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ORIGINAL: TreasureKY

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ORIGINAL: Iamsemisweet

... The tax system is fucked up. The image of Buffet and his secretary's respective tax rates was compelling. That's an example of framing the issues in a way that favors him.

I don't disagree with the tax system being a huge problem.  And yes, it isn't right that Buffet's rates are lower than his secretary's.  But evoking Buffet as a poster boy for the rich wanting to pay more is ridiculous considering his own company's tax problems.

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We file income tax returns in the U.S. federal jurisdiction and in state, local and foreign jurisdictions. We are under examination by the taxing authorities in many of these jurisdictions. With few exceptions, we have settled tax return liabilities with U.S. federal, state, local and foreign tax authorities for years before 2002. We anticipate that we will resolve all adjustments proposed by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) for the 2002 through 2004 tax years at the IRS Appeals Division within the next 12 months. The IRS has completed its examination of our consolidated U.S. federal income tax returns for the 2005 and 2006 tax years and the proposed adjustments are currently being reviewed by the IRS Appeals Division process. The IRS is currently auditing our consolidated U.S. federal income tax returns for the 2007 through 2009 tax years. It is reasonably possible that certain of our income tax examinations will be settled within the next twelve months.

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. 2010 Annual Report (quote from page 56)

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ORIGINAL: ClassIsInSession

Hmmm, it's funny, because a lot of people say the play book hasn't changed for the Republicans, but Ron Paul is a Republican and he has been against the wars since the beginning, wants to shut down the bases outside the U.S. around the globe, audit the Federal Reserve and ultimately abolish it because of the huge sums of money passed out to foreign banks, corporations and the like....none of this sounds like what you're accusing the Republicans of with a broad brush.

As to Perry, and most of the other candidates, I would agree, but a party is full of people with differing ideas.

Obama very readily signed the second Bail Out...which gave trillions to the wealthy, but no one seems to ever bring that up.

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ORIGINAL: TreasureKY

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ORIGINAL: Iamsemisweet

... The tax system is fucked up. The image of Buffet and his secretary's respective tax rates was compelling. That's an example of framing the issues in a way that favors him.

I don't disagree with the tax system being a huge problem.  And yes, it isn't right that Buffet's rates are lower than his secretary's.  But evoking Buffet as a poster boy for the rich wanting to pay more is ridiculous considering his own company's tax problems.

quote:

We file income tax returns in the U.S. federal jurisdiction and in state, local and foreign jurisdictions. We are under examination by the taxing authorities in many of these jurisdictions. With few exceptions, we have settled tax return liabilities with U.S. federal, state, local and foreign tax authorities for years before 2002. We anticipate that we will resolve all adjustments proposed by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) for the 2002 through 2004 tax years at the IRS Appeals Division within the next 12 months. The IRS has completed its examination of our consolidated U.S. federal income tax returns for the 2005 and 2006 tax years and the proposed adjustments are currently being reviewed by the IRS Appeals Division process. The IRS is currently auditing our consolidated U.S. federal income tax returns for the 2007 through 2009 tax years. It is reasonably possible that certain of our income tax examinations will be settled within the next twelve months.

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. 2010 Annual Report (quote from page 56)

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ORIGINAL: Iamsemisweet

They are going to have to explain, to an already exasperated public, why increasing the tax rate for people like buffet doesn't make sense. Good luck to 'em.

Total Compensation
$0.10 mil (#492)

5-Year Compensation Total
$0.50 mil

NEW YORK — The world's second-richest man, Warren Buffett, wasn't even the highest paid employee at Berkshire Hathaway's 19-person headquarters again last year.

Buffett, chairman and CEO of the Omaha, Neb.-based company, received a total of $175,000 in compensation in 2008, the same amount he received a year earlier, according to regulatory filing made Friday.

Last year my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf — was $6,938,744. That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent.

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ORIGINAL: FirmhandKY

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ORIGINAL: Iamsemisweet

They are going to have to explain, to an already exasperated public, why increasing the tax rate for people like buffet doesn't make sense. Good luck to 'em.

I think part of the reason for Buffet's "low tax rate" is his reported income:

Warren E Buffett

Total Compensation
$0.10 mil (#492)

5-Year Compensation Total
$0.50 mil

Warren Buffett's salary stays at $100,000 in 2008
By STEPHEN BERNARD, The Associated Press
Friday, March 13, 2009

NEW YORK — The world's second-richest man, Warren Buffett, wasn't even the highest paid employee at Berkshire Hathaway's 19-person headquarters again last year.

Buffett, chairman and CEO of the Omaha, Neb.-based company, received a total of $175,000 in compensation in 2008, the same amount he received a year earlier, according to regulatory filing made Friday.

This is what he is saying now:

Stop Coddling the Super-Rich
By WARREN E. BUFFETT
Published: August 14, 2011

Last year my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf — was $6,938,744. That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent.

Seems a little strange ... and perhaps misleading ... "paid on my behalf"?

So his actual, legal, taxable income is somewhere between $175k and maybe $350k, but over $6m is paid 'on his behalf"?

