# Self employment tax on someone who falls below the poverty line - can this be right?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-employment-tax-on-someone-who-falls-below-the-poverty-line-can-this-be-right/717152>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 8, 2015, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-employment-tax-on-someone-who-falls-below-the-poverty-line-can-this-be-right/717152 "2015-04-08T19:32:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 11

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**Author:** ![Habeed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a587f6/32.png) [@Habeed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Habeed)\
**Post date:** [April 8, 2015, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-employment-tax-on-someone-who-falls-below-the-poverty-line-can-this-be-right/717152/11 "2015-04-08T21:27:57Z")

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Uh, isn’t capital gains…like if you sell a company to someone else for millions of dollars…taxed at only 15% and it is **not** subject to the self-employment tax? So when Warren Buffet points out he pays less taxes as a percentage of income than his secretary, this is not because he’s using some crazy tax loopholes?

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