| Author | Message | ||
     Drkside79 |
Billionaire Warren Buffett urged U.S. lawmakers to raise taxes on the country's super-rich to help cut the budget deficit, saying such a move will not hurt investments. "My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It's time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice," The 80-year-old "Oracle of Omaha" wrote in an opinion article in The New York Times. Buffett, one of the world's richest men and chairman of conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway Inc , said his federal tax bill last year was $6,938,744. "That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income - and that's actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent," he said. Lawmakers engaged in a partisan battle over spending and taxes for more than three months before agreeing on August 2 to raise the $14.3 trillion U.S. debt ceiling, avoiding a U.S. default. "Americans are rapidly losing faith in the ability of Congress to deal with our country's fiscal problems. Only action that is immediate, real and very substantial will prevent that doubt from morphing into hopelessness," Buffett said. Buffett said higher taxes for the rich will not discourage investment. "I have worked with investors for 60 years and I have yet to see anyone - not even when capital gains rates were 39.9 percent in 1976-77 - shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain," he said "People invest to make money, and potential taxes have never scared them off." | ||
| Gregtonn |
The problem is not what the super rich do with their money. The problem is what the government does with ours. G | ||
| Darth_villar |
I know I didn't pay nearly 7 million in taxes last year. Those evil rich people... | ||
| Sifo |
Billionaire Warren Buffett urged U.S. lawmakers to raise taxes on the country's super-rich to help cut the budget deficit, saying such a move will not hurt investments. This statement would carry much more weight if he were to lead by example and voluntarily pay the amount that he thinks the rich should pay. | ||
| Xl1200r |
I applaud his sentiment and willingness to "do his part"... But he openly admits that his low tax rate was an exception more than a rule. If I was the guy who paid out 41%, I don't think I feel coddled in the least. | ||
| Drkside79 |
As he said he only paid 17.4% his point was why did he pay that when those who made less in hi office paid a higher %. I am for EVERYONE paying the same %. So if that 30% be 2,000 or 20 million. You pay it. Period | ||
| Reindog |
Dark, I agree with you but your position is not popular with Leftist ideology. Everyone paying the same percentage is considered "unfair" to lower income people. I am more concerned with the 49% of earners paying zero or receiving a tax credit. Attacking the rich always ends up dinging the Middle Class. | ||
| Fahren |
He surely paid as little as the tax laws allowed him to pay - why would he pay more unless compelled to? There is no need for him to "lead by example" in this, and he makes it clear that he would pay if the tax code compelled him to do so. It's an important statement to make, I'm glad he made it. He made an excellent point by showing that he, as a billionaire, is paying a lower % of his income into taxes than all of the other twenty people in his office, who are surely making very good money, but not in his range. And he made another excellent, direct observation that higher taxes do not deter the wealthy from investing; this is in direct contradiction to those who would warn of higher taxes causing a dis-incentive. Nevertheless, this is all beside the point. All we are going to see is higher taxes and more austerity measures until the debt is paid down. More and more of federal revenue will be siphoned out of real programs and services, and have to go into the federal debt service (interest payments on the debt). So fasten your seat belts for a roller coaster ride of long duration, featuring inevitable tax hikes and huge stripping away of government funded services, from roads to education to after school programs for kids to social programs to you-name-it.... except the military, of course. Can't mess with the military-industrial complex! | ||
| Fahren |
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- "The fastest way to make the tax-averse incensed is to tell them that nearly half of U.S. households end up owing no federal income tax when all is said and done. But like most statistics, it is often misunderstood -- and, in the case of those trying to stir political outrage, misrepresented." (emphasis added by me} http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/14/pf/taxes/who_pays_ income_taxes/index.htm | ||
| Sifo |
And he made another excellent, direct observation that higher taxes do not deter the wealthy from investing; this is in direct contradiction to those who would warn of higher taxes causing a dis-incentive. This statement is so false that a grade schooler could understand it. If I have a dollar that I can invest but the government takes that dollar away, how much will I invest? This isn't rocket science. And please don't tell me about the government "investing" it. That isn't a function of our government as it's defined, nor should it be. Not that they would be able to invest it as well as the person who actually earned the dollar. | ||
