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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mary Cluney who wrote (17199)	4/22/2010 11:11:08 AM
From: i-node	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

Hmmm. It seems no CEO has come forward to pick up some easy money. I'll give a million to any CEO who receives a greater percentage of his income in government benefits than his secretary.

To: Mary Cluney who wrote (17199)	4/22/2010 1:48:45 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 42652

It would only be easy money if you didn't let Buffet define the parameters needed for the payout. The CEOs make a lot of their money through investment gains. Much of those investment gains are from company stock. If the company pays corporate income taxes the owners of the company are already paying, than they pay again with taxes on dividends and gains. When the CEOs invest in areas outside of their company, they might look to tax free bonds which make more sense for people in high tax brackets like the CEOs. The CEOs technically don't pay taxes on the return on these investments but they accept lower returns in lieu of taxes. When you consider those facts its very likely the CEOs really pay more. And even if you don't count that the top 1%, and the top .1%, and the top .01% all pay more in total federal taxes than the typical person as a percentage of their income. Of course a CEO's personal secretary makes pretty good money so he or she is also likely to pay higher taxes, but most very wealthy people pay more taxes than the 2nd richest quintile, so its possible that even if you don't count the factors I mentioned above that the CEOs still pay less.