Buffett blasts system that lets him pay less tax than secretary

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.

" Why do Democrats want to keep the Status Quo?   If they are concerned about the little guy, end the IRS and change to a sales based fair tax. That would make the rich pay at least as much as the poor, as they have to live and pay basic bills also, but then there is the fact that they buy more expensive stuff that will make the rich pay a lot more.

 Actually in the end all their cash which is useless until spent will be spent and will be taxed. That would be better than the present system that Democrats keep changing apparently to benefit of the not so common man. Even Warren Buffett wants the system fixed so he will pay his fair share. "

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.

" Just tax the rest of us at 17.7% also...
"

The comments are among the most signficant yet in a debate raging on both sides of the Atlantic about growing income inequality and how the super-wealthy are taxed.

" It's no business of government to know who is super rich.  If the tax were equal with no tax code and therefore no loop holes (a flat 10%) the average $35,000 earner will pay $3,500 while Warren Buffett would pay on his $46,000,000.00 at 10% rate $4,600,000.00....   that will be 1,314 times as mush as a working guy paid in actual dollars.


You Liberals sure have been suckered by all the fancy tax code.

"

Lloyd wrote:        Yeah, it's really fair that Buffet pay the same % as a secretary.