He's suggesting higher taxes on capital gains as well, where the billionaires WILL get hit.

His suggestion doesn't seem to be "add one new rule on the books" but rather "change taxes so the wealthy pay more." This would include eliminating loopholes, I think.

good read, thanks for sharing.

As the article showed, those who earn more pay a NOTABLY lower percentage. For instance, if you earn $50,000 a year, you pay taxes on $50,000 a year. But if you earn $1 Billion, well then you get a couple race horses, and get farmers deductions on your sprawling estate (which isn't a farm). You buy a yacht (or jet) via the company you own, giving the executives access to it. Suddenly, something used by the higher ups, and a serious luxury, is a business expense, and gets deducted. The fact is, at the end of the day, the people who have everything get taxed less for it. Simply eliminating loopholes would be sufficient, without tax increases.

But then again, tax increases are justified. Why? You ask why one individual should have higher taxes. But the question is, does one individual also have control of how much individuals under them make? To a large extent. Someone worth $20 Billion isn't cleaning their own offices, building their own products etc. They are paying people in the heirarchy beneath them, and making money off of their work. You may say it's a free market, and thus people will get paid fairly, but that's not entirely true. Yes people get paid what the market determines, but the rich determine the market.

Take my company for instance: It's a profitable company. Very profitable. Before the recession a few years ago, the company posted annual profits of approx 20% of revenue, exployees were given large (18% of annual salary) bonuses, and everyone was happy. The recession hit, and down went employee bonuses, and company profits... Wait, no, only the bonuses. The company is requires to post increasing profits every year, so while revenue and overall profit still increased though the recession, hiring was frozen (increasing everyone's workload), raises were cancelled, bonuses greatly slashed. Now a company who's golden financially, still increasing in revenue and profit every quarter, has employees working harder than ever for pay that is (adjusted for inflation) lower than 3 years ago.

Does the CEO need to work more hours to let IT function with less people? Does it cost him more effort to have the developers and analysts work 12 hour days? The higher ups and stock holders are happy, because as the VP of sales said in a company meeting, this company "pukes profit." Well, fantastic. And those benefiting for our extra hours enjoy lower taxes, overall. 

And one may say, "well, if you don't like it, work somewhere else." But everywhere functions the same. At so many of these companies, so much of the money is funneled to the top that they all function this way. Whoever owns the company is entitled to X amount, and it doesn't matter if living in mere luxury, instead of complete extravegance, would allow hundreds or thousands of employees at his company to live a higher quality of life. Not all of course, but so many companies could still be extremely profitable while paying employees more, or better yet, hiring more and not overworking salaried employees, but they don't. Giving 'job creators' lower taxes doesn't lead them to creating more jobs. They post hire profit projections and continue business as usual.

Does anybody else find it peculiar that Buffett thinks he ought to give more of his money to the government but won't do it unless there's a gun shoved in his face? Clearly the solution is to raise Warren Buffett's taxes, but only his.

I don't get this article

if the rich paid more taxes that won't fix out debt problem at all. WE are tooo far in debt. hell if the rich all paid 100% of their taxes this year, no exception, the debt still would not be even dented.

and creating jobs? to create jobs its simple as cutting corporate tax rates. Read above post, if a company is making more money they can HIRE more people. simple as that. Raising corporate taxes only gets rid of jobs. Companies ONLY goal is to make money and please shareholders. The higher the taxes, the less money the company makes, and thus they can't expand, hire, give raises, bonuses, ect.

Ah, good old Buffet.

If he is complaining about not paying enough taxes, why is he not making up that 10% of taxes he is not paying by giving money to the federal government to pay down the deficit? Rather, he would simply burden people with higher taxes rather than just fix the loopholes.

The reality is that the super-rich have good accountants, while the middle class and middle-upper class do not. They are the ones that get screwed with insane payroll taxes to a broken-down system.

Implement a flat tax. Make everyone pay a fair (20-23%) rate with no loopholes. That will make sure Buffet 'pays his fair share'.

Of course, when it comes to popular people talking about taxes, I prefer Adam Carolla's take: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeyyDD3gQMo

I prefer a modified flat tax system ... Every individual gets a certain portion of their income being tax exempt because it represents the amount a person needs to cover their basic needs, and after that all earnings are taxed at the same rate regardless of how much you make. 

To put numbers to it, suppose $25,000 was tax exempt and after that everyone pays 25% tax. If you earned $25,000 you would pay $0 in tax and have a 0% marginal tax rate; if you earned $50,000 you would pay $6,125 in taxes and have a marginal tax rate of 12.5%; and if you earned $125,000 you would pay $25,000 in tax and have a marginal tax rate of 20%.

No deductions, no loopholes, no tax credits just a simple calculation that can be done on the back of a business card in 5 minutes and adequately protects people from paying taxes on money they need to survive.

It's not that simple. Sometimes companies make money hand over fist, but it's not hand over fist enough. Giving rich people, or companies, more leeway to work with does not make them decide to use that extra money to make jobs. It means bigger bonus for the CEO, more money for shareholders, and maybe more employees/higher pay.

I agree.

I would just hope that in America, a flat tax would also include some way to get out of our nasty Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security systems. In the states, we could survive on a 12.5% or even 15.0% flat tax if it were not for said entitlement programs.

But if the US were to simplify the tax system to that extent, think how many people we have to lay off from the IRS. Think how many accountants would lose their jobs. We need a complex system of taxation. It is not just good for the country, it is a moral imperative. WHY DO U H8 WORKIN FAMILYS?