| Reindog |
That article is so silly to the point of being ridiculous. The article freely admits that nearly half of tax earners pay no Federal income taxes which is what this argument is about. There is nothing to "misunderstand". Stating that they pay FICA is just spinning and has nothing to do with the FACT. Everyone needs skin in the game. | ||
| Fahren |
Oh yeah, I forgot - you guys have it all figured out already : - ) | ||
| Drkside79 |
I take that back i still believe people should get dependent breaks up to a certain point. say 2 or 3 | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
Ah, Warren Buffett, the favorite token billionaire of the left. His tax rate is low because the majority of his income isn't EARNED. Raising tax rates on earned income won't do anything to change Buffett's tax bill. He is intellectually dishonest, and he knows it. He is free to cut an extra check to the IRS any time he wants. Send the IRS a check for $14M. That will put you in the 35% tax bracket. I say it's time to stop coddling the bottom 50% who aren't paying their fair share. It's not just about tax revenues. It's about forcing the bottom 50% to decide how much "support" they need from the Federal government vs. how much more they could do on their own. There needs to not be a single citizen that isn't paying at least something into the Federal coffers. Progressives can never tell you what constitutes a "fair share". They will simply claim "more" needs to be paid by the rich. We are producing a feral dependency class that when the tank runs dry (which it always will) behave like baboons, bypass the state, and take that which they feel entitled. Usually taking it from those who bear the largest burden in the creation of the entitlement state. (See England) | ||
| Doerman |
Focus on the spending addiction. | ||
| Court |
I went to my 40th high school reunion last week. One of my best friends, when I was a kid, went into a coma when we were in 3rd grade. For 3 years he was deep in a coma while his folks kept the arrangements for his funeral on hold. The Doctors gave him no chance of recovery. Suddenly one day . . . Tyler's eyes opened and he "woke up". He'd lost all function, his arms and legs were paralyzed. He had little memory other than faces and couldn't speak. Tyler is as hard headed as Erik Buell. He started, with lots of help from his folks, learning to talk, to read and generally worked his ass off and rejoined our group in high school. By the time I returned to college after the USMC he too was in college and attending in his wheel chair daily. . using his mouth to control the chair. One day he hit the edge of a sidewalk ramp which tossed the chair and he lay in a dark street for a couple hours. When he was "recovered" he didn't complain, just bitched about missing the time to do homework. He graduated and started a business doing telephone sales and then he bought a couple franchises for those stupid racks of toys and stuff you see in car washed and convenience stores. Within a year he was writing a sports column and saved enough money to buy a custom handicap conversion VW vanagon. Being on the phone constantly . . he would win Kansas City Royals tickets about once a week and call me in the office . ."come get me, we're going to the Royals game". He and I became a local spectacle (I still remind him that he always won the cheapest seats in the house) as we'd roll his chair to the mezzanine and as the staff scrambled to offer us more convenient seats, I'd just toss him over my shoulder and walk to the top of the nose bleed section . . we generally got a rousing round of applause. He never asked for any special treatment beyond what he had to have as a result of having no functioning arms or legs. Two years later Tyler called me . . . he had a favor to ask. He asked me to leave Topeka, take a flight to San Diego, visit with local handicap organizations, find him and apartment and put down a deposit. . . and keep it all on the QT. I did what he asked. He explained it to me . . . "look, my parents are truly the handicapped in this deal. It's not normal to be giving your 30 year old son a bath and having to put his pajamas on. They'll do this until the day they die and miss their entire life. They'll never kick me out, I've got to leave". He did. He moved to San Diego . . . excelled in every business venture he got into . . . got married and is enjoying the hell out of the Southern California climate 25 years later. My point . . . . We spoke last week and he laughed . . "I make a good living, run a business, use a disproportionate level of services yet pay not a plug nickel in taxes because someone feels sorry for me . . it's a national joke." Tyler is among that 50% that includes not only the