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Originally Posted by Bobblehead
Then why were you bringing his net worth into the discussion? It is a different topic. If you want to argue "loopholes" then have at it and bring forward some concrete examples. Otherwise you sound like you are railing against something you really don't know anything about.
Most "loopholes" were actually specifically designed to promote some sort of activity, like saving for retirement, keeping children active or donating to charity (to name a few basic examples).
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I only said that he added $3 billion to his net worth and he never paid taxes on a dime of that money. But, he is not being open to the public about that. Is he talking about dividends or the lack of paying payroll taxes? No he isn't. He's talking about marginal rates and comparing him to his secretary. The US won't close the gap between revenues and spending by taxing individuals more. They'll close it by taxing rich corporations a bit more, specifically through closing loopholes. Sure, the $90 billion in additional revenues by increasing rates on the rich would be nice, but it still doesn't do much at all.
The Tax Foundation came up with $628 billion that the US government wasn't getting because of these loopholes. That is almost 8x more revenue collected than raising taxes on the 'rich' would collect.
Everything from the $32 billion to help prop up the price of corn, to the $170 billion that multinational companies don't pay because they never transfer their profits back to the US.
Is BH exploiting some of these loopholes(there are ten that get talked about more)? Absolutely. Is Buffet coming out and telling the public in detail what these are, how his company uses them to make more money, and encouraging the public to tell their representative to support a law to end them? No he's not. Instead he's focusing on the individual, and the supposed $90 billion that somehow should help the US close the $1.5 trillion dollar spending-revenue gap.
Almost hypocritical of him.