Sounds like there is some creative accounting going on somewhere ... perhaps to make a political point?

I used to respect Buffet, but  ... not so much any more.

If he believes he should pay more taxes, then perhaps it would be better if he either simply wrote a check, or if he said specifically that the "loopholes" that he is using should be changed.

Firm

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ORIGINAL: ClassIsInSession

Just last year, we got a deduction, may paycheck got slightly larger, and when I say slightly it was like $25 a paycheck bigger. At the end of the year I got a tax bill of $600, and I made exactly the same wages as the year before. That's what I'm talking about.

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ORIGINAL: Iamsemisweet

you know he makes income other than from salary, right? Anyway, again, not my point. It is how the issue was framed. The repubs are going to have to do better than just saying buffet is a bad example
The whole speech reeked of desperation, the more I think about it. It was exactly the speech I would have liked to have heard 2 years ago, but I really feel it is all too late, for reasons I have already posted. So what we are left with is that the 99 weekers are now a protected class and we are giving up any semblance of preserving SS, although maybe Medicare will remain, if the current users have their benefits adjusted. Fuck.
Ou kno

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama's promise Thursday that everything in his jobs plan will be paid for rests on highly iffy propositions.

It will only be paid for if a committee he can't control does his bidding, if Congress puts that into law and if leaders in the future - the ones who will feel the fiscal pinch of his proposals - don't roll it back.

Underscoring the gravity of the nation's high employment rate, Obama chose a joint session of Congress, normally reserved for a State of the Union speech, to lay out his proposals. But if the moment was extraordinary, the plan he presented was conventional Washington rhetoric in one respect: It employs sleight-of-hand accounting.

...

OBAMA: "Everything in this bill will be paid for. Everything."

...

Essentially, the jobs plan is an IOU from a president and lawmakers who may not even be in office down the road when the bills come due. Today's Congress cannot bind a later one for future spending. A future Congress could simply reverse it.


...

OBAMA: "Everything in here is the kind of proposal that's been supported by both Democrats and Republicans, including many who sit here tonight."

THE FACTS: Obama's proposed cut in the Social Security payroll tax does seem likely to garner significant GOP support. But Obama proposes paying for the plan in part with tax increases that have already generated stiff Republican opposition.


OBAMA: "It will not add to the deficit."

THE FACTS: It's hard to see how the program would not raise the deficit over the next year or two because most of the envisioned spending cuts and tax increases are designed to come later rather than now, when they could jeopardize the fragile recovery.

...

OBAMA: "The American Jobs Act answers the urgent need to create jobs right away."

THE FACTS: Not all of the president's major proposals are likely to yield quick job growth if adopted. One is to set up a national infrastructure bank to raise private capital for roads, rail, bridges, airports and waterways. Even supporters of such a bank doubt it could have much impact on jobs in the next two years because it takes time to set up.

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ORIGINAL: ClassIsInSession

Really I think one thing that hasn't caught on but will be a trend, and it would be a very good thing for any politician to back would be to start looking at the transporting costs for goods. Let's face it, gas has risen from .98/gallon in 1999 to now, almost $4.00/gallon. That's a 400% increase.

This lends itself in my opinion to a really justifiable analysis of whether globalization makes sense to continue. If we removed the NAFTA/TAFTA/WTO subsidized trading, and made it a level playing field, it may well be that reviving manufacturing in the U.S. would make a whole lot of sense. How many people could be put to work making everything from glassware, to sunglasses, injection molded products and the like if we simply quit paying to trade with China and other emerging economies?

Wages and taxation have been the primary drivers for globalization, and automation has cut into the need for works as well, but with a 400% increase in shipping costs, i.e. gasoline, sans the subsidies, we may well find that many products could more effectively be manufactured locally and cut the shipping costs substantially.

The same thing holds true for agriculture. You stop by your local WalMart and read where most of the produce is coming from. Guatamala, Mexico....you look at seafood, coming from Asia. All great and wonderful right? But with energy costs moving steadily up, isn't it time to start buying your local farmer's produce and meat?

Localization is the wave of the future. The pendulum will have to swing back.

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ORIGINAL: servantforuse

I didn't watch a minute of it. Packers / Saints pregame coverage preempted that stupid speech here in Packer nation.

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ORIGINAL: Aylee

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ORIGINAL: slvemike4u

Is it your contention that he does not have a bill to submit to congress at this time ?
Are you suggesting he just stood up in front of Congress and the American people and lied to us all ?
Are you really that stupid?

He kept saying that it was imperative to pass this bill. That it is a time sensitive issue. As it stands RIGHT NOW, there is no bill in front of the house or Senate to pass.

We do not know what will be in it and we do not know how much it will cost. Parts of it are being left up to a committee that he has no control or vote over.

Yet, you are maintaining that it will be the Republicans' fault if this bill does not pass. Completely ignoring the fact that the Republicans do not hold a majority in the Senate.

So, all that being said, Mr. Obama should have been saying, "Pass this speech" as that is all the congress has to go off of, rather than "Pass this bill."

This is not the first time that Congress has been chided for not passing what is not in front of them.