[simplefish]

There's actually some serious questions about that. In interviews, Bosanke has claimed to be paying a 35.8% tax rate. She's been a little coy about her income, but in one interview she claimed to only make $60,000 a year.

Anyone with even a passing familiarity with the US tax code will quickly understand that this is not possible. Seriously. So we know that at least some of what she's claimed in wrong. And since Bosanke won't release her tax returns, that's really as far as we can go.

In short, the "Buffet secretary" talking point really has no evidentiary value for either side. We simply have no idea what she makes or what she pays; all we know is what she's publically claimed is wrong.

[mikeash]

That specific example may have no evidentiary value, but if you simply take it as being a symbolic name for the general phenomenon of millionaires/billionaires paying a lower tax rate than regular working folk, it's pretty obvious that this not only can happen, but that it's not all that uncommon. And in fact, nobody disputes that it happens. The only dispute is over whether it should.

[simplefish]

Actually, it's very uncommon. Keep in mind, we have IRS data that shows the average rate paid by different groups, we know that most of the 1% is paying MUCH higher tax rates than the 99%. And should be make public policy based on the extremely rare edge cases, or the overwhelmingly common case?

Also, this debate really depends what you mean by "millionaires/billionaires". And "taxes". And "tax rates". And "working folk". Being a billionaire is a measure of wealth; your tax bracket is based on income in a single year. Are we talking about marginal rates or average rates? Federal income taxes? All federal taxes? All taxes? How do we impute the corporate income tax (knowing, as we do, that it is paid by both employees and investors)? How do we impute the corporate half of the payroll tax (ditto)? How should we handle cases where someone is in the "1%" for a single year due to the sale of a single large asset they've been working on for decades (family farm, small business, IPO, or the like)? Does it truly make sense that someone who makes $50k/year for 10 years, then sells his start-up for $100m should be in the same tax bracket in that 11th year as an investment banker who makes $100m/year every single year?

This is not an area with easy answers, and the tax code looks the way it does due to a long series of hard-fought struggles and difficult compromises. It's easy to look at Romney at say "he paid 14%", but it's less clear what rate is "right". Capital gains is fundamentally not normal income, and there's no reason it should be taxed at any given rate, much less whatever rate normal income would be taxed at. Some very socialist and egalitarian places have no capital gains tax at all. :)

Edit: My initial post had some silly errors of fact. Mike Ash was quite polite in pointing them out. :) Thanks.

[mikeash]

Might be impossible, really?

Mitt Romney paid about 14% last year. I paid more than that, as did a whole lot of other common folk. That seems fairly conclusive that it's not impossible.

We can just look at income in a single year for the comparisons. Total wealth isn't really relevant to the question, aside from the fact that it's strongly correlated with yearly income.

Your other points are astute, but I'm just pointing out that this phenomenon does in fact happen, and isn't even disputed. Only whether and how to change things is in question.