Top Earners Can Find Ways Around Buffett Rule

[xchrom]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-13/top-earners-can-find-ways-around-buffett-rule-minimum-tax-rate.html

The highest-earning U.S. households have ways to escape President Barack Obama’s Buffett rule with tax-planning techniques that would limit their liability and undermine the proposal’s purpose.

Those affected taxpayers -- the fewer than 0.5 percent of Americans with annual incomes exceeding $1 million and tax rates of less than 30 percent -- could take advantage of tax-free investments such as municipal bonds to escape the Buffett rule’s bite. They also could time asset sales for maximum tax benefits, engage in transactions that don’t result in taxable income and make charitable contributions that yield deductions.

“Largely, the Buffett rule is going to be manageable,” said David Miller, a partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP in New York. “That is, with tax planning, people will be able to avoid it.”

The proposal would deny high-income taxpayers many deductions and other breaks they use to drive down their average tax rate without closing out the tactics employed by the wealthiest, most sophisticated taxpayers.

[orpupilofnature57]

1. Jefferson warned us ,the ' Monied ' interests , moving

To & Fro unopposed ,ambiguous situations bring 600% profit no matter which way the ball drops ,we support this .

[xchrom]

2. Crafting legislation with holes in it is a Talent! Nt

[HiPointDem]

3. Of course they can. Warren's got it figured out already. Foundations controlled by family and

friends are a great way to do it.

[dkf]

4. Muni bonds and charitable giving could already be the reason they get a lower rate.

And to discourage those things is the opposite of why we gave the break to begin with.

[Brickbat]

5. If the administration can use discussion about the Buffett rule to make the conversation about

closing loopholes and fixing the tax code as a whole, great. If they push this through and think their work is done, well -- meh.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

6. AMT figures in that as well