There is a multi billionaire
 

...on Night Line as I am typing this. He is against Bush's tax cuts. One reason is he said that he pays 3% in taxes while his receptionist pays the top rate in taxes and this tax cut will benefit him to the tune of millions and will help her little if any. Bottom line is he believes in graduated taxes but gradutated from the bottom up and also believes in a fair tax system but claims that the current system is not fair and the rich benefit not the lesser ones on the totem pole. He said the tax cuts should go to those that will spend it and that will give a boost to the economy and not to the rich which he said they will not spend it but will simply invest it. I think I understood him to say that he will get $310 million from the tax cut but said that he will invest it and not spend it so it will not help the economy.

Buffet? Soros?

i know the oracle is against tax cuts.

3% tax?!? In Australia, every dollar over $AUD60,000 (around $USD39,000) gets taxed 47%.

If you're a millionaire that $60k is relatively insignificant, so you are effectively being taxed almost half of your earnings.

I think it is Buffet...but I may be wrong. Yes it is Buffet.

Buffet

Wonder how many 9-12 figure net worthers are sitting in front of their TV's cursing his ass right now?

Do you think the likes of Kerry Packer pay 47% tax?

He finished the show by saying that the accounting system used in Washingon would make Enron blush.

buffet knows his shit (obviously). i really enjoy listening to him...

He is not that popular among most of his peers but I have heard several other "filthy rich" say things similar to what he has said.

investing helps the economy

he'll just make more and more money, and get taxed on his profits anyway

more money pumped into companies means they have more capital for hiring/expansion


those newly hired earn money (which gets taxed) and spend money (which helps the economy)

He said that his investments are not taxable unless and untill he wanted to put 10 million in his pocket (his example) to do whatever with and then he would have to pay a capital gains tax on the 10 million and I think he said that would be around 20%. He said the $310 million that he will get would be better serve the economy by giving 310,000 consumers $1000.00 each

I am somewhat shocked to learn that a multi billionaire pays as little as 3% in taxes...but should not be as in the past I have heard about cases where zero taxes were paid.

Ted Koppel...playing the Devils Advocate...said that even though he only paid 3% that represented milillions upon millions of dollars paid in taxes where as even though his receptionist paid the top rate in taxes she did not pay anywhere near that amount. His response was that he did not consider the total dollar amount that he has to pay as having any bearing upon the fact that he pays a much smaller percentage than she pays and it hurts her pocket book more than the millions in taxes hurts his.

Buffet lives up the street from me, sorta.

How firm is that sorta?

hmm, he lives in the suburb, I live in the city.

I read that interview someplace.. He was talking about the proposed zero tax on dividends. He was making the point that people like himself could pay out huge dividends to themselves effectively dropping his tax rate to 3%.

He said that money he would potentially save in taxes would go further to help the economy if the same amount of money were spread around to thousands of "middle class" people... because they would spend the money, whereas he would just save it.

He didn't seem to point out that Berkshire Hathaway's Investments would benefit incredibly from a tax cut that favored middle class people rather than only the rich. Take a look at Berkshire Hathaway's Subsidiary Companies:

http://berkshirehathaway.com/subs/sublinks.html

He's famous for investing in companies like Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Gillette...

I think he runs adultbuffet but am not sure.

Boneprone said so.

LOL...well I guess that then makes me neighbors with Celine Dion and Wayne Newton.

states have to raise taxes to offset the higher yields that they have to pay on their debt. this gets passed on the citizens in either higher taxes or spending cuts.

there are better ways to stimulate the economy than giving a tax break to the wealthy. especially when it increases an already large deficit which could mean higher interest rates and an even lower dollar. will the spending help? probably, but the potential risks seem to outweigh the rewards.

Right. How many millionaires are ACTUALLY taxed 47% on those earnings? Point is that actual tax rates matter very little because when you earn that much you can afford good tax planners to move your money around and exploit all the loopholes.

In the UK, you're in theory taxed 40% on everything above a certain level, but if you're rich enough you're likely to have most of your money in offshore trusts or offshore investment companies of various types, and arrange to be employed by an offshore company using employee benefit trusts or similar to pay you, in effect cutting your tax to 10-15% of what you SPEND (while you'd keep anything you don't spend invested offshore without paying tax on it at all).

he's right, lower income people HAVE to spend their money to live so it is a direct stimulant to the economy, richer people save and invest.

and whoever was talking about the australian tax rate - kerry packer declares and is taxed on a 25k p/a salary, the very wealthy do not pay tax, even the marginal taxrate (last time i looked a few years ago) comes down after several hundred thousand dollars - someone on $60,001 pays 47% (48.5% with no health insuarance) on that last dollar whereas someone on $500,001 pays 43% on the last one. (this may have changed).

It seems that in all countries, there is a shit amount of money to be earning, say $100-$500k, where you're earning enough to be taxed at some stupid 40-50% rate but not enough to spend buckets on exploiting expensive tax loopholes

I'm looking forward to 12clicks jumping on this thread and calling warren buffet a dope

:1orglaugh

I agree with you all! We need to pay more taxes! 30% is still not enough, I recommend we raise it to 75% as soon as possible.
Who's with me?
:rainfro

this is getting bad, we will soon al be slaves

You mean you live about 8 miles away from these people?

You are correct...almost always...if not always...a cut in Federal Taxes is offset by a raise in state and local taxes. I hate it when Republicans refer to the Reagan years and how his tax cuts spurred the economy. If the economy was so spurred why then did he leave office with a quadrupled National Debt? Republicans argue that the Congress spent a buck eighty-two for every new dollar brought in by the tax cuts...but the Congress actually cut the Reagan proposed budgets by a substantial amount...still yet it is the Congress that controls the purse strings so there is enough blame to go around.

To me though...a quadrupled National Debt means a failed economic plan...black and white with me.

i think there are times when the government should step in and spend, but they've already done that once and they'll get less bang for their buck this time. 350b is much better than what was put on the table before, but some of the tax cuts are only temporary for 3 years. so right there its not going to have the desired effect because people will plan for it being temporary.

the economy really needs a drop in the 10 year treasury yields to the 2.5% area. every thursday the unemployment situation keeps getting worse and worse. they keep wishing businesses start to spend, but its not gonna happen unless they can see the light at the end of the tunnel. sooner or later consumers are gonna put their wallets away and things could head south.

hopefully the war on the 10 year rate begins this summer after another month of sluggish economic data comes out.

As to the National Debt...Buffet said that there is not any reason to be alarmed as long as the GNP grows at a higher percentage rate than the National Debt does.

While I understand what he is saying...I think that when the third largest expenditure of the budget is payment on the interest for the National Debt...there is reason for alarm. Maybe not in the sense that the economy is on the verge of collasping but when interests payments are the third largest expenditure in anyones budget...including the governments...I think that should be reason for alarm.

Well, if the interest payments ever get annoying, the US can always "liberate" the countries they owe the money to.

The debt is primarily owed to Americans.