Warren Buffet: "BTC probably rat poison squared"

[johnson86-1]

I don’t think anyone believes the secretary literally paid a higher dollar figure than Buffett did. He’s saying the secretary paid a higher percentage of his/her income in taxes. And he’s right.

He claims she pays a higher tax rate, and he's almost certainly wrong based on what has been reported as being his tax return, unless his secretary is pulling down a quarter of a million. Even then, the reason Buffet doesn't pay a lot of income taxes is that he chooses to not take much of a salary.

Calling Warren Buffett of all people a disingenuous ******* is one of the funnier things I’ve seen on here. The guy is one of the very few billionaires out there who has actually been an admirable steward of both his wealth and his knowledge about investing. He’s made many, many people rich by passing along his knowledge about investing principles, and he’s also set up a fund to literally give away 83% of his wealth to charitable causes.

He’s been outspoken for years and years about being in favor of people in his wealth demographic absorbing a higher tax burden.

He may not be a disingenuous *** hole in general, but he certainly is on this issue. Why does he feel the need to lie or be disingenuous? If higher taxes are a good policy, make the argument. He is obviously more or less a genius and has a huge microphone. If anything, people that want higher taxes on people like him should be pissed that he claims to agree with them but doesn't make a legitimate argument.

It’s not like he can force the government to take more of his money. If he overpays income tax, he gets a refund. There’s not much else he can do beyond what he already has to legitimately get his point across.

This is just wrong. He can overpay taxes and just treat them as essentially a donation. He doesn't do that because it would be wasteful (from society's point of view, not his). If he really felt like the government taxing millionaires/billionaires more is a good thing, it would be really easy for him to set an example by paying more in taxes. And it wouldn't involve any sacrifice on his part because he's not going to consume his resources regardless. He's not paying more because he is not an idiot and knows that more good will come from him investing and then giving away his money to non-government entities than from him giving it to the government now. He's right, and he knows he's right, but he not only disingenuously claims he thinks he should pay more taxes when he doesn't, he advocates higher taxes on people much, much less wealthy than he is.

 

[BoomBoom.sixpack]

He claims she pays a higher tax rate, and he's almost certainly wrong based on what has been reported as being his tax return, unless his secretary is pulling down a quarter of a million. Even then, the reason Buffet doesn't pay a lot of income taxes is that he chooses to not take much of a salary.

He may not be a disingenuous *** hole in general, but he certainly is on this issue. Why does he feel the need to lie or be disingenuous? If higher taxes are a good policy, make the argument. He is obviously more or less a genius and has a huge microphone. If anything, people that want higher taxes on people like him should be pissed that he claims to agree with them but doesn't make a legitimate argument.

This is just wrong. He can overpay taxes and just treat them as essentially a donation. He doesn't do that because it would be wasteful (from society's point of view, not his). If he really felt like the government taxing millionaires/billionaires more is a good thing, it would be really easy for him to set an example by paying more in taxes. And it wouldn't involve any sacrifice on his part because he's not going to consume his resources regardless. He's not paying more because he is not an idiot and knows that more good will come from him investing and then giving away his money to non-government entities than from him giving it to the government now. He's right, and he knows he's right, but he not only disingenuously claims he thinks he should pay more taxes when he doesn't, he advocates higher taxes on people much, much less wealthy than he is.

Jeebus how deep are you gonna dig this hole?

"He's wrong, well he's right but it's because he doesn't take his pay as salary".......BECAUSE THE TAX CODE IS SET UP TO LET HIM DO THAT SPECIFICALLY SO PEOPLE LIKE HIM CAN PAY A LOWER TAX RATE! Jfc. So close to getting it, but ideologically committed to never getting it, ie disingenuous.

His argument is dead right. He pays a lower tax rate. The only way to conclude otherwise is to be disingenuous.

He donates plenty of money. So he is paying more than he has to.

 

[johnson86-1]

It makes perfect sense, they are different things entirely. SS is intentionally a tax on income, intended to pay for retirement out of that reduction in income, an intentional tradeoff.

Some what off topic, but social security taxes are not intended to pay for retirement. They are framed as retirement "insurance" to sell what is essentially a flat 15% tax rate on most workers. The structure also ensures that there unless congress acts, any social security cuts will be limited by the amount of SS taxes collected.

Corporate taxes are to pay for the cost of society and especially the costs born on society by that business (road use, garbage disposal, etc). Only some of those taxes are based on income, but they have nothing to do with income, it's just a convenient way to try to fairly scale payments with size. It's just another cost of the business. And business costs aren't income taxes.

That is not what corporate taxes are for. They are not use taxes. It is just an income tax levied at the corporate level. If a c-corp reorganizes as an LLC, the income tax will only be levied at the level of the owners of the llc going forward.

If the taxes were designed instead to scale with number of employees, would you still call it an income tax?

No. It wouldn't be an income tax, it would be a head count tax.

Perhaps you need to explain why you think business property taxes aren't an income tax.

You think I need to explain why a tax levied on property isn't an income tax? Besdies the fact that it's levied on property and not income?

You take the revenue, you subtract the costs, you get profits. Profit is income. Taxes are a cost. Don't let the fact that we give the business a tax break by basing some of those costs off profit instead of gross revenues fool you, as that's just intended to not penalize high revenue-low profit enterprises.

You have this wrong. You take revenue and subtract costs, to get income, then apply certain tax breaks and that gives you taxable income, on which taxes are paid. Just like an individual, you have before tax and after tax income. Taxes are a cost to the business and to the individual, but in both cases, they are an income tax. And we don't base the tax off income because we don't want to penalize high revenue low profit enterprises, we base the tax off income because that is what they have decided they want to tax. We could tax revenue if we wanted, which is basically what we do at the state level for a lot of retail businesses.

What's Google's tax rate again? Corporate taxes are paid, but often they are so low these days that you can't just assume the wealthy are paying so much there that it offsets their massive income tax breaks. Especially as the billionaires are almost exclusively getting both.

You can't assume it either way. If you want to know how much taxes somebody is paying, you actually have to look at how much tax they are paying. You can't just pretend that corporate taxes don't exist.

The wealthy get even better tax breaks than the 401k one middle class earners get. Peter Thiel got a $5B break on his Roth.

That was either a result of him misvaluing the ownership interests he put in the IRA or it was just a function of him being able to create massive returns. Regardless, because we try to accomplish a lot of poilcy through the tax code, there are going to be certain tax practices that pop up that are viewed as undesirable, and the way to address them is to address them, not raise taxes on unrelated people or in unrelated ways.

It's better to think of corporations as investments. Investments generate a return. Taxes are part of the cost that weighs against the return. It's why tax exempt bonds have different valuations from taxable bonds. The cost of the tax is already built into the evaluation of the investment. Giving a corporate tax break is double dipping. But there's a whole class of disingenuous people that want tax breaks at everyone else's expense, so they pretend otherwise.

