The proposal—spelled out in Mr. Obama's State of the Union address—would impose a 30% minimum tax rate on those who make more than $1 million a year. It is named for the billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who advocates higher taxes on the very wealthy.
March 21, 2012
"Millionaires likely would find legal ways to avoid paying higher taxes under President Barack Obama's proposed 'Buffett Rule'..."
"... a new congressional estimate finds.."
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Apparently, Buffett already has.
Another one of GodZero's bait-and-switch schemes.
Buffet can go to hell.
Millionairesandbillionaires as well as ordinary high earning taxpayers will use legal ways to lower their taxes. This is news to Congress?
I don't believe it.
Yes, and these legal ways would frequently involve the purchase of life insurance as a "deferred income" arrangement.
Mr. Buffett owns how many life insurance companies?
Use the absolute power of the state to take property.
We'll take more from this guy over here than that guy over there.
Someone here please explain how this is "fair", as is always claimed.
I don't think I've yet heard or read even one accurate report on this. The proposal is that marginal dollars above $1m income are taxed at 30%, not a 30% tax rate on those making >$1m/year. These are not the same things.
Thank you Bob but I don't think accuracy matters in here...
In 2006 Warren Buffett announced a gift of the great bulk of his estate to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMG), subject to three conditions. The second condition was, "BMG (or any intermediary) must continue to satisfy legal requirements qualifying my gifts as charitable and not subject to gift or other taxes."
Warren Buffett prefers to have his wealth go untaxed to the objects of his bounty rather than trust the Government to spend it--or even a portion of it--wisely. Smart man.
How about a 50% tax for Warren? Or, better yet, how about Warren pay the millions he owes in back taxes.
Nah. Best to hit up small businesses all while Warren pockets money based on Pelosi-style insider trading.
Quayle said...
Use the absolute power of the state to take property.
We'll take more from this guy over here than that guy over there.
Someone here please explain how this is "fair", as is always claimed.
It's got nothing to do with your definition of "fair", or any objective definition of the word or the concept.
It's got to do with GodZero's definition and the collective (no pun) definition of the closet Communists around him.
PS and very OT: NE OH usually lags behind the country in gas prices.
Yesterday, The Blonde and I noticed they had dipped to the high $3.60s.
Today, they had jumped $.30 to just under $4.
Anybody else around the country see this?
I thought that the “Buffet Rule” was that you got to pick and choose and take as much as of what you want so long as you remember to bring a clean plate each time.
Seriously though – this ought to demonstrate the futility of trying to tailor the tax code for one person’s situation. I suspect Obama would raise more revenue and achieve more “fairness” (whatever that means) if he opted for something like the Simpson-Bowles proposal – lower/consolidate the rates and broaden the base by eliminating deductions/exemptions/credits.
I don't think I've yet heard or read even one accurate report on this.
Even after your comment there still wasn't an accurate report on this.
The Buffet Rule is not a proposal for a new tax bracket of 30% over $1 million. The Buffet Rule, according to the White House, is "to ensure everyone making over a million dollars a year pays a minimum effective tax rate of at least 30%."
They are not talking about marginal rates; they're talking about effective rates.
@Thorley Winston
lowering rates across the board and "broadening the base" is a snare and a delusion that seems reasonable in theory, but the reality is it works only for a short while until the spending pressures that previously caused the rates to rise inevitably assert themselves yet again and calls are just as inevitably made to raise rates "across the board" as a matter of "fairness." Only when this happens, the "tax-breaks"/deductions that were eliminated in response to the lower rates won't be reinstated because it will--again--inevitably be demagogued/charged that this would be "unfair" as these previously allowed deductions would benefit only "select" groups. The result? One ends up with the worst of both worlds, i.e., higher rates as in days of yore w.o. the off-setting deductions that made them bearable for the less than super-rich.
Coketown, it would be nice, though it would be foolish, to think that you are right. But political reality shows otherwise. There are lots of lies on this bogus issue, and I am trying to highlight the worst one.
Bob, I linked to the White House's own proposal which explicitly states they are pursuing a 30% effective rate--not marginal. You aren't highlighting a lie; you're just lying.
If you can point to any statements from the Administration, as I have, suggesting the Buffet Rule seeks a 30% marginal rate, I'd love to see it. Meantime, stop obscuring the debate by calling things lies when you have no evidence in support.
Buffett has one of the great tax shelters going--a diversified corporation which pays no dividends. His wealth increases with all the unrealized gains, and he never has to pay the double tax that hits the rest of us, who need income to live on. Also insurance companies are among the most tax advantaged companies. Strangely you do not hear him (or his puppet Obama) agitating to change taxation of insurance companies.
Coketown, I try not to lie. I also try not to be a fool.
Bob, try harder.
Bob, you are aware that the 33% bracket starts at $171,551 for single filers and $208,851 for married. So you are saying that the White House is proposing that the marginal rate be lowered.
"Effective rate?"
Which means what?
Nothing until they define it.
OK, Coketown, so spell it out for us all. Obama proposes a 30% rate for anyone making >$1m? What does that do for widow making $999k in dividends and long-term capital gains and paying about 16%? What happens when she makes another thousand bucks? Do you really believe he's serious? Really? For real?
I learned this stuff in high school. Didn't you? I don't think most of the country did, because I keep reading this stuff about the Buffett Rule.
Obama is quite simple-minded about this. He wants rich people to pay more because he thinks that's "fair". It has nothing to do with actual dollars or federal revenue.
Really, do you need this kind of education? Or are you pretending that you believe Obama's lies? I can't figure it out from your posts.
What's going on? Are you angry, or just stupid?
I'm not a tax expert, but I assume rich guys will find the loop holes in rules written by other rich guys.
