Quote:
Originally Posted by azndude69
^ this is exactly why I support the protests. It gets people talking and brings these issues out there.
Warren Buffett, 2nd richest guy in the US has been saying this for a long time now about how he has a lower tax rate than his secretary. His tax rate was 19% compared to the 33% that his employees paid. “How can this be fair?” Buffett asked, regarding how little he pays in taxes compared to his employees. “How can this be right?”
"My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice"
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/op...uper-rich.html |
You've used that quote multiple times, but each time I can't help but think it's a bit misleading and needs to be looked at in context. This applies more to the U.S. because in Canada our taxes are relatively higher. Apparently, Buffett made 46 million and was taxed 17.7% while his secretary made 60,000 and was taxed 30% (without him trying to avoid paying any taxes). 17.7% is still 7820000 in taxes paid while 30% of 60,000 is 18,000, so technically, he still paid 1000x more tax than most people will ever in their lifetime each year.
I would think that the favorable tax policy is to encourage entrepreneurs and investors to use that leftover money to build and invest in companies to CREATE jobs for people. Abilities that the majority of people don't have, or don't have the balls for (risk), and thus I don't think you can compare them with his employees who do jobs that are easily trainable (earning a wage is relatively safe). One of my uncle with no financial help, created his medium sized company from scratch. One guy, who ended up creating GOOD jobs for a number of people, his engineers made 50-60k USD (in the 80s when money and the USD were worth a lot more than CAD). If we want jobs, especially good ones, we need to cultivate entrepreneurs who can innovate. Even if we take a look at Vancouver, we don't have many great jobs because we lack industries. So what a blessing it is to get a company like E.A. to set up here, suddenly we have great paying software engineering jobs.
Interesting fact: Forbes, half of all US billionaire's are self-made.