This is nonsensical. People generally value their job based on how much income it puts in their pocket. That doesn't mean reducing their tax rate is double dipping just because they were willing to do the work while paying higher taxes. It also ignores that the tax on an investment is different depending on who holds the investment and how they hold it. No income taxes are paid on LLC income attributable to membership shares held in a Roth IRA. The dividend tax paid depends on who holds the stock, how they hold it, how long they have held it, and how much income they recognize in the year the dividend is distributed.

 

[onewoof]

Yeah, I don’t think Warren is the one hating here.

It's called staying in your lane. He's amazing historically at what he knows. The best.

Contrast that to how Musk uses crypto currency. Buffet sees it as fake. Not fake the way Musk leverages it.

Buffet should just buy more Apple stock, trains and Dairy Queens.

 

[johnson86-1]

Jeebus how deep are you gonna dig this hole?

"He's wrong, well he's right but it's because he doesn't take his pay as salary".......BECAUSE THE TAX CODE IS SET UP TO LET HIM DO THAT SPECIFICALLY SO PEOPLE LIKE HIM CAN PAY A LOWER TAX RATE! Jfc. So close to getting it, but ideologically committed to never getting it, ie disingenuous.

His argument is dead right. He pays a lower tax rate. The only way to conclude otherwise is to be disingenuous.

Holy ****. You are the one that linked the documents showing that the claim is false. Taking those claims at face value, he was lying. If those documents are false, and he does actually pay a lower rate than his secretary, it's because he foregoes income and only takes a $100k salary, not because he wouldn't pay a **** ton of taxes if he took a market wage. He doesn't care about maximizing his income, which is great, but the fact that he doesn't maximize his income can't be used to argue that his taxes are too low. Anybody can not pay taxes by not having income and that's not a problem with our income tax structure (except arguably that it shows we should rely on a consumption based tax instead). A better comparison would be to his two top stock pickers, each of whom earn more than $20M each. Guarantee you they do not make pay a lower tax rate than his secretary.

He donates plenty of money. So he is paying more than he has to.

He's not paying money to the government. Again, if he really thought he should be paying more money to the government, he could and would do so. He doesn't believe that; he just for whatever reason likes to claim that he does.

 

[BoomBoom.sixpack]

Some what off topic, but social security taxes are not intended to pay for retirement. They are framed as retirement "insurance" to sell what is essentially a flat 15% tax rate on most workers. The structure also ensures that there unless congress acts, any social security cuts will be limited by the amount of SS taxes collected.

That is not what corporate taxes are for. They are not use taxes. It is just an income tax levied at the corporate level. If a c-corp reorganizes as an LLC, the income tax will only be levied at the level of the owners of the llc going forward.

No. It wouldn't be an income tax, it would be a head count tax.

You think I need to explain why a tax levied on property isn't an income tax? Besdies the fact that it's levied on property and not income?

You have this wrong. You take revenue and subtract costs, to get income, then apply certain tax breaks and that gives you taxable income, on which taxes are paid. Just like an individual, you have before tax and after tax income. Taxes are a cost to the business and to the individual, but in both cases, they are an income tax. And we don't base the tax off income because we don't want to penalize high revenue low profit enterprises, we base the tax off income because that is what they have decided they want to tax. We could tax revenue if we wanted, which is basically what we do at the state level for a lot of retail businesses.

You can't assume it either way. If you want to know how much taxes somebody is paying, you actually have to look at how much tax they are paying. You can't just pretend that corporate taxes don't exist.

That was either a result of him misvaluing the ownership interests he put in the IRA or it was just a function of him being able to create massive returns. Regardless, because we try to accomplish a lot of poilcy through the tax code, there are going to be certain tax practices that pop up that are viewed as undesirable, and the way to address them is to address them, not raise taxes on unrelated people or in unrelated ways.

This is nonsensical. People generally value their job based on how much income it puts in their pocket. That doesn't mean reducing their tax rate is double dipping just because they were willing to do the work while paying higher taxes. It also ignores that the tax on an investment is different depending on who holds the investment and how they hold it. No income taxes are paid on LLC income attributable to membership shares held in a Roth IRA. The dividend tax paid depends on who holds the stock, how they hold it, how long they have held it, and how much income they recognize in the year the dividend is distributed.

So you're saying SS pays for a societal good, and is paid for by workers and not owners? Good lord! I hope the people behind that don't feel too bad when they realize what they so accidentally did!**

A corporate tax is intended to recoup costs from those that incurred the cost. It's its own person after all.

So one tax on corps is an income tax, and one isn't? Even though both take money from the same account, to the same (US Treasury) account, to pay for the same thing? Isn't that odd to you at all?

Taxable income is a system generated to rig the tax code. Yes, I'm aware of it. Doesn't change my point.

You seen to view taxes as intended punishment for earning revenue. Extreme, even for you. Bottom line, it's a cost paid by the enterprise. The Feds could switch that cost up tomorrow to not be based on income at all. That means something, and you are disingenuously ignoring jt.

I'm not pretending Corp taxes don't exist. I'm also not pretending about how many don't pay any, or so little relative to revenue.

Here's an example. The feds could change the code tomorrow that I can write of my costs for 5 years. Maybe a good idealist, maybe not.
Point is, the rich have that break written into the code, the rest don't, and it's disingenuous to ignore that it's a break only the rich have. you can't say, as you did, that that income "doesn't count" because the code lets it not count.

It was a result of the code being rigged in his favor, oh disingenuous one.

It's only non-sensical to the disingenuous. Cutting a workers taxes doesn't change the value of his work. Cutting an investment's taxes DOES change the value of the investment.

 

[Go Budaw]

He's not paying money to the government. Again, if he really thought he should be paying more money to the government, he could and would do so. He doesn't believe that; he just for whatever reason likes to claim that he does.

Do you care to provide a link of a case study where anyone, anywhere has ever just given away money to the IRS out of the goodness of their heart?

It can’t legally happen. When you file your taxes for the year and you overpay, you have to either accept a refund check or defer the surplus to the next year or a previous year’s owed taxes. Doing anything besides those two things means filing a fraudulent tax return, where you say you owe more than you actually do. And if you don’t file a return, that’s also illegal.

The IRS also has the fiduciary responsibility to keep that money in escrow until either of those options comes to fruition. Its not like they can say “Well, looks like ole Warren overpaid by $5 million this year….looks like two more free F-16’s for the DoD”

 

[johnson86-1]

Do you care to provide a link of a case study where anyone, anywhere has ever just given away money to the IRS out of the goodness of their heart?

It can’t legally happen. When you file your taxes for the year and you overpay, you have to either accept a refund check or defer the surplus to the next year or a previous year’s owed taxes. Doing anything besides those two things means filing a fraudulent tax return, where you say you owe more than you actually do. And if you don’t file a return, that’s also illegal.

