I think this is the key paragraph in the article:
Hard to believe as it may seem, it has been a quarter of a century since the last comprehensive overhaul of the U.S. tax code. Under the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which was signed by President Reagan, the number of tax brackets was reduced, loopholes were closed, the top tax rate was lowered and capital gains were taxed at the same rate as ordinary income. Yet in the years since, Congress has steadily drilled loopholes back into the code while lowering the tax burden for wealthy people who make money through investments rather than labor. That was the source of Buffett's complaint.
Buffoon opposes a flat tax ,does he not? Why? that would get rid of the “loopholes”.
“I think his point is that it is not fair that the rich pay less than the middle class and the tax code should change”
His point is a lie. Any idiot knows the rich—or perhaps I should say “the rich,” but that’s another argument—pay more than the middle class. Buffet is shucking, jiving, and puffing up smoke screens in an effort to portray the tax code as imbalanced.
Back in reality, the balance is tipped entirely against the rich. Duh, they’re the ones with the money, and the rest of us have the votes. Squeezing ever more dough out of them only makes things ever more unbalanced. Not that leftists care. But they do figure you care, and as such have no shame in lying to appease you.
You said,
“Buffett did give a huge amount of money to the Gates foundation...I don’t understand all the negativity towards Buffett here.”
Well, let’s think about that — and use some public information to rough out what actually happened.
Mr. Buffet’s “gift” was reported to be $31 billion.
But his gift was not cash. It was shares of Berkshire Hathaway stock “worth” $31 billion. How many shares? At a reported share price of $130,000, that would be about 250,000 shares.
So how much did those shares actually COST Mr. Buffett? A “initial” price for Berkshire Hathaway shares of $11.50 per share was reported. That indicates the total cost to Mr. Buffett was about $3,000,000.
So let’s see Mr. Buffett’s silent partner here, the US taxpayer, benefits from this gift.
Case A:
Mr. Buffet buys shares for of Berkshire Hathaway for $3MM.
He sells them in 2011 for $31 billion. Capital gains are $30.997 billion. Capital Gains taxes (at 15%) are $4.7 billion.
Mr Buffet’s “net” capiptal gians income is $26.3 billion, which he gives to the Gates Foundation. In his 35% tax bracket, that gift reduces Mr. Buffett’s tax liability on other income by $9.2 billion.
Net, net, the cost to the US Treasury of Mr. Buffet’s gift is $4.5 billion.
[tax paid of $4.7 billion less $9.2 billion not paid = $4.5 billion]
Case B:
Value deducted for gift: $31.00 billion
Tax saved by Mr. Buffett: $10.85 billion
Net cost to US Treasury: $10.85 billion
Tax benefit to Mr. Buffett
of his gift of shares: $4.5 billion
So, we see it is still possible to “do well” by “doing good”. If Mr. Buffett were lobbying to “cap” charitable deductions at say $1 million per year, I would respect him more.
Are you sure? Or is the LA Times Editorial attempting to make the point that Reagan would support the Democrats in their bid to raise taxes "on the rich"?
You got to look back and remember why Reagan signed the 1986 Tax Reform Act. The Democrats, as usual, wanted to increase taxes. Reagan did not. A deal was struck where dozens of write-offs were written out of the code in exchange for simplification, with the understanding that the lower tax rates were put in place to balance out the removal of the write-offs.
Of course look how long that lasted before the Democrats started whining about raising taxes again.