President Obama on Monday will call for a new minimum tax rate for individuals making more than $1 million a year to ensure that they pay at least the same percentage of their earnings as middle-income taxpayers, according to administration officials.
With a special joint Congressional committee starting work to reach a bipartisan budget deal by late November, the proposal adds a new and populist feature to Mr. Obama’s effort to raise the political pressure on Republicans to agree to higher revenues from the wealthy in return for Democrats’ support of future cuts from Medicare and Medicaid.
Mr. Obama, in a bit of political salesmanship, will call his proposal the “Buffett Rule,” in a reference to Warren E. Buffett, the billionaire investor who has complained repeatedly that the richest Americans generally pay a smaller share of their income in federal taxes than do middle-income workers, because investment gains are taxed at a lower rate than wages.
Mr. Obama will not specify a rate or other details, and it is unclear how much revenue his plan would raise. But his idea of a millionaires’ minimum tax will be prominent in the broad plan for long-term deficit reduction that he will outline at the White House on Monday.
Mr. Obama’s proposal is certain to draw opposition from Republicans, who have staunchly opposed raising taxes on the affluent because, they say, it would discourage investment. It could also invite scrutiny from some economists who have disputed Mr. Buffett’s assertion that the megarich pay a lower tax rate over all. Mr. Buffett’s critics say many of the rich actually make more from wages than from investments.
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It’s about time these folks start paying their fair share.
I seriously hope you are cartooning me, Huggie.
_______
Jake
I was, indeed, trolling you… 🙂
Like so many high-profile Manhattan skyscrapers, the Helmsley building has its own zip code. The IRS tabulates individual tax return data by zip code. So we can see how much income tax was reported on individual tax returns that filed from the Helmsley Building. In 2007 there were 130 returns using the building’s zip code. The IRS data do not reveal whether these returns were filed by individuals using the building as a primary residence, secondary residence, or as a business address. In any case these are not your typical straphangers. Average adjusted gross income per tax return is $1.17 million.
But it is not just lofty levels of income that separate Helmsley residents from regular folks. It’s their tax rate. In the table above we compare the total income and estimated payroll tax liability of a typical filer from the Helmsley building with the income and payroll liability of janitors and security guards earning average salaries for those professions in the New York area. The Helmsley Building no doubt employs dozens of janitors and security guards, many of whom earn salaries comparable to these government-reported averages.
The data directly from tax returns show that total average income tax liability for individuals filing from the Helmsley building was only 13.7 percent of AGI.
http://www.tax.com/taxcom/taxblog.nsf/Permalink/MSUN-8E6QJ3?OpenDocument
That’s it! … next time I’m up to $999,999.99, I’m taking the rest of the year off!
Let’s get the socialist revolution going (perfectly serious here). Its about time. Now cut some of that crap out of government and we will be good to go.
My $VIX hedge is looking better all the time.
These must be the corporate jet owners!!
SOB, creating class warfare.
I bust my ass and have to shit load of it to these mother fuckers so a bunch of losers qualify for food stamp and can sit at home and colled 2 years of unemployment
Buffett is in dispute with the IRS for back taxes, to the tune of 1 Billion dollar. Yes, Olde Fucking Man Buffett owes the IRS 1 Billion dollars but wants others to pay more.
That’s gold.
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Let’s see.. my guess is that the couple making $250k, with one child in college, living in California… will be classified as one of those “millionaire” couples who doesn’t pay enough taxes!
futures tanking and so another fun week begins…S&P down 16