> Cyrus Afzali wrote:
>> On Fri, 25 Jan 2008 22:14:35 -0600, JCrowe
hotrats.org>
>> wrote:>>> While that may be true, the taxes paid by Warren Buffett dwarf
>>> probably all of his employees combined. My own take is that everybody
>>> should pay a much lower gross amount and a much lower tax rate. This
>>> can only happen, though, if the government reins in it's overwhelming
>>> urge to spend money without end.
>>
>> Not necessarily. Everything that's quoted is about his net worth; his
>> annual compensation is actually quite small relative to his wealth and
>> he tends not to exercise many stock option grants. While his net worth
>> is $52 billion, his annual compensation is only around $100K. Also,
>> Berkshire-owned companies employee tens of thousands.
>
> So, if Warren Buffett pays 17.7%% on an AGI of $100K, then he's not
> making an annual income much higher than his employees. I suspect that
> his wealth consists of a lot more than stock options.....I suspect that
> he has a lot of diversified assets including BH shares. So, other than
> taxing capital gains, are you folks advocating taxing at even higher
> rates the things rich people already own? Just curious.
>
Assuming his $100K "salary" is about the same as his secretary's... yeah,
why should he pay a little over half what the secretary is paying?
As far as capital gains, that's already a done deal. El Shrub got that down
to around 15 percent, which is LESS than half what the average $100K wage
slave pays
Seeing as how both conservatives and more than a few libertarians have
argued for flat taxes over the years at different times, it would surely
seem the tables have turned entirely, with lower income folks paying a
significantly higher percentage of their income to taxes.
Look, I understand the middle income people have always paid and will always
pay a statistically larger share of the national tax burden. What concerns
me now is that the worry over "soaking the rich" has left them with an even
larger share of the pie and smaller share of the burden... especially when
you consider the scare tatics used over the inheritance tax to bail out the
Waltons a couple years back.
And, of course, that did not simply come from Bush and Company. The big lie
convinced more than a few in Congress, never mind average families for whom
the inheritance tax was NEVER gonna even be a minor issue.
Neither was the change in capital gains, as the "profit" from the sale of
the family farm is miniscule when compared to your CEO (like Fiorina(sp?) or
the asswipe who helped to ruin our old parent company here) getting
settlements that could buy and sell ten of those family farms several times
over.
Never mind what one thinks of taxes, in general, as none of us particularly
loves 'em, but when a billionaire steps up and says this ain't fair, it just
might be time to take a listen.
