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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (33905)	3/10/2009 3:07:28 PM
From: TimF	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

First of all even using Buffet's methods the slightly rich are the ones that get hit hardest, not the people at the middle or the bottom. Buffet isn't slightly rich. But more importantly Buffet's methodology was rather poor. He doesn't include the taxes he pays as part owner of Berkshire Hathaway, and other companies. He doesn't include the forgone interest in lieu of taxes that he gets if he invests in tax free bonds, and he doesn't count every form of federal tax. Also he presents himself as a sample of one for the wealthy side of the ledger rather than looking at information about wealthy people overall. The CBO data I posted Lowest quintile: 4.3 percent Second quintile: 9.9 percent Middle quintile: 14.2 percent Fourth quintile: 17.4 percent Percentiles 81-90: 20.3 percent Percentiles 91-95: 22.4 percent Percentiles 96-99: 25.7 percent Percentiles 99.0-99.5: 29.7 percent Percentiles 99.5-99.9: 31.2 percent Percentiles 99.9-99.99: 32.1 percent Top 0.01 Percentile: 31.5 percent doesn't rely on data for just two types of taxes paid by a very few people, but for all federal taxes paid by all tax payers. Its not perfect. Like Buffet's data it doesn't consider taxes paid as part owner of profitable corporations and doesn't include the forgone interest in lieu of taxes when rich people buy tax free bonds, but if we include those factors than it shows that the tax system is even more tilted against the rich than the CBO suggests. Of course the top 0.01 percent still leaves you far below Buffet levels, and its possible that the slight drop from the 99.9-99.99 percent range to the top 0.01 percent continues as you move up to the "mega-rich", but even if all their income was from long term capital gains (and it isn't) and even if they paid no additional taxes (and they do), that would still leave them paying 15%, which would be higher than the middle quintile or below. And the reality is they pay a lot more than 15% because they pay other taxes besides income tax, and some of their income tax liability derives from ordinary income or short term gains. The real class war is against the top five or ten percent. At most Buffet's example could be an argument that it isn't against the top one in a million or higher, but it is against most wealthy people, and also for all the reasons I laid out above Buffet's argument is rather questionable. And even if the very very few on the top really do pay fairly low tax rates, that doesn't provide support for increasing taxes on the people in the top 5% who generally have the highest tax burdens as a percentage of their income.