The IRS also has the fiduciary responsibility to keep that money in escrow until either of those options comes to fruition. Its not like they can say “Well, looks like ole Warren overpaid by $5 million this year….looks like two more free F-16’s for the DoD”

First, you don't pay additional money through the IRS. You make payments directly to the treasury. Directions on how to pay additional money are here:

https://fiscal.treasury.gov/public/...t pay.gov, you can,order to the address below.


As far as a "case study", I'm not sure why there would be a case study on anybody paying additional money. But people do pay extra money to the government out of the goodness of their heart. Here is a history of people paying more to reduce the debt held by the public:

https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/gift/gift.htm
https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/mspd/mspd.htm

Of course those payments don't really necessarily reduce the debt held by the public because there is nothing stopping debt from just being issued to replace any debt retired. Not sure of where you'd find records on additional payments to the treasury that are not supposedly tied to reducing the debt held by the public.

 

[BoomBoom.sixpack]

Holy ****. You are the one that linked the documents showing that the claim is false. Taking those claims at face value, he was lying. If those documents are false, and he does actually pay a lower rate than his secretary, it's because he foregoes income and only takes a $100k salary, not because he wouldn't pay a **** ton of taxes if he took a market wage. He doesn't care about maximizing his income, which is great, but the fact that he doesn't maximize his income can't be used to argue that his taxes are too low. Anybody can not pay taxes by not having income and that's not a problem with our income tax structure (except arguably that it shows we should rely on a consumption based tax instead). A better comparison would be to his two top stock pickers, each of whom earn more than $20M each. Guarantee you they do not make pay a lower tax rate than his secretary.


He's not paying money to the government. Again, if he really thought he should be paying more money to the government, he could and would do so. He doesn't believe that; he just for whatever reason likes to claim that he does.

What, no. The link proved my point.

And he doesn't "forgoe income", he SHIFTS his income into a form that the tax code has been rigged to say isn't income. He's not living off $100k per year dude. When a rich person takes a loan with virtually no interest (assets as collateral) to live off of, that's income! It's just that the tax code has been rigged to say it's not. Hell, if I just have a loan partially forgiven, after having paid all of the principle but not all the interest, a loan that didn't even come to me but that I cosigned on out of the goodness of my heartthrob, THAT is considered income by the tax code, so how the hell can actual cash being given to the rich not be income?

The problem with the tax code is not people making $20M in a year. And he's not saying it is is he, oh disingenuous one? It's with people making much more than that.

Besides, don't his stock pickers still get the capital gains rate on their income? Back when that was 15%, they probably were paying a lower rate.

 

[johnson86-1]

So you're saying SS pays for a societal good, and is paid for by workers and not owners? Good lord! I hope the people behind that don't feel too bad when they realize what they so accidentally did!**

No, I'm pointing out that the government takes tax money and uses it for a non-means tested welfare program. For all practical purposes, the SS tax revenue goes into the general fund. The general fund is paying for some social security benefits right now. Social security tax is not structred the way it is because of what it's intended to pay for. It's structured that way because it helps hide from people how social security works. If people had understood that a lot of the the money was just going to the general fund, they would have (rightly) lost their **** about a 15% tax on wages.

A corporate tax is intended to recoup costs from those that incurred the cost.

IF that were the case, there would be some nod at tying the tax to costs imposed (I think you mean imposed rather than incurred).

It's its own person after all.

It's amazing how pissy people get about a legal fiction. A corporation is obvioulsy not it's own person. It's treated as a legal person because it's a group of people and the policy decision was made in the 1600's that it would be beneficial to society if people were allowed to invest without putting their entire net worth on the line for every investment.

So one tax on corps is an income tax, and one isn't? Even though both take money from the same account, to the same (US Treasury) account, to pay for the same thing? Isn't that odd to you at all?

Are you shitting me? Yes, the tax on income is an income tax and the tax on property is a property tax. The income tax isn't called the income tax because of where the money goes. It is called an income tax because it's a tax on income. THe same with property tax. That's the same reason FICA is properly called a wage tax. IT's a tax on wages. How it's accounted for by the gov't after the fact doesn't change the fact that it's a tax on wages.

Taxable income is a system generated to rig the tax code. Yes, I'm aware of it. Doesn't change my point.

You seem to be confused as to what income is and how an income tax is different from a revenue tax.

You seen to view taxes as intended punishment for earning revenue. Extreme, even for you. Bottom line, it's a cost paid by the enterprise. The Feds could switch that cost up tomorrow to not be based on income at all. That means something, and you are disingenuously ignoring jt.

So now you are admitting it's an income tax? And it's a cost paid by the enterprise in the same sense that the employer side of FICA is a cost paid by the enterprise. But if you really want to know somebody's tax burden, a piece of paper doesn't have a tax burden. People do.

I'm not pretending Corp taxes don't exist. I'm also not pretending about how many don't pay any, or so little relative to revenue.

You are pretending they aren't a tax on owners. In certain cases, it's possible the tax is borne by workers and consumers, just like in certain cases it's possible the employer side of FICA is borne by consumers and owners, but you can't just pretend they aren't a tax on owners without justification. You certainly can't take the nonsensical position that employer fica counts 100% as an employees tax burden but corporate taxes count 0% of an owners tax burden.

Here's an example. The feds could change the code tomorrow that I can write of my costs for 5 years. Maybe a good idealist, maybe not.
Point is, the rich have that break written into the code, the rest don't, and it's disingenuous to ignore that it's a break only the rich have.

The rich don't have that break written into the tax code. Business owners have the ability to fraudulently run individual costs through the company. Really rich people have the ability to borrow against a stock portfolio and defer taxes indefinitely, and then avoid them all together because of the stepped up basis for inherited property. That is an actual problem with the tax code. At one time, the stepped up basis made sense as it could be practically difficult to establish a basis for inherited property. That's not nearly as big of a problem now and it has generated an ability to avoid taxes that are not tied to any policy goal. Notice how few of the rich arguing that "their taxes" should be raised argue to close actual problems in the tax code.

ETA: What the tax code is not good at is it disallows a lot of legitimate costs of earning a wage because the IRS can't practically police it. For example, some people have to buy clothes that they only have because they need it for work. But the IRS won't let you deduct that because they realistically can't distinguish between what clothes spending is only for work and what is personal choice. Same with commuting costs and a number of other things.

you can't say, as you did, that that income "doesn't count" because the code lets it not count.

It was a result of the code being rigged in his favor, oh disingenuous one.

If he didn't commit fraud (I'm skeptical that his shares were fairly valued when he put them in), it wasn't rigged in his favor. It was a benefit available to anybody able to create their own business. It's also perfectly legitimate to say that the IRA/Roth IRA isn't for that purpose, and to limit the ability to put shares of closely held companies in IRAs (which I think they are doing? Did do?).

