Patters

The article is from the liberal Raw Story, but it's based on an interview of Buffet by Tom Brokaw. At any rate, the question is, do conservatives condone this or have they, unlike the liberals, been fooled yet again by the Republican Party?

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/NBC_Wa...axes_1030.html

Multi-billionaire Warren Buffett has been complaining for years that his taxes are too low. Last June, he said at a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton that he was taxed at only 17.7% last year on his $46 million in income, while his secretary paid 30% of her $60,000.

NBC's Tom Brokaw recently interviewed Buffett, "whose approach doesn't make him very popular with his fellow billionaires."

"The taxation system has tilted toward the rich and away from the middle class in the last 10 years," Buffett, the nation's third richest man, told Brokaw. Buffett said he did an informal survey of federal taxes paid by his own office staff, and the average was 32.9%, compared to his 17.7%.

"There wasn't anybody in the office, from the receptionists on, that paid as low a tax rate," Buffett stated, noting that "I have no tax planning, I don't have an accountant, I don't have tax shelters."

QuiGon

Didn't we have this exact same article and this exact same conversation a couple of months ago..? (Yes, we did). What is about liberals that they take something from 5 months ago and repeat it word for word and think that it still counts as "news"...?

I will say now what I said then: I don't believe for a second that he makes $46 million in personal income and only paid 17.7% in taxes without doing some serious tax planning and deductions.

What they are likely doing is taking capital gains and calling it salary, which is rather disingenuous. Capital gains and salary are 2 entirely different things for tax purposes.

PatsFanInMaine

Mr. Buffet was either misinformed by his secretary or his secretary made mistakes on her federal income tax return. It is impossible for someone making $60,000 to fall into a 30% tax bracket on their federal return.

Here is the IRS's tax schedule the year 2006. Let's make an assumption that Mr. Buffet's secretary falls into the highest tax schedule- Single.

http://www.irs.gov/formspubs/article...150856,00.html


Now take her $60,000 income. For the sake of argument lets assume that his secretary really screws up on her return and doesn’t even take the standard deductions allowed and simply pays a tax on her entire $60,000 income.

It would compute as this.

$4,220 on her 1st $30,650 of income.

She would then pay 25% of her remaining income of $29,350. That equates to $7,338.

$4,220 + $7,338 = $11,558

The $11,558 tax equates to a tax rate of 19.26%

Still higher than Mr. Buffet's but if she had claimed her standard deduction her tax rate would be very close the tax rate of Mr. Buffet.