Sandwich–a person can take measures to increase the amount of income tax they pay if they want to. I, for example, choose not to report any charitable contributions even though I could because I want to present a very simple return since I’m in a high audit category. Similarly, Buffett could generally* pay a higher tax rate than his secretary by simply reporting capital gains as ordinary income or under-reporting his basis. If you want to characterize the additional amount as “charitable contributions to the government” instead of “taxes,” then that’s all well and good, but it doesn’t change the fact that Buffett could personally pay more and chooses not to.
*This would only work for investments held directly by Buffett and not through an entity (eg, a partnership) where character is determined at the entity level.
I realize IdahoMaeleMan seems to just enjoying being willfully obtuse, but perhaps he can answer this question: If Buffett were to pay off all of the current US debt today, how would that improve our unbalanced tax laws?
The fact that Buffett could personally pay more and chooses not to does not change the fact that his receptionist doesn’t have that choice and as a consequence must pay double what what wealthy investors must. Seriously, not even the most militant flat-taxer would suggest that it’s OK that poorer people must pay a higher tax rate than richer people.
Rand, you know better than to dismiss an argument for higher taxes by sdaying “well if they want to pay more taxes, then they should go right ahead and give more money to the gtovetrnment and let the rest of us keep our money”
Our tax system is little more than the formula that we use to determine how the tax burden should be distributed. With current low levels of taxation we have placed the tax burden on future generations. At these tax rates we CANNOT grow our way out of deficits, we CANNOT cut our way out of deficits unless we are willing to cut medicare/medicaid, social security and the military, and we also CANNOT balance the budget on tax increases.
We need to do all of the above, including tax increases. The question is who bears the burden of thsoe tax increases. Buffett is making the argument that these tax increases (iven the current situation) are best borne by wealthier folks.
Damuri–where did I dismiss an argument by saying that? I was just pointing out that you and others are wrong when you say that it’s not possble for Buffett to voluntarily pay more in tax.
FWIW my circle of friends and family includes some with high incomes, high enough to be in the current highest marginal bracket anyway. Several of them believe that taxes on their own income group should go up. None of them feels that they should give more in taxes than what the government is asking from them or what they can legally avoid.
There is no hypocrisy in that position. On the contrary it does mean something when someone is supportive of that which is against their own self-interest because they believe that if implemented for all in their income bracket it would be more fair and better for society overall.
He can (I don’t claim my charitible contributions either for similar reasons and pay more in taxes than I would if I minimized my tax burden through legal and ethical means) - but I don’t think what the IRS would let him get away with under audit would be much more than his current burden.
Then he could donate to the Treasury. He is not choosing to - that we know of.
The freakonomics blog discussed this a while back. The problem (lower/middle income people paying a lower rate than upper people) extends below the Buffet level.
The fact that you consider any of these (with the exception of Obama is a…) to be basic facts that conservatives are wrong about shows how dogmatic you are and how willing you are to march in lockstep with the left. You seem willing to accept these “basic facts” as gospel. Most of your examples are indeed debate-worthy. Oh, and the argument is that ACORN was guilty of voter registration fraud.
That’s not an argument. ACORN wasn’t guilty of anything. Some of its employees were attempting to fraudulently register voters, and ACORN flagged those registrations and fired the responsible employees.
According to http://www.ftb.ca.gov/aboutFTB/Tax_Statistics/Rev_Est_Exhibits_0510.pdf, 118,900 highest-earning taxpayers (based on returns, so it could be couples) in 2008 were responsible for 40.6% of the total CA income tax liability. That makes the numbers in the Economist article (144,000 and 50%) seem quite likely to be true.