It's only non-sensical to the disingenuous. Cutting a workers taxes doesn't change the value of his work. Cutting an investment's taxes DOES change the value of the investment.

Yes, it changes the value to the worker of his work if you cut his income taxes. If he gets $800 in his pocket in exchange for working 40 hours and you change the tax code so he now gets $900 in his pocket, the value of that work has certainly changed for him. Similarly, if that same worker is willing to pay $1,000 for an investment that will put $80 a year in his pocket, if you change the tax code so the investment will put $90 a year in his pocket, that investment is going to be worth more than $1,000 to him after that change. That's really not debatable.

 

[Go Budaw]

First, you don't pay additional money through the IRS. You make payments directly to the treasury. Directions on how to pay additional money are here:

https://fiscal.treasury.gov/public/...t pay.gov, you can,order to the address below.


As far as a "case study", I'm not sure why there would be a case study on anybody paying additional money. But people do pay extra money to the government out of the goodness of their heart. Here is a history of people paying more to reduce the debt held by the public:

https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/gift/gift.htm
https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/mspd/mspd.htm

Of course those payments don't really necessarily reduce the debt held by the public because there is nothing stopping debt from just being issued to replace any debt retired. Not sure of where you'd find records on additional payments to the treasury that are not supposedly tied to reducing the debt held by the public.

Okay. So Buffett has those options he can utilize, which more or less have nothing to do with his taxes. Maybe he has used them, maybe not. But it doesn’t change the fact that he can’t pay more in actual taxes than the Tax Code and his given financial records indicate that he owes.

 

[johnson86-1]

What, no. The link proved my point.

And he doesn't "forgoe income", he SHIFTS his income into a form that the tax code has been rigged to say isn't income.

No, he foregoes income. If he took a market salary, he'd get 100% of that income. Instead he foregoes that income. Because he owns something like 30% of Berkshire Hathoway, he does get essentially 30% of the income he foregoes back in the form of Berkshire Hathoway value. The IRS could take the position that his market income is imputed to him, but it's generally not a problem that people give up 70% of their income so that the 30% they do get is taxed at the corporate tax rate rather than income.

He's not living off $100k per year dude. When a rich person takes a loan with virtually no interest (assets as collateral) to live off of, that's income! It's just that the tax code has been rigged to say it's not.

It's not rigged to say it's not. It's not income under any reasonable definition. Think about what our economy would look like if every time somebody bought a car, they had to pay their marginal tax rate on the purchase immediately because the loan proceeds were viewed as income. What would housing look like if people buying a $300k loan with 25% down suddenly found themselves taxed as if they had earned an extra $240k.

Hell, if I just have a loan partially forgiven, after having paid all of the principle but not all the interest, a loan that didn't even come to me but that I cosigned on out of the goodness of my heartthrob, THAT is considered income by the tax code, so how the hell can actual cash being given to the rich not be income?

IF their loan were forgiven, it would be considered income to them. The problem with the tax code is the stepped up basis for inherited assets. That is there for practical reasons that no longer really apply. It stays there because it's a tax break that goes to a lot of people and it would be unpopular to take it away. Does Buffet actually advocate that the stepped up basis be taken away? It actually has been eliminated in some proposals that were doomed from the start, but only for estates of a certain wealth.

The problem with the tax code is not people making $20M in a year. And he's not saying it is is he, oh disingenuous one? It's with people making much more than that.

Buffet claims people making $1M a year should have higher taxes. https://money.cnn.com/2012/11/26/news/economy/buffett-millionaires-tax/index.html

Besides, don't his stock pickers still get the capital gains rate on their income? Back when that was 15%, they probably were paying a lower rate.

No, they'd pay the personal income rate on that $20M. They would be capital gains rates to the extent they had capital gains to be taxed.

 

[johnson86-1]

Okay. So Buffett has those options he can utilize, which more or less have nothing to do with his taxes. Maybe he has used them, maybe not. But it doesn’t change the fact that he can’t pay more in actual taxes than the Tax Code and his given financial records indicate that he owes.

??? The taxes and the additional payments both go to the treasury. His argument on taxes is not that people should be punished more, but that the US Government (i.e., the treasury) should get (i.e. take) more money from people that make much less than him and are worth much less than him. At the same time, he says that he won't give the government more of his money because he thinks it's better spent in the private sector. He's almost certainly right about that, but it makes his advocacy that less rich people than him be forced to pay more to the government much more of an *** holish position.

And again, it wouldn't cost him anything in the form of consumption if he gave more money to the government. While he certainly lives comfortably, he lives very modestly for his wealth, so he thinks it's unwise to give more money to the government even when it wouldn't affect his lifestyle at all. That's telling.

 

[GloryDawg]

Just from his claim that his secretary paid higher taxes than him tells me he’s a crook

His secretary probably makes more money than 99% of the posters here.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulro...etween-200000-and-500000year/?sh=25c7a6e07e83

 

[BoomBoom.sixpack]

Holy ****. You are the one that linked the documents showing that the claim is false. Taking those claims at face value, he was lying. If those documents are false, and he does actually pay a lower rate than his secretary, it's because he foregoes income and only takes a $100k salary, not because he wouldn't pay a **** ton of taxes if he took a market wage. He doesn't care about maximizing his income, which is great, but the fact that he doesn't maximize his income can't be used to argue that his taxes are too low. Anybody can not pay taxes by not having income and that's not a problem with our income tax structure (except arguably that it shows we should rely on a consumption based tax instead). A better comparison would be to his two top stock pickers, each of whom earn more than $20M each. Guarantee you they do not make pay a lower tax rate than his secretary.


He's not paying money to the government. Again, if he really thought he should be paying more money to the government, he could and would do so. He doesn't believe that; he just for whatever reason likes to claim that he does.

No, he foregoes income. If he took a market salary, he'd get 100% of that income. Instead he foregoes that income. Because he owns something like 30% of Berkshire Hathoway, he does get essentially 30% of the income he foregoes back in the form of Berkshire Hathoway value. The IRS could take the position that his market income is imputed to him, but it's generally not a problem that people give up 70% of their income so that the 30% they do get is taxed at the corporate tax rate rather than income.

It's not rigged to say it's not. It's not income under any reasonable definition. Think about what our economy would look like if every time somebody bought a car, they had to pay their marginal tax rate on the purchase immediately because the loan proceeds were viewed as income. What would housing look like if people buying a $300k loan with 25% down suddenly found themselves taxed as if they had earned an extra $240k.

IF their loan were forgiven, it would be considered income to them. The problem with the tax code is the stepped up basis for inherited assets. That is there for practical reasons that no longer really apply. It stays there because it's a tax break that goes to a lot of people and it would be unpopular to take it away. Does Buffet actually advocate that the stepped up basis be taken away? It actually has been eliminated in some proposals that were doomed from the start, but only for estates of a certain wealth.

