Bob Adelmann writing on www.thenewamerican.com reports that Buffet earned $40 million last year and paid $7 million of it in taxes. But in his editorial in the New York Times on Sunday, he claimed that he doesn’t think he’s paying enough, and neither are his friends. So he’s asking the SuperCommittee to stop “coddling” him and his friends, and raise their taxes as part of the deficit reduction scheme they are hatching.
Adelmann reports: Buffet began by suggesting that government leaders have called for “shared sacrifice” but that he didn’t get the call. “I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched.”
Unfortunately, facts are not only stubborn, they are different. In his editorial, Buffet notes that incomes of the top 400 taxpayers (many of them his friends) had grown from $16.9 billion in 1992 to $90.9 billion in 2008, but that their actual tax rate over that period had declined. What was missing, of course, was the fact that in 1992 those taxpayers’ income tax liabilities totaled $5 billion, but in 2008 it had almost quadrupled, to $19.5 billion. So while effective tax rates were going down on his rich friends, they wound up paying four times as much to the government. And that’s a bad thing?
Here’s some comments from business people supporting Buffett’s suggestion:
Brian Setzler, President of TriLibrium, an accounting and business advisory firm in Portland, OR. said: “As a certified public accountant and business owner, I know the impact of taxes up close and personal. Warren Buffett’s appeal to raise taxes at the top is right on the money. It’s outrageous that small business owners and working Americans subsidize tax giveaways to millionaires and billionaires at big corporations and hedge funds. The reality is that our economy was much stronger when tax rates on millionaires and billionaires were higher and our tax system did a better job of reinforcing Main Street investment over Wall Street speculation. Job creation was much better before the Bush tax cuts, which have starved our government of revenues needed for rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, converting to clean energy, educating our kids, retraining workers and spurring the research and innovation needed to succeed in the new economy.”
Dal LaMagna, co-managing partner of IceStone in Brooklyn, NY, said:
“As a successful entrepreneur myself, I agree with Warren Buffett. If you care about jobs, the economy and our nation’s future, read our lips — ‘raise our taxes.’
“Buffett was right when he warned that Wall Street’s multiplying derivatives were financial weapons of mass destruction. And he’s right that lower tax rates for the wealthy have brought ‘far lower job creation.’ Our current tax code has it backward. People earning their income by actually working for it are paying more in taxes than people who make it in the stock market. Millionaires like me want to reinvest in our nation and strengthen opportunity for the future – not pull up the ladder behind us.”
Lew Prince, managing partner of Vintage Vinyl, an independent music store in St. Louis, said:
“As a small business owner for more than 30 years, I have to be reality based. My company wouldn’t last a week if we kept repeating mistakes. The Bush tax cuts for the richest Americans were a big mistake. Continued tax cuts to the wealthy won’t create jobs but they will mean more cutbacks in the public services and infrastructure that really strengthen our economy. We’re still using roads, schools, parks and hospitals built during the Great Depression. Wouldn’t it be great if our grandchildren were using broadband, renewable energy and 21st Century infrastructure built during the Great Recession – which in the real world is far from over?”
Scott Klinger, tax policy director of Business for Shared Prosperity, said:
“America’s economic arteries are blocked. Wealth has clotted in the hands of large corporations and high-income families, while many small businesses and hard-working families struggle to make ends meet. Our current tax system fuels speculative investment by Wall Street bankers and rewards large corporation CEOs, hedge fund managers and other ultra-high income Americans with tax rates that are often lower than their employees. It is no accident that the tax-cutting Bush administration had the worst track record for job creation since the 1930s. We need to end the budget-busting tax cuts at the top that won’t help small business create jobs, won’t rebuild our failing infrastructure and won’t make us more competitive globally.”
Contact: Bob Keener, (617) 610-6766
Business for Shared Prosperity is a national network of forward-thinking business owners, executives and investors.
