DAR
I didn’t say he “paid less” because he didn’t pay less. I said he paid a lower rate. Which is true. 17.7% is a lower rate than 30%. The rich shouldn’t pay a lower rate.

Bigd: Compare only his earned income to hers.”>>

DAR
Haven’t you tired of your little games now that they’ve been exposed? The rich shouldn’t pay a much lower rate than the middle class. That’s backwards.

Bigd: Besides, why shouldn’t Buffet,… not be able to keep the money he made.>>

DAR
Our nation has bills to pay. Wars to pay for. Interest to pay on the debt incurred to pay for those wars. When a person makes $46 million in a year, they can afford to pay the same rate as a middle class person. They can, and should in fact pay a higher rate than the middle class person. So says Mr. Buffet (he should know). So says every clear thinking person. So says John McCain. Here is how he explained it once to a little girl in a Town Hall meeting:

***
Audience member: “Why is it that someone like my father who goes to school for 13 years gets penalized in a huge tax bracket because he’s a doctor.”

McCain: “I think it’s to some degree because we feel obviously that wealthy people can afford more.”

Audience member: “Are we getting closer and closer to, like, socialism?”

McCain: “Here’s what I really believe: That when you reach a certain level of comfort, there’s nothing wrong with paying somewhat more.”
***

John McCain gets it.

Bigd: “And do you really think tax laws will be rewritten to disfavor the rich when many in Congress are rich?>>

DAR
Yes. It’s happened many times before.

Bigd; A flat tax that we all pay on all income.>>

DAR
Flat taxes are very unprogressive and depending on how you jigger them usually hit the poor and middle even more. This is why the rich favor them. They are the only ones who talk about this. This is not by accident. If you change the system so the rich can pay less, which flat tax does, more money is going to have to come from the not rich. That’s dumb.

Bigd: That will allow us all to pay our fair share.”>>

DAR
“Fair share” begs the question. You have provided no good reason, because there is no good reason, for why Buffet should be paying a lower rate than his secretary who made 1/766th of the amount he did.

Bigd: Jesus [said]… only that hers meant more because she had less to give and still did so.>>

DAR
Right. Exact same principle. The secretary pays less but is credited more per dollar because the sacrifice for her is greater. We adjust for this principle today by charging the rich a higher rate. Thus the perversion of actually charging the rich a *lower* rate. It’s ridiculous.

Bigd: Those who enjoy the benefits from government should pay for them.”

DAR
And those who enjoy the benefits from our system to the degree they become exceedingly wealthy should pay for these benefits at a higher rate.

D.

Besides, why shouldn’t Buffet, who will pay more in raw dollars in one year than she will in a lifetime, not be able to keep the money he made. He is the one who took the risks. He is the one who put up his capital.

And do you really think tax laws will be rewritten to disfavor the rich when many in Congress are rich?

A flat tax that we all pay on all income. That will allow us all to pay our fair share.

Jesus did not say the poor woman should not pay her “gifts” to the treasury (was it a tax or charity), only that hers meant more because she had less to give and still did so.

Those who enjoy the benefits from government should pay for them.

DAR
A progressive system is fair. The rich should pay more.

Jesus understood this principle too:

Luke 21:1. “The He looked up ans saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury, and He saw also a certain poor widow putting in two mites. So He said, “Truly I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all: for all these out of their abundance have put in offerings to God, but she our of her poverty has put in all the livelihood that she had.”

Bigd: It is a system designed to be unfair and make those with wealth pay more.>>

DAR
Well then it fails, as has been shown. The secretary paid a higher percentage than the billionaire. That’s not fair. That’s the opposite of fair.

Bigd: How is it fair that the top 2% pay nearly 15 times that percent of all taxes?>>

DAR
That’s progressive taxation, and fair. Time to get rid of the loopholes that let the rich escape and hide most of their money from this.

Bigd: Paying any taxes on unearned income is unfair.>>

DAR
Reagan disagreed. And you don’t say why? Why should the rich have this huge tax loophole that lets them pay far less tax than the regular folks that scrape for their money? It’s absurd.

Bigd: We need a capital gains tax of 0%.>>

DAR
Good point. Buffet needs to pay less taxes. The closer to zero the better! We can then shift those taxes over to the secretaries, nurses and piano technicians. And then if that isn’t enough to pay our national bills, we can just borrow the rest from China. That makes a lot of sense. What is important is that Buffet and the fat cat billionaires get to keep even more of their money. Nearly all of it.
This is you’re ideology not allowing you to think straight. You can’t see it but others can.

Bigd: There is no inequity when like incomes are compared.>>

DAR
Thanks for making my point. When you compare secretaries and working stiffs, they get hosed a similar amount. When you compare millionaires and billionaires, they escape from paying vast amounts of taxes in a similar manner in relation to each other.
The problem is, as Buffet has outlined. When you compare the ultra rich (like him) and his staff, he pays a MUCH lower rate on the money he makes.

That’s wrong. The rich should pay a higher rate.

D.
——————-
“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy: that is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” –John Kenneth Galbraith

Paying any taxes on unearned income is unfair. You already paid on the money you invested and now you have to pay on the return of that money.

I bet Buffet had millions in write offs because of business losses and his charitable donations. That effectively reduces the tax rate. We need a capital gains tax of 0%.

There is no inequity when like incomes are compared. Wait, there is inequity, rich people pay more on their unearned income.

DAR
Sorry that you don’t have an argument and have to resort to calling me dense instead. Putting incomes in different boxes is a ruse which allow the rich to avoid paying tax, as Mr. Buffet is honest enough to admit.

