His speechwriters knew full well that the way they worded this, saying “Ask a billionnaire to pay AS MUCH as his secretary” implies that his secretary paid more dollars, not paid at a higher rate. Buffet's income is probably mostly on investments anyway. ]
This is a Democrat's lie. Buffet's tax rate is not less than his secretary. He pays at least 45%.
He ignores the fact that the corporation pays the owner's income tax and whatever is left, can be distributed as dividends/capital gains which are taxed again at 15%.
A sole proprietor pays the income tax, and money leftover is not taxed - he is free to spend it or save it. The tax on dividends is double taxation.
Buffett is a deliberately misleading example used by the Dems.
Buffett’s wealth is largely in Berkshire Hathaway stock, which does not pay a dividend. He only gets about $100K in wage income. Most of his income is from dividends and interest from his non-Berkshire assets. It’s likely that his assistant makes more in wage income from Berkshire than he does.
So he pays 15% on his dividend income (of course, the companies paying the dividends already paid taxes on the payout twice), and interest is treated as ordinary income.
I don’t know what Buffett’s actual income was last year, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s much lower than the typical robber-baron’s. Many of the perks he enjoys can be written off as business expenses for Berkshire.