lazy and the slackers . . but also the truly unfortunate that we SHOULD help and a bunch of folks who we simply decide shouldn't pay taxes. In his opinion, it's not only wrong . . it's demeaning. His attitude is "laugh at me for my arms flopping around, but don't deny me the rights and responsibilities of being a contributing citizen". We REALLY need to take a look at our tax system. The ever popular Buffet example fails to tell us that Buffet's income is passive capital gains, not ordinary earned income. There is, for historical reasons that may too warrant revisiting, sound reason for the rates being different. They also fail. . . the "tax the wealthy" table pounders . . . to acknowledge that if we seized ALL the assets of ALL the billionaires and millionaires in the USA that it wouldn't so much as make a dent in the deficit at the rate it is currently (for the first time in history) growing. For those of you who need to blame Bush . . you are indeed correct. Bush was a spending fool. In addition to the couple of wars . . spending went way up. Now for the punch line . . Obama is spending at about 4 times the rate Bush was. Thank you . . from me to the rest of you . . for spending $2,500,000.00 last month to "teach Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly". We have become quite disconnected, as Tyler pointed out . . . with what government should do and how they should do it. | ||
| Honolulu_blue_esq |
Sifo: You are kind of misstating the debate, in my opinion. Say Mr. X has $1.00. He has the option to (1) spend it; (2) put it in his sock drawer; or (3) invest it. Our economy likes the spending option and the investing option, but not so much the sock drawer option. This debate is about the investing part. The conservative theory is that the degree to which folks will invest money they already have has an inverse relationship to the amount that their return on investment will be taxed. So, back to Mr. X. Assume that his return on investment before taxes is 30%, turning his $1.00 into $1.30 if he invests it. But then the taxes come in. If his taxes are 10% of what he earned from his investment, his $1.30 is reduced to $1.27. If his taxes are reduced to $1.21, etc. The conservative mantra is that the higher his taxes go, the less his ultimate return on investment is, and the less likely he is to chose the invest option for the $1.00 he started with in the first place over the spending and saving option (because it gets less and less worth it for him to do so). Apparently Old Warren believes that people will invest the dollar they already have at the same rate whether they expect to end up with $1.23 or $1.20 or $1.26 or etc. I'll take it from him, given that he has more experience deciding what to do with large sums of money than I do. | ||
| Honolulu_blue_esq |
Sifo: In Court's touching story, he says Tyler wants to pay his fair share, and that he thinks he isn't currently doing so. You say of Warren: "This statement would carry much more weight if he were to lead by example and voluntarily pay the amount that he thinks the rich should pay." Do you think Tyler should write a check to the Feds? Court: You say "They also fail. . . the "tax the wealthy" table pounders . . . to acknowledge that if we seized ALL the assets of ALL the billionaires and millionaires in the USA that it wouldn't so much as make a dent in the deficit at the rate it is currently (for the first time in history) growing." I agree with you here, but we should probably acknowledge that the "tax the poor table pounders" fail to acknowledge that we could tax all of those folks at 99% of their earned income AND capital gains and it wouldn't amount to much either. You also say: "Thank you . . from me to the rest of you . . for spending $2,500,000.00 last month to "teach Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly"." I've got a friend who travels regularly to China on business. He says the only thing worse than a drunk Chinese prostitute is a sober one. Thus, you can add my name to the list of those who think this was a bad investment. | ||
| Doerman |
All this talk about how to raise taxes on rich and corporations amount to the guy having a garage sale to bail his house out of default. Nice gesture - not working. We have a spending problem!!!!!! Make immediate and meaningful budget cuts - now! | ||
| Macbuell |
I'm sorry but we simply cannot fix the debt problem with just cuts alone. I agree that taxes on the Rich should be raised. I just don't agree with Obama and the Dems on what they call Rich. In this day and age, if you make $250K you aren't rich. Not even close. But I would have a hard time making that argument at $500K. And there is no way I could make that argument at $1M. In other words, I'd be ok with raising taxes (within reason, not substantially) for those making over $500K. What I would really like to see though is the Fair Tax implemented. In that case, the Rich will pay more because the spend more. | ||
| Two_seasons |