Buffet claims people making $1M a year should have higher taxes. https://money.cnn.com/2012/11/26/news/economy/buffett-millionaires-tax/index.html


No, they'd pay the personal income rate on that $20M. They would be capital gains rates to the extent they had capital gains to be taxed.

So he's getting something of value in exchange for his work, but it's not income....because the tax code written by billionaires says so? Dude, listen to yourself.

It wouldn't affect the economy at all if you limited it to loans worth millions of dollars.

Buffet, in 2012, proposed a MINIMUM tax of 30% on income over $1M, and 35% on income over $10M. The rate back then was 35%. So he's proposing only to tax those who somehow have millions of dollars of exemptions, and by virtue of that are paying a lower rate. I am totally not surprised that you are being disingenuous again. It's your whole schtick after all.

Is the carried interest loophole not still around? Why are you disingenuously asserting that his stock pickers wouldn't be using it? Oh wait, I answered my own question.

 

[aTotal360]

I don't think j86 is arguing that on behalf of the morality of the current tax codes. He just saying that ultra wealthy are taking advantage of the codes as they are written. They technically aren't doing anything wrong.

 

[BoomBoom.sixpack]

I don't think j86 is arguing that on behalf of the morality of the current tax codes. He just saying that ultra wealthy are taking advantage of the codes as they are written. They technically aren't doing anything wrong.

No, he's saying the ultra rich do pay higher rates than the rest of us. Neither of us is arguing the morality of it, or if it's good policy or not (though I'm sure we will on another day lol). This specific argument started with him calling WB a liar, but J86 is the one who's wrong, but he'll never admit it because it's Republican orthodoxy that the rich pay higher rates, facts be damned. He's trying to sidestep it now by saying it's not a lower rate if the tax code is rigged to allow it, but that's ridiculous because the rigging of the tax code is the whole point.

WB isn't saying their doing anything wrong either. He's advocating that the tax code be changed. J86 is advocating that it not be. You can ask him why, but I can guarantee you won't get an honest answer. He won't even honestly admit to what the current tax code does.

 

[DoggieDaddy13]

Almost 50% of Bitcoin investors are in the whole now.

you mean in the hole? or do you mean in a whole lotta deep ****? You're right either way.

 

[Go Budaw]

??? The taxes and the additional payments both go to the treasury. His argument on taxes is not that people should be punished more, but that the US Government (i.e., the treasury) should get (i.e. take) more money from people that make much less than him and are worth much less than him. At the same time, he says that he won't give the government more of his money because he thinks it's better spent in the private sector. He's almost certainly right about that, but it makes his advocacy that less rich people than him be forced to pay more to the government much more of an *** holish position.

And again, it wouldn't cost him anything in the form of consumption if he gave more money to the government. While he certainly lives comfortably, he lives very modestly for his wealth, so he thinks it's unwise to give more money to the government even when it wouldn't affect his lifestyle at all. That's telling.

It doesn’t matter that they both go in the treasury. First, you don’t know that he hasn’t donated the would-be tax money there, or to another area he deems as for the greater good via the government (such as political campaigns, lobbying groups for policy, etc.). Second, those payments / donations / whatever are optional ones that actual super rich, greedy ******** are never paying without being legally required to do so. So it’s a false equivalency to treat those as the same thing.

His position is that the rich should HAVE to pay proportionally more taxes than the not so rich, and that the proportional amount should increase with overall wealth / income much moreso than it does currently. Yes, he believes that folks making a tenth of what he does should pay a larger percentage. He also thinks he should pay an even larger percentage than those people, too. His whole premise is that the super rich get more reward in the form of income and compensation than the value they offer to receive that compensation, and that money sitting in the bank accounts and equity of those super rich does nothing to further the greater good. It’s not being used to create jobs, curb the rising costs of health care, provide benefits to the disabled or disadvantaged members of society, etc. You don’t have to agree with his argument, but he’s not an ******* for making it. He’s far from the only one to make it, wealthy or otherwise.

 

[johnson86-1]

So he's getting something of value in exchange for his work, but it's not income....because the tax code written by billionaires says so? Dude, listen to yourself.

It has nothing to do with the tax code being written by billionaires. The IRS could in theory go after him for misclassifying income, just like they can go after a sole proprietor of an S-Corp misclassifying earned income as a distribution. I suspect the IRS not going after him doesn't have anything to do with him being a billionaire and instead has to do with the fact that they would look and feel foolish going after somebody for "tax evasion" whereby that person gives up ~70% of his salary and incentive pay for income for tax purposes.

It wouldn't affect the economy at all if you limited it to loans worth millions of dollars.

You don't think it might impact investment just a little bit if any debt financing that exceeds $1M gets tagged with income taxes when the loan is taken out? Even if you have changed corporate tax rates to where only a 10% rate applied, what does that do to your hurdle rate if any debt financing has to overcome a 10% hit upon funding?

Buffet, in 2012, proposed a MINIMUM tax of 30% on income over $1M, and 35% on income over $10M. The rate back then was 35%. So he's proposing only to tax those who somehow have millions of dollars of exemptions, and by virtue of that are paying a lower rate. I am totally not surprised that you are being disingenuous again. It's your whole schtick after all.

Someone doesn't have to have millions of dollars of exemptions to have a $1M income. He was also proposing that you pay 35% on capital gains and dividends.

Is the carried interest loophole not still around? Why are you disingenuously asserting that his stock pickers wouldn't be using it? Oh wait, I answered my own question.

How would Berkshire Hathoway employees be able to use carried interest to reduce taxes on their salary and incentive pay from Berkshire Hathoway? His two stock pickers show up on the proxy statement. Not sure what arrangement would allow them to take carried interest and also have it show up as a payment from Berkshire Hathoway.

 

[johnson86-1]

I don't think j86 is arguing that on behalf of the morality of the current tax codes. He just saying that ultra wealthy are taking advantage of the codes as they are written. They technically aren't doing anything wrong.

I'm actually saying that the wealthy do in general pay more in taxes. A lot of people claim the wealthy don't pay taxes based on the fact that their unrealized gains aren't taxed (which is not income not just because a policy decision was made for it to not be income, but because it is not practical to tax unrealized gains as income).

There are legal tax avoidance strategies that do allow some wealthy people to pay a low effective tax rate that should be ended (e.g., more or less all variations on the buy, borrow, die strategy) but people claiming they want to raise taxes usually ignore actual problems and argue for raising taxes in a way that won't impact the people actually taking advantage of strategies that are not supported by any type of public policy determinations (for example, Buffet's proposed tax won't impact the buy, borrow, die strategy; it will impact young people trying to get wealthy while leaving existing wealth untouched). And then they'll double down on the disingenuousness by pretending like qualified dividends aren't first taxed at a 21% rate as corporate earnings before being distributed and subjected to the qualified dividend tax rate (which means generally a 32.9% or 36.8% effective rate). Or they'll use the fact that a lot of wealthy people avoid taxes by buying munis, and just ignore the fact that the vast majority of those tax savings are going to borrowers, not the bondholder. I mean, I think muni's being tax free is a ****** policy and it is a bad idea to encourage municipalities, but don't use their existence as a reason that taxes should be raised on the wealthy (as it will only raise their taxes by approximately the extra earnings they will realize either from other bonds or from higher rates charged to municipal borrowers).

