Buffet gets to take advantage of huge tax breaks not available to his secretary, of course. Her entire salary-based income is taxed at 25% or more and she can only make modest charitable contributions to her church and United Way perhaps. But since most people can't take advantage of itemized deductions, the standard deduction doesn't allow her to take advantage of them. Buffet gets most of his salary from investments (capital gains, dividends, interest) which is taxed at 15%. Then he makes charitable contributions of $millions which reduce his tax bill even further, while allowing him to influence his favorite causes and special interests. And of course he itemizes huge expenses, using his team of lawyers and tax advisors, to reduce his tax burden even more. Many rich individuals and many rich corporations have managed to reduce their tax burden to ZERO and have joined the students, disabled, minimum-wage workers, widows, and charity cases on the roles of the 39% who pay no taxes.
This is false and is either based on lies or ignorance. Here are the facts. In his example Buffet says his secretary makes 80,000 dollars. I am going to treat her as if she is single and no kids. She takes a standard deduction or maybe she itemizes, a personal exemption, pays for healthcare with pretax dollars, invests pre-tax dollars in a 401K or an IRA, and may have some other deductions from AGI like student loan interest. She is only going to be taxed on about 75 percent of her salary, which would be 60,000. Of that the first 8,350 is going to be taxed at 10% the next 25,600 is taxed at 15%, and the remaining 26,050 is taxed at 25%. Her total tax liability is $11,237 for an effective tax rate of 14%. The effective rate on someone like Buffet (top 1%) according to the CBO study is 31.2%. Anyone can itemize. It might not be advantageous to do so. The standard deduction is a pretty sweet deal. If someone wants to itemize so badly they can give a bunch of their money away until they have enough to itemize. So now charitable giving is a bad thing? Its better to let the government take and squander the money? No one is buying it bub. Facts just don't support this. Most deductions phase out with income, and the Alternative Minimum Tax prevents the exact scenario you are talking about. So which is it, do you just understand nothing about taxation, or are you so jealous of the insanely wealthy that you go around spreading lies about the taxes they pay.
First this extension reduces tax liabilities by 544.3 billion. Of that 81.5 billion is related to folks making over $250,000. That is not the same as adding to the debt. The 350 number is half of 700 billion which is the cost of extending the cuts to folks who make more than $250,000 for ten years. The cost of extending the cuts for everyone for ten years is 3.7 trillion dollars. So my question is why are the dems so hell bent on punishing the rich, when the middle class tax cuts reduce tax liabilities by a much much much greater amount?
When someone starts a rebuttal with a disparaging insult, I know that his case is going to be lame. You must first try to discredit me to make your argument look better, or so you imagine. Those are half the facts. Buffet gave the facts and he knows the numbers. You give a lot of speculative numbers for the secretary, but you do not do the same for Buffet. You do not address his light 15% taxed investment income. You just said the same thing that I did, only less succinct. The point, that you missed, is that Buffet can itemize a huge amount of things to take far better tax advantage than a middle-class itemizer or the standard deduction. You miss the point again. Why should Buffet get a huge tax break on charitable contributions that most of us can't take advantage of. He already gets a huge ego from it, as well as increased influence. He doesn't need tax breaks as well. It just allows the wealthy to avoid taxes. Then break down Buffet's taxes as you did for the secretary and prove this to us. Another lame attack to cover for a weak argument. You are the one jealous of the insanely rich, you certainly do pucker up to defend them. I just point out the inequitable tax advantages that they have. I don't know why you've chosen to be an azzhole today. Usually you can discuss a topic without the childish insults. But I'm not going to be repeatedly called a liar for disagreeing with you and having a different viewpoint. Regrettably, if you persist in this foolishness I must ignore you.
Buffet makes a Billion, I guess he deserves to pay 300M in taxes.. Ugh.. :rolleye33: Give the Govt. more money!!!!!!!
Now there's a bunch of facts to back up your position. Let's not give the govt more money. I'll ask again, and please give specifics. What would you cut?? It's got to be huge, so what? Social Security, or Defense?
cut the amount of money all the politicians make. they should be able to live on 100K a year. if they can't, they can quit that job and get a real job like the rest of us have. also, limit the amount of trips the president takes. obama is in the air more than he is on the ground.
Typical Republican. They want to cut $Trillions in income but can only identify a few Million dollars in spending cuts. Bravo. :rolleye33:
Yes both. There isn't anything I wouldn't cut or eliminate. I've already said this. I would issue a 20% cut across the board.
I hope you don't have anyone depending on their social security check to live on. And when we get hit by a terrorist attack, good luck expaining that 20% cut to the military. And what about the roads?
