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by maccard 2441 days ago
> Pick any CEO in the top-100 corporations. Look at their income. Then look at their overall earnings.

Warren Buffet is probably the easiest person to look at here. A quick google says that [0] he made $11m in 2016, and on that he paid $1.85m in federal income tax, and he claims a large portion of the remainder was paid in state tax. Even ignoring his state taxes, yes he paid a marginal rate of 16%, but he still paid more in income tax than the average 1%er's salary. I'm certainly not a right wing advocate, but the spin associated with the "rich are not paying enough tax" doesn't really help the conversation much.

[0] https://fortune.com/2016/10/10/presidential-debate-donald-tr...

1 comments

>A quick google says that [0] he made $11m in 2016,

The amount he made in 2016 is the point of contention. Sure he made 11m in income, but for that same year, BRK.A increased a staggering 25% in share price. Even if Buffet owns a 1% of BRK.A, that represents a paper gain of 4 Billion dollars.

Now, sure, he might not have sold any stock so that won't count against his capital gains tax, but to me, its a bit deceptive to say that Buffet only made $11M.

when your house goes up by 100k in a year did you “make” 100k?
What's your point? If my house goes up by 100k in a year, in most US states, my property taxes would rise accordingly, whether or not I realized the true value of the home. Housing is a poor analogy as stocks are treated better than housing in this situation.

(California is not one of those states, due to Proposition 13, which is also very controversial and is argued to be one of the causes of California's rising housing costs)

When it comes to "if the rich are being taxed enough", you bring up a good point - if my home rises in value I pay more - however Buffet makes several billion in paper gains, and his taxes are largely unchanged.

The house is a strawman of sorts. The rich pay property taxes too.