There are a lot of potentially defensible tax structures, but very few people that want to raise taxes are willing to discuss the issue honestly.

 

[johnson86-1]

It doesn’t matter that they both go in the treasury. First, you don’t know that he hasn’t donated the would-be tax money there,.

He has said he does not.

or to another area he deems as for the greater good via the government (such as political campaigns, lobbying groups for policy, etc.).

Again, if going to the treasury is not good enough for his money, he shouldn't really be advocating that other people with much less wealth than him have to send their money there.

Second, those payments / donations / whatever are optional ones that actual super rich, greedy ******** are never paying without being legally required to do so. So it’s a false equivalency to treat those as the same thing..

I'm not treating them as the same thing. I'm pointing out that Buffet is arguing that much poorer people should be forced to do what he will not willingly do.

His position is that the rich should HAVE to pay proportionally more taxes than the not so rich, and that the proportional amount should increase with overall wealth / income much moreso than it does currently. Yes, he believes that folks making a tenth of what he does should pay a larger percentage. He also thinks he should pay an even larger percentage than those people, too. His whole premise is that the super rich get more reward in the form of income and compensation than the value they offer to receive that compensation,

IF that's what he believes, he should argue that. INstead, he argues that some rich people (that would include say a married 65 year old with $500k in the bank that sells his small business for $2M) should have to pay more taxes. He doesn't argue for closing the loopholes that people who are already wealthy have available to them.

and that money sitting in the bank accounts and equity of those super rich does nothing to further the greater good.

I can guarantee you he does not think that money sits in bank accounts without being put to use or that invested money does not further the greater good.

It’s not being used to create jobs,

It's 100% creating jobs. That may not be the "purpose", but that's what it's doing.

curb the rising costs of health care,

It could be, it could not be. But money sent to the government certainly doesn't.

provide benefits to the disabled or disadvantaged members of society, etc.

You don’t have to agree with his argument, but he’s not an ******* for making it. He’s far from the only one to make it, wealthy or otherwise.

He may not be an *** hole, but he is definitely making an *** holish argument. I don't know if an example would make it clearer to you just what an *** holish argument he is making, but that hypothetical 65 year old selling his business for $2M with a net worth of $2.5M has a net worth that is just over 0.02% of Buffets (not 2%; you'd have to multiply his wealth by 4,620 to make it as big a Buffet's). Buffet claims that 65 year old should have to pay a minimum extra ~$100k in taxes when he sells his business (that's the difference between the capita gains rate and his proposed 30% rate and assumes he sells his business on January First and makes no other income the entire year). Ignoring state taxes, that 65 year old is going to end up with a net worth of about $2.037M instead of 2.137M. So that couple is going to be able to spend about $81,480 a year of non-social security income using the 4% rule. Without the buffet rule that couple could spend another $4k a year, so about another 5% a year of non-social security spending. Arguing that while simultaneously not paying those taxes himself and also planning on ensuring his money doesn't go to the government when he dies is just *** holish. It's like someone with $1,000,000 in the bank advocating that people with $216 in the bank should be forced to pay $10 to the government and then acting like they are a good person because the younger version of themselves (but not the existing version of themselves) would have paid extra taxes too.

 

[BoomBoom.sixpack]

It has nothing to do with the tax code being written by billionaires. The IRS could in theory go after him for misclassifying income, just like they can go after a sole proprietor of an S-Corp misclassifying earned income as a distribution. I suspect the IRS not going after him doesn't have anything to do with him being a billionaire and instead has to do with the fact that they would look and feel foolish going after somebody for "tax evasion" whereby that person gives up ~70% of his salary and incentive pay for income for tax purposes.

You don't think it might impact investment just a little bit if any debt financing that exceeds $1M gets tagged with income taxes when the loan is taken out? Even if you have changed corporate tax rates to where only a 10% rate applied, what does that do to your hurdle rate if any debt financing has to overcome a 10% hit upon funding?

Someone doesn't have to have millions of dollars of exemptions to have a $1M income. He was also proposing that you pay 35% on capital gains and dividends.

How would Berkshire Hathoway employees be able to use carried interest to reduce taxes on their salary and incentive pay from Berkshire Hathoway? His two stock pickers show up on the proxy statement. Not sure what arrangement would allow them to take carried interest and also have it show up as a payment from Berkshire Hathoway.

Sigh. So let's say some billionaires paid of Congress to write into the tax code that compensation with, say, TaxDodgeCoin, isn't "income". Then lo and behold a bunch of billionaires are now paying themselves in TDC, and paying no income tax. They then trade TDC for dollars (with other billionaires most likely), and live off those dollars Your position here is that's not income, because Congress says so, so it's disingenuous for WB to come along and claim these guys are paying a lower rate than his secretary?

I'm sure you'd have to be careful to not rope in non-tax dodgers. Simplest way is to compare taxable income to the loan. If the latter is too big relative to the former, then IRS counts the loan as income unless the taxpayer can show good reason not to.

Sigh again. Why are you ignoring that his proposal wouldn't affect anyone who was already actually paying a higher rate than his secretary? A minimum tax only affects those getting deductions that take them below the minimum tax. So it's highly disingenuous to say he is proposing taxing regular millionaires, a much larger group, when he in fact only proposed higher taxes on the subset that is paying a much lower rate.

If you're saying his stock pickers don't qualify for the carried interest loophole, then ok? I thought that's exactly who was using it.

 

[johnson86-1]

Sigh. So let's say some billionaires paid of Congress to write into the tax code that compensation with, say, TaxDodgeCoin, isn't "income". Then lo and behold a bunch of billionaires are now paying themselves in TDC, and paying no income tax. They then trade TDC for dollars (with other billionaires most likely), and live off those dollars Your position here is that's not income, because Congress says so, so it's disingenuous for WB to come along and claim these guys are paying a lower rate than his secretary?

No. I'm saying it's disingenuous for Buffet to claim his secretary pays a lower rate than him and act like it's somehow indicative of tax policy in general. There is generally not a problem with CEO's of public corporations foregoing a market income because they own a minority of the stock. Most CEOs would rather have 100% of their market income, less taxes, than forego their market income and just be happy with the appreciation of their stock. I think Steven Jobs may have done this for a while? (although he owned a much smaller portion of Apple at the time after having sold basically all his shares when he resigned the first time, so what he gave up wasn't materially offset the way Buffet's foregone income is). If Buffet is borrowing against his Berkshire Hathoway stock and using that to pay living expenses, he should be advocating that the buy, borrow, die strategy be curtailed, not by advocating that people with a fraction of a percent of his net worth be taxed more.

