money this proposal would raise from Mr Buffett, it would ultimately be paid by the recipients of the Gates Foundation, which are mostly poor children in the US and sick children in Africa.
We should not tax rich people because they will gie the money to charity if we don’t? As I said before, if his rate is 17% then presumably he gets 17 cents on the dollar refund. How much he gave to charity is probably not dependent of tax rates, tax refunds, etc. It does not sound like he gives to the point where he needs all the rest to support his lifestyle. More likely he gives a part of his large disposable income that he feels like giving, and a somewhat higher tax rate won’t change that.
My comments were not about rich people in general but Mr Buffett in particular. He has announced plans to give all his money away Cite No matter how much you raise his taxes it is almost impossible to raise it enough to impact the amount of hamburgers he eats or force him into a smaller house. What it will do is reduce the total amount of money he has which will lower the amount of money he gives to Gates. This will result in fewer bed nets and tutors.
Most rich people are not Buffett so it makes no sense to design tax laws around him, but it shows how important tax indicidence is when designing a tax policy.
I don’t see any indication that that’s the case–when people talk about tax policy, they are almost always talking about “income tax”, and excluding Schedule D Capital Gains Tax.
Looking at the actual stat source link of tax returns for people with Schedule D income calculations, (Table 4a, 2008) the total effective tax rate for people over $1mil in reported income using Schedule D is around 25.49%. This calculation was performed by doing a weighted average using the total returns filed (column 1) and tax paid as a percentage of AGI (column 22). Already we’re different from the article’s number (29.1%), therefore he is not using the charts that include Schedule D, therefore he is not talking about Capital Gains tax.
Additionally, if we take a straight 35% of the AGI (column 2) from that Table, we find that a theoretical 35% rate the total taxes generated from those reporting more than $1mil income including Schedule D would pay a total of $299 billion in tax on an aggregate reported income of $855 Billion.
Incidentally, taxing cap gains at 35% as straight regular income WOULD take a nice big bite out of the deficit, looking at that. That’s almost 20% of the deficit right there.
I’m sorry your link was used to prove you wrong. 
So how does this Buffet Law work…do I get to pay the same tax rate as my secretary?
A little help please… I may be able to reduce my withholdings.
Indeed. It is in the very rules of the law that you will pay exactly the same rate as your secretary. In fact, if you don’t have a secretary the law won’t apply to you. Because politicians never talk in analogies or metaphors.
It means you, personally, have to pay 100% of your income in taxes. And hire a secretary.
What can I say, Buffet doesn’t like you for some reason.
Nice… my secretary gets an earned income credit !
Ok, but is this significant? Of course it is: the Washington Post’s editorial board never misses a chance to coddle conservatives with false equivalences and factually challenged claims. But even WAPO noted that the top 400 taxpayers paid an average of 18.1% of their income in federal taxes, down from 30% in 1995. They then go through the tax rates of various quintiles, conveniently ignoring payroll taxes which cap out at about $107,000. Then they baffling downplay hedge fund managers taking advantage of the covered interest loophole which permits them to apply a top rate of 15%.
Meanwhile somebody making $35,000 per year will pay 14.2 percent income tax added to 12.4% payroll tax for a grand total of 26.6%. (I’m adding in the employer contribution, since taxes on labor are more likely to fall on employees via lower wages than on the company). The Buffet rule addresses something real, only if you believe that 15% < 18% < 26%. Otherwise it doesn’t matter and there’s really no reason to oppose closing such loopholes.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/obama-taxes-and-the-buffett-rule/2011/09/20/gIQAXdd0iK_blog.html
:nitpick: I just realized something. I agree that it is not a mistake to count employer contributions as part of employees tax rate, but if you do, you should also count them as income. Once you add that extra 6.2% to the income you find that the effective tax rate is “only” 25% in your example.
Correct. And why not also allow for Medicare - 2.9% extra tax and 1.45% extra income. This should be added to the high-earners’ figures also as there is no cap.