}The problem IS the spending. Local, State, and Federal "leaders" just can't help themselves when it comes to our money. They have less taxes coming in, so they borrow more. If you are truly concerned about the future of this nation and that of your posterity, ask your local city controller what percentage of the annual budget is being bonded out. It will shock you! | ||
| Fahren |
Spending cuts and increase in income are two very good strategies for getting personal finances under control, and they have traditionally worked ok for government. However, left and right have been borrowing to spend for so long now that we have not an "entitlement" spending problem; not a "tax" (government revenue) problem; we have a DEBT problem. Americans have been consigned to debt slavery. You can say this was perpetrated by "Entity X," and I could say it was done by "Entity Z," but it is done nonetheless. And we, and what's worse, our kids and their kids, have been sold into this debt slavery. IT'S A PONZI SCHEME. Take it out now, pay later. Kick that can down the road. Just keep printing money and doling it out to the TBTF banks, and we'll all foot the bill - no worries, as the ratio of GDP to interest payments on the debt goes off the charts. Good luck working on substantially reducing that deficit by slashing social spending, fire-sales on public infrastructure and raising taxes. Yes, those austerity measures will surely lead to socio-political unrest (see England, Greece, Spain), on the one hand, and angry taxpayers on the other. Sounds like a lose-lose to me. Court and others are correct in pointing to the debt as the core problem - but I don't see solutions through what amounts to minor tweaking of the status quo. | ||
| Honolulu_blue_esq |
We've spend lots and lots of money building and rebuilding foreign nations over the years, most of which haven't been and will never be repaid to us. We've either formally "waived" the right to repayment or never asked for it or just let it go. Assume we say: Sorry China. We can't pay you back. We are writing off our debt to you and returning to an isolationism economic and social policy. What would happen? | ||
| Honolulu_blue_esq |
The Recession (My dad sent me this chain mail thing and it made me laugh) The recession has hit everybody really hard... My neighbour got a pre-declined credit card in the mail. CEO's are now playing miniature golf. Exxon-Mobil laid off 25 Congressmen. A stripper was killed when her audience showered her with rolls of pennies while she danced. I saw a Mormon with only one wife. If the bank returns your check marked "Insufficient Funds" you call them and ask if they meant you or them. McDonald's is selling the 1/4 ouncer. Angelina Jolie adopted a child from America. Parents in Beverly Hills fired their nannies and learned their children's names. My cousin had an exorcism but couldn't afford to pay for it, and they re-possessed her! A truckload of Americans was caught sneaking into Mexico. A picture is now only worth 200 words. When Bill and Hillary travel together they now have to share a room. The Treasure Island casino in Las Vegas is now managed by Somali pirates. Congress says they are looking into this Bernard Madoff scandal. Oh Great! The guy who made $50 Billion disappear is being investigated by the people who made $1.5 Trillion disappear! And, finally... I was so depressed last night thinking about the economy, wars, jobs, my savings, Social Security, retirement funds, etc., I called the Suicide Hotline. I got a call centre inPakistan and when I told them I was suicidal, they got all excited and asked if I could drive a truck. | ||
| Cowboy |
Till we get our unemployment to 4%--start producing our own resorces (energy)The debt will continue to grow. Income tax is B.S. we need to export oil not import it. there is hundreds of ways to grow the economy with private money if the socialist bastard in Washington would just get out of the way. When every one is employed. the sales tax will quickly pay off the debt. I would like to know how many of the tax raising experts here have ever worked in corp.management? | ||
| 86129squids |
Honolulu- LOL, Thanks!! Gonna forward that one... | ||
| Cityxslicker |
Will not hurt the riches ability or propensity to invest.... they just may not do it here. Its a global market, and a metric tons of that 'money' is going overseas. Never entering the US economy, never touching the tax tables. | ||
| Honolulu_blue_esq |
"Its a global market, and a metric tons of that 'money' is going overseas. Never entering the US economy, never touching the tax tables." If the investment pays off, the money touches the U.S. tax tables via capital gains. If you are a U.S. Citizen you don't get off the hook just by making all your investments foreign. | ||
| Mtjm2 |
If Mr.Buffett and the rest of the RICH LEFTIES want to pay more , they can , BUT THEY DONT !! | ||
| Kenm123t |
HBE If you work out of the country long enough you do. Thats how it was explained to me When I was looking at going to work for the state dept. Handling the Embassies But I had to live off the compound. complicated but workable |