Instead of worrying about the "rich" people in an effort to raise tax revenue, maybe the US government should worry about the people that actually dont pay ANY federal tax. You know, like around 48% of the population.
I always laugh when I hear "rich" people criticized for not paying enough in taxes, when most "rich" people pay more in taxes in one year than most people make in their entire lifetime. Its like Mitt Romney being cast as some sort of Scrooge because he *only* paid $3 MILLION (thats million with an m) in taxes in 2010.
If the government worked as hard to actually cut spending as the IRS does in collecting taxes, our country would be in pretty good fiscal shape. And the government wouldnt have to worry about bullshit like the "Buffett rule".
Do you really believe he's serious? Really? For real?
Ha, no! I know Obama is full of shit, the math doesn't add up, and the political reality makes the Buffet Rule impossible.
But we weren't arguing any of that. We were arguing what the Buffet Rule as a proposal is--and that proposal, as proposed by Obama, is a 30% effective rate on those making over $1 million. Your widow-making-$999,999 + $1000 hypothetical is a perfect illustration of why it is an absurd proposal, but it is a question better asked of Obama as he's the one making the proposal.
Where did I, in any way, suggest that I believed or endorsed this stupid proposal? I didn't. You're building straw men and tearing them up. My one and only point was that Obama's proposed Buffet Rule is a 30% effective rate on those making $1 million or more, which I made in response to your dubious assertion that the proposal is a marginal rate increase. It's not. It's never been proposed as such. Drawing illustrations about capital gains-investing widows shows the absurdity of the proposal, but it does NOTHING to change the blatant fact that Obama's proposal is for an EFFECTIVE rate.
You can call me names all you want, but it won't change the fact that your original point was ignorant and I corrected it. Drag in all the widows you want.
The reality is that Obama did not even bother to put those proposal into legislative form for Congress. He's not a serious man and his SOTU speech was not intended to be listened to by serious people.
"Instead of worrying about the "rich" people in an effort to raise tax revenue, maybe the US government should worry about the people that actually dont pay ANY federal tax. You know, like around 48% of the population."
Yeah, but that isn't the game being played, is it?
The 48% who don't pay income taxes are exactly where the Democrats want them - not paying income taxes, wholly dependent upon underfunded entitlements and transfer payments.
In a perverse way, those 48% are rational in wanting to maintain the status quo.
What is entirely irrational are the cohort of the 52% who, for whatever reason (stupidity, misguided sense of social justice, stupidity, perceived need to redress historic grievances, stupidity, guilt, stupidity, etc.) vote for the Democrats who promise to protect and expand these wealth "redistribution" efforts.
Worst of all? They're really transferring wealth from future generations - their own kids and grandchildren - not from the millionaires and billionaires they think they are.
On this score alone, voting Democrat is a really good way to fuck your kids and grand-kids over.
Millionaires likely would find legal ways to avoid paying higher taxes under President Barack Obama's proposed 'Buffett Rule'...""
DUH!!
Britain is cutting its punitive tax rates on the rich because they are not collecting as much as predicted and are realizing its counterproductive.
A lesson that they had already learned but had to relearn.
Bob E believes in fairy tales. Typical moderate to middle income liberal mentality. He thinks if those rich people pay more he can get more. But he would be wrong.
What Bob and his kind seem to forget is that politicians like money, they like keeping their money and if they aren't rich they would like to be rich. Does anyone with two firing neurons believe for a nano that a senate full of wealthy and very wealthy senators like John Kerry Heinz or a Boxer are going to pass a tax rate hike that they can't avoid? Truly one has to be a deluded fool to be a liberal.
Dignifying Obama's suggestion with actual analysis was a waste of time and effort.
Regarding what might happen when you cross the $1M threshold:
"While the White House has declined to make the Buffett Rule a concrete proposal, Democrats in Congress have forged ahead. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat from Rhode Island, independently came up with the idea for a minimum tax for the wealthy, and made a proposal after Mr. Obama mentioned it in his State of the Union address.
The proposed law, the Paying a Fair Share Act, eliminates all deductions for the wealthy except their charitable contributions. After that, they must pay a 30 percent minimum tax on the balance of their income.
The law includes a phase-in, to avoid taxing Americans making $1 million at much higher rates than others making $999,999. If the taxpayer makes between $1 million and $2 million, the tax bill is only a fraction of the difference between taxes owed under current law and taxes as determined by the Buffett Rule."
Coketown is correct. This is an effective rate proposal not a marginal rate. The marginal rate ia already over 30%.
"Lowering rates across the board and "broadening the base" is a snare and a delusion that seems reasonable in theory, but the reality is it works only for a short while until the spending pressures that previously caused the rates to rise inevitably assert themselves yet again and calls are just as inevitably made to raise rates "across the board" as a matter of "fairness.""
-- Sounds like you agree that, along with tax reform, we need spending cuts.
In 2006 Warren Buffett announced a gift of the great bulk of his estate to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMG), subject to three conditions. The second condition was, "BMG (or any intermediary) must continue to satisfy legal requirements qualifying my gifts as charitable and not subject to gift or other taxes."
Warren Buffett prefers to have his wealth go untaxed to the objects of his bounty rather than trust the Government to spend it--or even a portion of it--wisely. Smart man.
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No he's a cheap bastard and hypcrite. Was he known for charitable works before?
He's avoiding paying his fair share that he wants the rest of us to pay as we go along.
Didn't Bastiat cover this?
eliminates all deductions for the wealthy except their charitable contributions.
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which the bamster wants to cut to 80% of value, doesn't he?
If you want to tax wealth, apply a personal property tax. That's how you make wealthy not wealthy, not go after salaries.
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