A Minimum Tax for the Wealthy
A Minimum Tax for the Wealthy
By WARREN E. BUFFETT
Published: November 25, 2012
Omaha
SUPPOSE that an investor you admire and trust comes to you with an investment idea. This is a good one, he says enthusiastically. Im in it, and I think you should be, too.
Would your reply possibly be this? Well, it all depends on what my tax rate will be on the gain youre saying were going to make. If the taxes are too high, I would rather leave the money in my savings account, earning a quarter of 1 percent. Only in Grover Norquists imagination does such a response exist.
Between 1951 and 1954, when the capital gains rate was 25 percent and marginal rates on dividends reached 91 percent in extreme cases, I sold securities and did pretty well. In the years from 1956 to 1969, the top marginal rate fell modestly, but was still a lofty 70 percent and the tax rate on capital gains inched up to 27.5 percent. I was managing funds for investors then. Never did anyone mention taxes as a reason to forgo an investment opportunity that I offered.
Under those burdensome rates, moreover, both employment and the gross domestic product (a measure of the nations economic output) increased at a rapid clip. The middle class and the rich alike gained ground.
More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/26/opinion/buffett-a-minimum-tax-for-the-wealthy.html
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(108,903 posts)orpupilofnature57
(15,472 posts)yurbud
(39,405 posts)yurbud
(39,405 posts)An LA Times columnist, discussing raising taxes on the wealthy a few years back asked if then Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger taxes went up a few percent, how would his standard of living change?
Would he have to sell his Hummer?
Would he have to sell a house or pull his kids out of private school?
No.
And as Warren Buffet says here, no one has ever passed up a good investment because of the tax on potential profits.