When the time comes to burn the motherf*cker down, maybe we’ll spare Warren Buffet’s home. Of course, we’ll still take all the rest of his belongings. He seems to be the only oligarch in the country who understands that the mobs might be coming to take a fair share of the country’s wealth back for the middle class and the poor. I love the fact that he pays the lowest percentage of taxes of anyone at his firm’s main office.
Last year my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf — 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.
If you make money with money, as some of my super-rich friends do, your percentage may be a bit lower than mine. But if you earn money from a job, your percentage will surely exceed mine — most likely by a lot.
To understand why, you need to examine the sources of government revenue. Last year about 80 percent of these revenues came from personal income taxes and payroll taxes. The mega-rich pay income taxes at a rate of 15 percent on most of their earnings but pay practically nothing in payroll taxes. It’s a different story for the middle class: typically, they fall into the 15 percent and 25 percent income tax brackets, and then are hit with heavy payroll taxes to boot.
If the super-rich listen to Buffet, they just might get to keep their stuff and pass most of it on to their their children. If not? If not, they’re playing with fire, as events in England, Egypt, Syria, etc., make clear.
He is not the only one. Bill Gates’ dad, who is a rich and successful person, also is in the “tax the rich” group.
We need to raise the capital gains tax. This is a simple and effective way to fix a bunch of problems. Make the capital gains tax 30% at least, and even better just to ordinary income levels. This would fix 1) the outrageously low taxes rich people pay 2) the “carried interest” loophole for hedge funds 3) a whole buncha other scams that rich people use.
Do you know what Buffet’s salary is? Like $150,000/year. He made that same amount when he started doing what he was doing(so, yes, he paid himself a fortune early on). But now he makes a pittance compared to other CEO’s. But his point still stands.
Yep. The way I see it, there are only 2 possible long term outcomes here. Either the whole thing collapses, or our rich corporate overlords realize that they need to make a few small sacrifices to keep the ship afloat and allow them to continue to live in the manner they’re accustomed to.
Unfortunately that means that in order to avoid the shitstorm we’re relying on people who are equipped with huge amounts of greed and not a lot of foresight.
It should be easy to let some air out of the balloon, but they seem resolved to let the pressure build.
It’s actually pretty fascinating when you think about it. The very idea that everyone’s best interests (long term) are in alignment is so foreign as to be ridiculous.
GOP is not playing with fire. They are expressing one of their core principles. They believe young people in the streets of England are victims of a lack of personal responsibility. Thus, if they riot here they are not GOP’s problem or a problem for government to solve. Now wouldn’t that make a interesting topic for one of the Sunday talk shows?