Bigd: The rich are not getting a lower rate.>>

DAR
If 17.7% is lower than 30%, and I dare say it is, then the rich are getting a lower rate. As Buffet correctly said.

Bigd: The rate on unearned income is the same for everyone.>>

DAR
That’s nice. Who benefits from this ruse of calling vast amounts of wealth creation “unearned?” The rich, as Buffet said. As a link I think I already gave you pointed out:

“The rich can take advantage of tax loopholes, including one that allows those managers to pay the capital gains tax rate of 15 percent instead of the ordinary top income tax rate of 35 percent.”

And note, even St. Reagan knew this:

“Back in 1986, a turning point in the federal tax reform debate came when President Ronald Reagan realized (with a little help from Donald Regan) how absurd it was that he should pay a lower income tax rate than his secretary. The subsequently-enacted 1986 Tax Reform Act got rid of special tax breaks for capital gains that were helping to make this possible, and brought our federal income tax system back where it should be: taxing wages and capital gains at exactly the same rate.

Twenty years later, the capital gains tax breaks are back with a vengeance– the top tax rate on capital gains is 15 percent, less than half the 35 percent top rate on regular income– and Berkshire Hathaway chairman Warren Buffett is ringing the same bell:

Last year, Buffett said, he was taxed at 17.7 percent on his taxable income of more than $46 million. His receptionist was taxed at about 30 percent.”

Link.

Bigd: “The rate on earned income is progressive and he pays a higher rate on his earned income.”>>

DAR
That’s nice. You can put the fruit in whichever basket you like (earned or unearned) but at the end of the day, Mr. Buffet made $46 million and paid 17.7% tax on it. His secretary made $60k and paid 30% tax on it. That’s not fair. A monkey can see that’s not fair. Mr. Buffet agrees. It should be the other way around. If the rates were reversed, Mr. Buffet would then still have kept $32 million that year and his secretary would have kept $49k instead of $42k. But maybe that wouldn’t be fair either. Maybe the 15% needs to come up and/or the 30% come down. How can it be fair to have the poorer working stiff paying at nearly twice the rate? How can your conscience and sense of fairness be so dull?

People aren’t born with this inherent lack of ability to understand fairness. I think this kind of warped sense of fairness you have developed has to be indoctrinated over time. You have to work at it.

BIGD: Buffet wants the tax rates increased because they will not hurt him.>>

DAR
You don’t know that. He is pointing out an obvious inequity. He is OBVIOUSLY pointing to a remedy which would involve either lowering the rate paid by those like his staff member, or raising his.

D.

Buffet wants the tax rates increased because they will not hurt him. He is misleading people and dolts fall for it.

Dividends should not be taxed in the first place.

DAR
All song and dance that accomplishes nothing and none of it addresses the simple, undeniable, fact, of Warren Buffet’s claim.

Buffet made $46 million in one year and paid a tax of 17.7% on it.

His secretary made $60,000, and paid a tax of 30% on it.

Your fellow wrote a 2,098 word article futilely trying everything he could to obfuscate this simple fact that even a child can understand.

Your article says:

“Capital gains are taxed at 15% versus income from your job that is taxed at 25% to 40%. So Buffett was comparing completely different tax rates. He was comparing apples to oranges.”

DAR
Well that is the point isn’t it? All this is just as irrelevant as when you copied this argument from this guy the first time. You can call these income categories apples or you can call them oranges. It doesn’t matter because in the end what we are talking about is “fruit” (making money). People making “fruit” and paying some of that “fruit” to the government.

Time to stop letting the rich get away with paying *a lower rate* on their fruit, no matter whether they are paid in apples, oranges, or Blake’s favorite: bananas!

D.

You obviously have trouble differentiating between truth and deception.

Not once did Buffet tell anyone his taxes were lower because he deliberately worked to ensure that he got a small salary and took the rest in income that is taxed at a lower rate. He is being disingenuous.

Buffet also manipulated his money so the inheritance tax he wants raised would not hurt him.

If he wants to pay more taxes why does he not take a larger earned income salary? Why does he not send a check to the treasury? They will gladly take it and apply it to the debt. Most of these people who say we do not pay enough in taxes don’t voluntarily pay more.

In fact, Buffet is pushing for the tax rate on earned income to go up. That will still not affect him.

DAR
You’re playing the same game of trying to hide income in different boxes for the purpose of avoiding addressing it.

Hey, that’s the same game the rich have gotten away with for the purpose of avoiding pay taxes on that money! Nifty.

Bottomline: Mr. Buffet pays a far lower rate on what he made, than his staff does on what they made. Nearly half in fact. That’s not right.

I’ll let Mr. Buffet respond:

***
“Warren Buffett, the third-richest man in the world, has criticised the US tax system for allowing him to pay a lower rate than his secretary and his cleaner.

Speaking at a $4,600-a-seat fundraiser in New York for Senator Hillary Clinton, Mr Buffett, who is worth an estimated $52 billion (£26 billion), said: “The 400 of us [here] pay a lower part of our income in taxes than our receptionists do, or our cleaning ladies, for that matter. If you’re in the luckiest 1 per cent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 per cent.”

Mr Buffett said that he was taxed at 17.7 per cent on the $46 million he made last year, without trying to avoid paying higher taxes, while his secretary, who earned $60,000, was taxed at 30 per cent. Mr Buffett told his audience, which included John Mack, the chairman of Morgan Stanley, and Alan Patricof, the founder of the US branch of Apax Partners, that US government policy had accentuated a disparity of wealth that hurt the economy by stifling opportunity and motivation.”

TimesUKonline