# Obama's Pass the Buffett Rule **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 17, 2012, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-pass-the-buffett-rule/619077 "2012-04-17T19:20:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Dob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Dob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dob)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-pass-the-buffett-rule/619077/81 "2012-04-24T18:33:44Z")
I had my taxes done at H&R block, and they have a calculator for effective tax rate % they show you at the end. Mine was 19.6% which the analyst even joked was more than Mitt’s. I did mine on the Obama calculator and got 20.1% which isn’t that far off. dont think any lying is going on, I just dont think any of us understand the damn complicated tax code. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-pass-the-buffett-rule/619077/82 "2012-04-24T21:28:37Z")
> [@LonghornDave](#): > > Yes I do think this; however, it means a smaller tax rate relative to their income or wealth. It could be like sales tax and be regressive even though it has the same specific sales tax rate. That’s why you need to look at it as tax dollars paid relative to income. > > By definition, a flat tax is not regressive. It is flat. You could say that a flat tax is regressive when using discretionary income. That can also be a very good way of looking at it and analyzing tax policy. > The top 10% is flat, not regressive. You have to switch definitions of income to only talking about discretionary income if you want to call it regressive. That’s fine if you want to do that, but it doesn’t really belong in this specific thread. Also, any workable system is going to have a somewhat stairstep look to it with some points on the curve flat. You would have to have a whole lot more divisions in the tax bracket otherwise. Also, you are now just arguing semantics instead of substance. You have now stated that: 1) the tax bracket is progressive for the bottom **90%** of taxpayers; and 2) whether a person would call the overall system progressive a matter of opinion. However, you chastized me earlier for saying the overall system was progressive in a comment specifically about the middle class. I don’t disagree that it is flat at the top. I don’t disagree that the system could be more progressive. So, what exactly are you trying to disagree with me about again? I don’t know how you could judge a system to be regressive or progressive without considering marginal utility, which is a lot more of a precise measure than “discretionary dollars.” After all we heard the bankers crying that none of their money was discretionary since they had all those nanny expenses. I’d say that the only fair tax system was a flat tax, but flat in terms of marginal utility, not by percent of income paid after the floor. If we use that as a measure, then the flat tax is indeed regressive, and the effectively flat tax at high income levels is regressive also. If I plotted your tax rate data as modified by some reasonable marginal utility figure, this would be clear. Mathematically you can isolate portions of taxpayers and see if the system is progressive for that portion. I think the system is probably reasonably progressive up to the middle class under this analysis. However in terms of tax policy, you have to look at everyone. If it is regressive at the top, then either the bottom 90% is paying too much or the government is getting too little, and we have debt, loss of services, or both. If you don’t think marginal utility should be used, what would you use? Lots of people seem to want to justify taxes based on the benefit society provides to each person, but I think this is impossible to calculate and is obviously not identical for all those at one level of taxable income. Clearly any system could be tweaked to be somewhat more progressive, but our system is extremely regressive at high levels of income, so tweaking is not good enough. ---
**Author:** ![Nancarrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c37758/32.png) [@Nancarrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nancarrow)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2012, 9:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-pass-the-buffett-rule/619077/83 "2012-04-26T09:30:28Z")
> [@bucketybuck](#): > > I come to the pit you watch all you 'mercians fighting with each other You’re a bit late for that, but I dare say you’ll find many of their descendants here. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-pass-the-buffett-rule/619077.md?page=4)