I'm sure you'd have to be careful to not rope in non-tax dodgers. Simplest way is to compare taxable income to the loan. If the latter is too big relative to the former, then IRS counts the loan as income unless the taxpayer can show good reason not to.

Not sure that can work. I assume by taxable income, you mean taxable income and unrealized gains? What about the multimillionaire that wants to use an auto loan? What about the business that does OEM financing. You make tehat taxable income because it's small in relation to income, but if they do one big credit facility it's not? it'd be much easier to just make income taxable when it's realized but do away with the ability to avoid taxes all together because of the stepped up basis.

Sigh again. Why are you ignoring that his proposal wouldn't affect anyone who was already actually paying a higher rate than his secretary? A minimum tax only affects those getting deductions that take them below the minimum tax. So it's highly disingenuous to say he is proposing taxing regular millionaires, a much larger group, when he in fact only proposed higher taxes on the subset that is paying a much lower rate.

You are not reading what he is proposing. He would tax capital gains and dividends at a 30% or 35% rate. So yes, even people already subject to a higher tax than his secretary will be impacted. He is proposing, among other things, that people that never make anywhere close to a million dollars a year other than the year they sell their small business be subject to much higher rates.

If you're saying his stock pickers don't qualify for the carried interest loophole, then ok? I thought that's exactly who was using it.

Mainly Private equity. Possibly some "hedge" funds that are not really hedging but are buying and holding at least a year. As far as I know, you have to have some form of partnership. Generally it's going to be a L.P. and the general partner is going to be the one to get the carried interest. But you can also set up (I think) a partnership to be the general partner of the private equity fund to extend who can receive carried interest. But to my knowledge there isn't anyway for insurance companies or other c-corps with significant investments to manage to establish a partnership where its employees can receive carried interest.

 

[Go Budaw]

(Cutting the reply with quote out, for brevity)

Buffett, last year, actually publicly advocated for a 30% income tax WITHOUT loopholes on incomes between $1 million and $10 million. The existing tax rate for those people is 37%. In your example of married guy selling his small business, his ~$2 million income would be taxed less under Buffett’s plan than under the current Trump tax code.

Link:
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/b...ake-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share-11619557185

So, it seems you are misrepresenting a good bit of what Buffett has said and what he actually believes.

All that being said, I am neither supporting nor trashing Buffett’s position. Again, saying that he’s simply not an ******* while paying low / no taxes based on what his obligations are, while advocatng for higher taxes. He’s done as much as even testify that opinion before Congress.

Furthermore, Buffett’s wealth and spending power, as big as it is, is still just a tiny drop in the bucket of the total income tax revenue brought in annually by the Treasury. So Buffett knows that even if he were to just write a huge government donation check every year, it’s still not going to be enough to enact any real change without systemic reform requiring the rest of the super rich to do the same. So he wisely chooses other avenues for the benevolent use of his wealth. That’s why the notion that he’s being disingenuous because he doesn’t do that is a hollow argument.

 

[johnson86-1]

(Cutting the reply with quote out, for brevity)

Buffett, last year, actually publicly advocated for a 30% income tax WITHOUT loopholes on incomes between $1 million and $10 million. The existing tax rate for those people is 37%. In your example of married guy selling his small business, his ~$2 million income would be taxed less under Buffett’s plan than under the current Trump tax code.

Link:
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/b...ake-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share-11619557185

So, it seems you are misrepresenting a good bit of what Buffett has said and what he actually believes.

No, it would not. If that were their only income for the year, ~$80k would not be subject to capital gains, about $421k would be subject to a 15% rate, and the remainder of the $1.5M would be subject to a 20% tax rate. That's assuming a basis of basically $0 (which it's usually not going to be exactly zero but a lot of small businesses aren't started with a lot of owner money, and even if they did, they might not have tracked it right) and ignoring the standard deduction.

All that being said, I am neither supporting nor trashing Buffett’s position. Again, saying that he’s simply not an ******* while paying low / no taxes based on what his obligations are, while advocatng for higher taxes. He’s done as much as even testify that opinion before Congress.

Agree to disagree. He wasn't advocating this while he was building his wealth. And he's not advocating that it be applied to billionaires. He's making it sound like he's being selfless while advocating much higher taxes that won't affect him now and advocating that they apply to people with a fraction of a percent of his net worth and earnings. That's just *** holish by most definitions. The least he could do to make it not *** holish would be to pay what he is advocating other, much poorer people pay.

Furthermore, Buffett’s wealth and spending power, as big as it is, is still just a tiny drop in the bucket of the total income tax revenue brought in annually by the Treasury. So Buffett knows that even if he were to just write a huge government donation check every year, it’s still not going to be enough to enact any real change without systemic reform requiring the rest of the super rich to do the same. So he wisely chooses other avenues for the benevolent use of his wealth. That’s why the notion that he’s being disingenuous because he doesn’t do that is a hollow argument.

I'ts not about being wise. It's about being an *** holish hypocrite. There are things the government could do with and extra $20B that would not require other rich people to pay more taxes. Buffet doesn't pay more to the government because he knows it would be a poor use of the money. It wouldn't impact him at all because he's not going to consume it regardless. And he still won't give it to the government. But he wants a retiree who granted, is lucky enough to have a small business to sell but still has less than $80k per year of non-social security retirement income (maybe $90k if they are willing to risk running out of money), to have $4k (or $5K) less per year for the rest of their life to spend.

Buffet has a lot of admirable qualities and the world would be a better place in general if more people were like Buffet, but on this issue, he's just inexplicably a big hypocritical dick. I'd be less critical of him if it were driven by greed, but that's not it. He's just being a dick for some unapparent reason.

 

[BoomBoom.sixpack]

No. I'm saying it's disingenuous for Buffet to claim his secretary pays a lower rate than him and act like it's somehow indicative of tax policy in general. There is generally not a problem with CEO's of public corporations foregoing a market income because they own a minority of the stock. Most CEOs would rather have 100% of their market income, less taxes, than forego their market income and just be happy with the appreciation of their stock. I think Steven Jobs may have done this for a while? (although he owned a much smaller portion of Apple at the time after having sold basically all his shares when he resigned the first time, so what he gave up wasn't materially offset the way Buffet's foregone income is). If Buffet is borrowing against his Berkshire Hathoway stock and using that to pay living expenses, he should be advocating that the buy, borrow, die strategy be curtailed, not by advocating that people with a fraction of a percent of his net worth be taxed more.

Not sure that can work. I assume by taxable income, you mean taxable income and unrealized gains? What about the multimillionaire that wants to use an auto loan? What about the business that does OEM financing. You make tehat taxable income because it's small in relation to income, but if they do one big credit facility it's not? it'd be much easier to just make income taxable when it's realized but do away with the ability to avoid taxes all together because of the stepped up basis.


