Putting Warren Buffet's riches in perspective

[TimE]

It's not going to stop anyone from investing because there's money to be made and it's especially true for the big fish in the pond.

It's just another Republican talking point.

I've got an idea, why not have all of zero's cronies pay their taxes? Heck we could probably balance the budget with that and zero's insider trading.

This bill has no chance of passing, democrat congressmen are running away from it. Heck even Bill Clinton thinks its a bad idea!

Just a futile attempt to get reelected.

[eddie_m]

What I want to know and don't fully understand is this tax "bracket" thing....let's say I make $100.00 dollars per year and the rich guy living in the East End makes $100,000.00 dollars per year. My tax rate is 30%, which means I bring home $70.00 dollars per year. My question is, what is the rich East Ender's percentage he has to pay, is it not 30%?[/QUOTE]

Tax brackets: everybody gets an exemption for each person living in the household and a standard deduction, which totals about $11,000. That means that any family earning $9,000 owes NO tax at all. Over $11,000, the tax payer would owe 10% on all earnings up to $70,000. Above $70,000, all earnings are taxed at 25% up to some amount like $200,000. Above that, it's taxed at some other rate like 28%. So, the rich guy in the East End is paying 25% on his additional earnings. The poor guy doing temp work would owe nothing up to $11,000.

This is one of the "social engineering" aspects of our tax system, as Congress has designed it. It puts more $ into the hands of the poor at the expense of those with more earnings. Geo and I have debated it extensively while on various fishing lakes. There are positives and negatives of the current system and of the flat tax, which would be the alternative to the current system (not intended to hijack the thread).