[jakarta]

"And what did he do with these fabulous once-in-a-lifetime gifts?"

He used those gifts to amass wealth which he is now in the process of mostly giving away.

It goes back to Warren Buffett who claimed that he won the ovarian lottery, being born at the right time with the right circumstances which enabled him to become extremely wealthy. As a result, Buffett advocates giving away 99% of his fortune in recognition of that.

That's contrary to other groups of the ultra-wealthy who vigorously fight against increased taxation because it robs them of money that they earned through "hard work" without recognizing the benefits of the society that they were born into.

[Gibbon]

Most of the wealthy I know are not against charity or giving away their wealth.. they are against an inefficient government deciding on how that should be accomplished.

[potatolicious]

Surely you're not talking to the same wealthy that I've been.

What do you think will be the repsonse to, say, a 50% tax rate on the wealthy that they are able to distribute as they see fit (with strict controls such that it doesn't end up back in their own hands, or their family's)?

Yeah, good luck with that.

I see the "but government is inefficient" argument a lot - it would have some merit, if there's even the slightest hint of evidence that the rich would pay the tax even if the government were the most well-greased machine in the world. As it is it sounds like a lame scapegoat for wanting to keep all of your wealth.

[arohner]

You're forgetting that people can have principled objections to the role of the federal government.

I'm not rich, and I'm grumpy about what my 20% federal taxes are going to. The financial and GM bailouts, "homeland security", ag subsidies, congressional pork, federal taxes to pay for local schools, "war on terror", "war on drugs".

If the gov't was efficient in the things it did, and did the things I believe it should, I wouldn't complain about my taxes at all. But the combination of being inefficient and misguided is one of the largest wastes of human productivity ever devised.

This is a bigger waste than building the pyramids by hand.

[megablast]

With you there, except for "federal taxes to pay for local schools". What is your problem with education? This does not compare to anything else you were complaining about.

[2arrs2ells]

I'm guessing the parent isn't upset about paying taxes for schools, but is upset about the increasing amount of federal control of education (i.e. No Child Left Behind) that has been coupled to the increased amount of federal ed funding.

[d2viant]

Why are you implying that wanting to keep your wealth is wrong?

[potatolicious]

I'm not ;) It seems that many wealthy people are, though.

The point is, the whole "big, inefficient government" argument, IMHO, is more often used in place of simply "I want to keep more of my wealth", and while a valid argument in theory, in practice its confused usage has caused it to lose credibility.

The fact that so many people are unwilling to just come out and say "I want to keep my wealth", and instead try to divert the debate to some other tenuously-related argument shows that they themselves believe that wanting to keep your wealth is wrong.

Personally, I've yet to make my mind up in this regard. I would like to keep my wealth, but the myriad of things that tax money supports I find necessary. Personally I see nothing wrong with wanting to keep more of your wealth, but the fact that many rich people feel such guilt about it, and society's perception of it, seems to imply that we've already made a judgment, collectively, about this issue.

[muhfuhkuh]

Show me a company that is willing to feed and take care of _every single_ poor, elderly, and infirm person without the need for tax-exempt status, without the need for spiritual conversion or religious dogma, and without the "overhead" of paying executives millions of dollars for "administrative" purposes, and I'll urge Congress to redirect ALL of my tax dollars toward that company.

Oh, and btw, this company also has to defend our shores, find cures for disease (or at least fund them) and manage distribution to those affected, assess and remediate damage on massive scales when emergencies strike, set standards and regulations of measurement and safety so that industries can interoperate and first-responders can (for example) plug their water hoses into a hydrant and it actually fit, etc.

It's not just a couple rich charitable dudes that can handle all that. Sorry if I don't worship them as much as anti-tax crusaders do.

[michael_dorfman]

...but Bill Gates, Jr., and most especially Bill Gates, Sr., are not at all against this. Bill Sr. has written a book calling for higher taxes, in fact.

[joelhaus]

As of today, Sr. is also advocating an income tax on individual Washington State residents earning over $200K. Currently, WA has no income tax on residents.

Source: http://www.ballardnewstribune.com/2010/09/15/news/bill-gates... (includes some very interesting figures)

[jacoblyles]

I'm kinda miffed that people measure the good that the ultra-wealthy do for society only through the taxes they pay and neglect the great value they have provided people through the market place. As if the volume of taxation and government spending a man generates were the only ways to measure a man's worth.

[potatolicious]

There are two fundamental differences:

- Taxation and philanthropy do not represent (usually) a direct benefit to the payer. For better or for worse, we as a society look more highly upon selfless gestures than selfish ones. Philanthropy is the voluntary form of selfless giving, taxation is the involuntary one.

- Philanthropy and taxation have an intent to benefit others. Creating market-based value is often merely a side effect of generating direct gain to oneself. Beyond the selflessness argument, we as a society are conditioned to look more highly upon intentional acts of value creation.

[jacoblyles]

I would argue that a great portion of the total wealth of society created over the course of history has been "unintentional", using this terminology. If we don't understand and appreciate this then it will be to our detriment.

[gaius]

Famously Warren Buffett's secretary pays more tax than he does...

[shasta]

I'm pretty sure it's that she pays a higher rate than he does. He pays more taxes every year than she'll earn in her lifetime.

[jakarta]

Exactly, which he says is stupid. That's why Buffett and Gates have been pushing so hard to get other billionaires to pledge to donate as much as them. Larry Ellison is one of the more recent tech execs to take the pledge.

[calloc]

Last I read Larry makes 1.6 BILLION US DOLLARS a year. I don't think you can ever spend that much money.

[blakeweb]

For what it's worth, Larry Ellison also personally started and funds the Ellison Medical Foundation, which distributes on the order of 100 million dollars (cite: wikipedia: Larry Ellison) per year to leading academic biologists for research into the diseases of the elderly and how to stop them. Grant recipients are selected by a panel of scientists.

[raganwald]

Larry seems to take this as a challenge.

[gaius]

Larry's taste includes fighter jets...

[mgkimsal]

pretty easy to spend that buying a few private jets and yachts. 1.6 billion ain't what it used to be.

[krishna2]

Not more in taxes but more as a percentage of total earnings. The tax bracket was higher for the secretary whereas for Buffett it was around 18% (iirc).

[Bricejm]

The capital gains/dividend tax breaks basically benefit the rich. Cap gains/dividend taxes should be on a marginal basis just like ordinary income.

[2arrs2ells]

The idea behind lower cap gains/dividend taxes is to incentivize investment (over consumption or savings). I'm no expert with the economics literature here, but I would worry about making changes that make it harder for businesses to access capital.

[loewenskind]

You don't have to throw the dice and hope, you can go look at most of the other 1st world countries that don't have this and how they're doing. Hint: just fine.

[d2viant]

So why isn't he campaigning for lower taxes for her instead of higher taxes for others?

[mikeklaas]

Because you will need to raise taxes for them to pay for lower taxes for her

[d2viant]

Not necessarily, you can reduce government spending.