You are not reading what he is proposing. He would tax capital gains and dividends at a 30% or 35% rate. So yes, even people already subject to a higher tax than his secretary will be impacted. He is proposing, among other things, that people that never make anywhere close to a million dollars a year other than the year they sell their small business be subject to much higher rates.

Mainly Private equity. Possibly some "hedge" funds that are not really hedging but are buying and holding at least a year. As far as I know, you have to have some form of partnership. Generally it's going to be a L.P. and the general partner is going to be the one to get the carried interest. But you can also set up (I think) a partnership to be the general partner of the private equity fund to extend who can receive carried interest. But to my knowledge there isn't anyway for insurance companies or other c-corps with significant investments to manage to establish a partnership where its employees can receive carried interest.

Except that it IS a problem in general. Look at the ProPubluca series on leaked tax files.

If someone is making millions and now owing taxes, I would not describe it as a problem if they had to pay taxes on an auto loan. And I never mentioned businesses.

I think the capital gains proposal is different and separate from a working minimum income tax proposal.

They would only be subject to much higher rates if they had deductions that massively curtailed their income. I thought you claimed this isn't possible?

 

[johnson86-1]

Except that it IS a problem in general. Look at the ProPubluca series on leaked tax files.

Except the ProPublica document shows everybody but Bloomberg paying pretty stiff effective income tax rates. Maybe you think Buffet should pay higher than a 19% effective tax rate (I think paying ~$5M a year and a 19% effective tax rate is paying your fair share if you're not consuming $20M a year, but you can make sure that doesn't happen by closing off the Buy, Borrow, Die strategy), but it's not like it's some obvious problem with the tax code. And again, that's $5M a year ignoring the corporate income tax. But if you believe the propublica story, his secretary is not paying a higher rate than him unless she (or she and her husband if he has one) is making an income that most people would consider qualify her as "rich".

If someone is making millions and now owing taxes, I would not describe it as a problem if they had to pay taxes on an auto loan. And I never mentioned businesses.

You want to further disadvantage individuals that don't own businesses? Borrowing to invest is fine. The problem is letting people avoid taxes all together.

I think the capital gains proposal is different and separate from a working minimum income tax proposal.

It's not. his minimum income tax would tax capital gains and dividends at a 30% or 35% rate. He's explicitly talked about how higher capital gains taxes would not stop people like him from investing.

They would only be subject to much higher rates if they had deductions that massively curtailed their income. I thought you claimed this isn't possible?

No, they would be subject to the higher taxes for any capital gains or dividends. Also, most deductions are available because they are seen as incentivizing something the government wants to promote. We have already capped the ridiculous and indefensible SALT deduction (should cap it at zero). The only other deduction I'm aware of that is unlimited as a practical and legal matter is the charitable giving deduction. I can see arguments for getting rid of it or limiting it (a lot of "charity" is just status spending), the way to do that is to get rid of it or limit it based on when it does or does not serve policy goals. To the extent there are other deductions that somehow allow individuals to receive the benefit of income while not taxing it, sure, reduce or eliminate those also.

 

[BoomBoom.sixpack]

No, it would not. If that were their only income for the year, ~$80k would not be subject to capital gains, about $421k would be subject to a 15% rate, and the remainder of the $1.5M would be subject to a 20% tax rate. That's assuming a basis of basically $0 (which it's usually not going to be exactly zero but a lot of small businesses aren't started with a lot of owner money, and even if they did, they might not have tracked it right) and ignoring the standard deduction.

Agree to disagree. He wasn't advocating this while he was building his wealth. And he's not advocating that it be applied to billionaires. He's making it sound like he's being selfless while advocating much higher taxes that won't affect him now and advocating that they apply to people with a fraction of a percent of his net worth and earnings. That's just *** holish by most definitions. The least he could do to make it not *** holish would be to pay what he is advocating other, much poorer people pay.

I'ts not about being wise. It's about being an *** holish hypocrite. There are things the government could do with and extra $20B that would not require other rich people to pay more taxes. Buffet doesn't pay more to the government because he knows it would be a poor use of the money. It wouldn't impact him at all because he's not going to consume it regardless. And he still won't give it to the government. But he wants a retiree who granted, is lucky enough to have a small business to sell but still has less than $80k per year of non-social security retirement income (maybe $90k if they are willing to risk running out of money), to have $4k (or $5K) less per year for the rest of their life to spend.

Buffet has a lot of admirable qualities and the world would be a better place in general if more people were like Buffet, but on this issue, he's just inexplicably a big hypocritical dick. I'd be less critical of him if it were driven by greed, but that's not it. He's just being a dick for some unapparent reason.

So that comes to a 18.6 effective tax rate. Just what do you think his secretary's rate is?

 

[BoomBoom.sixpack]

Except the ProPublica document shows everybody but Bloomberg paying pretty stiff effective income tax rates. Maybe you think Buffet should pay higher than a 19% effective tax rate (I think paying ~$5M a year and a 19% effective tax rate is paying your fair share if you're not consuming $20M a year, but you can make sure that doesn't happen by closing off the Buy, Borrow, Die strategy), but it's not like it's some obvious problem with the tax code. And again, that's $5M a year ignoring the corporate income tax. But if you believe the propublica story, his secretary is not paying a higher rate than him unless she (or she and her husband if he has one) is making an income that most people would consider qualify her as "rich".

You want to further disadvantage individuals that don't own businesses? Borrowing to invest is fine. The problem is letting people avoid taxes all together.

It's not. his minimum income tax would tax capital gains and dividends at a 30% or 35% rate. He's explicitly talked about how higher capital gains taxes would not stop people like him from investing.

No, they would be subject to the higher taxes for any capital gains or dividends. Also, most deductions are available because they are seen as incentivizing something the government wants to promote. We have already capped the ridiculous and indefensible SALT deduction (should cap it at zero). The only other deduction I'm aware of that is unlimited as a practical and legal matter is the charitable giving deduction. I can see arguments for getting rid of it or limiting it (a lot of "charity" is just status spending), the way to do that is to get rid of it or limit it based on when it does or does not serve policy goals. To the extent there are other deductions that somehow allow individuals to receive the benefit of income while not taxing it, sure, reduce or eliminate those also.

Again, again, only if you ignore SS. Oh, the irony of someone starting all this by claiming someone else was disingenuous, who then has to continually disingenuously ignore a 12% rate tax entirely that workers pay and the rich don't.

The only reason to be against SALT tax deductions is if you for some reason think there's a vast distinction between state level govt and Fed level govt. To me, it's all govt. Disingenuous conservatives are only against SALT because it favors blue states. That's it, and that's all fascists need to concoct reasons to enact policies to punish their political enemies.