Posted on 01/27/2012 11:24:04 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Warren Buffett's secretary, after being pointed out on national television during Tuesday's State of the Union speech, now is facing criticism over her salary and second home.
Debbie Bosanek and her boss both declined Thursday to disclose how much she's paid, saying it's private.
In an interview with The World-Herald, Buffett also said none of the online guesses about Bosanek's salary is right, and the critics are missing his point.
"I'm saying she is being treated unfairly in the tax code, as are tens of millions of others, compared to me," Buffett said. "They shouldn't change the rates on all the other people. They should change mine."
Buffett stuck to his long-held contention that it's unfair for high-income people to pay low tax rates, such as his own 17.4 percent in 2010, less than half Bosanek's 35.8 percent rate. That rate is for everything Bosanek pays to the federal government — income taxes as well as payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare.
Based on that 35.8 percent tax rate, Forbes blogger Paul Roderick Gregory wrote, "She is scarcely the symbol of injustice that Obama wishes her to project. I imagine that there are any number of secretaries who would want her job and her place in the Congress gallery for the President's State of the Union address."
Bosanek, he said, is being portrayed as a "downtrodden woman," but he estimated she makes between $200,000 and $500,000 a year, based on his assumptions about average income tax rates. Other Forbes bloggers disputed the figures, saying Buffett was quoted in the Times of London about five years ago saying he pays his secretary $60,000 a year.
Buffett said Gregory "doesn't have any idea, just zero. If I were to estimate his salary, I'd probably be closer than he is." You can't estimate salaries from tax rates, he said.
Buffett, the chairman and CEO of Omaha-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc., said the issue isn't Bosanek's income, nor is her tax rate unusually high. "They can't attack the facts, so they attack the person. It's ridiculous."
Bosanek said she's not complaining about her salary or the taxes she pays, nor will she apologize for the home she bought last year in Surprise, Ariz., a Phoenix suburb. One blogger announced that she made the purchase "despite a heavy tax burden."
"I just thought it was time to buy a home," she said. "Warren tells me that it will be the best opportunity in my lifetime. Mortgage rates are low and prices have dropped dramatically. Getting a nice home in a great climate for only a $30,000 down payment and a mortgage that has a low interest rate — I've been working 37 years and saving for an opportunity like this.
"I share Warren's view about the future of America, and we believe that our country will do just fine. I'm happy to make this investment.
"Hopefully in 10 years, when I turn 65 and Warren turns 92, I will be able to convince him to finally retire so I can retire, after working 47 years, and spend some time where the sun shines in the winter."
Bosanek, while declining to give her salary, said: "I feel like I'm treated fairly at Berkshire."
She said she is neither the lowest-paid nor the highest-paid person among the 21 employees at Berkshire's Omaha headquarters. Their 2010 tax rates ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent, according to Buffett's calculations.
Bosanek said neither she or Buffett ever implied that she was poor or underpaid.
"It's not like I look forward to paying taxes," she said. "But I don't mind paying taxes as long as everybody's treated fairly. . I'm not saying anyone should feel sorry for me or lower my taxes. I never even thought about it until he wrote the article."
Buffett wrote an article last August in the New York Times, calling on Congress to change the tax code so high-income people pay at least as much as middle-income taxpayers and using his secretary as an example.
Obama proposed just such a tax change, calling it the "Buffett rule" and emphasized it in his address on Tuesday by inviting Bosanek to sit in the first lady's box during the speech.
"They needed to pick one person, and I was the lucky person they picked, or unlucky," Bosanek said Thursday.
She said she and her husband, Jerry, looked at houses last June when they took their son, also named Jerry, to visit at the University of Northern Arizona campus in Flagstaff, where he is now a freshman. Her husband drives vans and other vehicles for a company that delivers air freight from Eppley Airfield to destinations in the Midwest. Her father was an Omaha firefighter.
The Bosaneks bought the four-bedroom house in Surprise last summer for $144,000, making a $30,000 down payment and taking out a mortgage on the rest.
In Bellevue, the Bosaneks live in a slightly larger house southeast of South 25th Street and Fairview Road, close to the Tregaron Golf Course. They bought it in 1999, paying $231,274. The tax value is now $217,716.
The Surprise house has a pool, as do many others in the area, and the side yard has an artificial turf putting green with four holes, which was installed before the Bosaneks looked at the house. They spent Thanksgiving weekend there.
"We just had a ball. It was very special for us," Bosanek said, giving their son a break from campus life and staying in their own house and not a hotel.
Bosanek said she is not used to being in the public eye but doesn't mind being used as an example because she agrees with Buffett's views on taxes.
"I'm not whining. I just want to set the record straight," she said. "I'm very lucky. I've got a wonderful job. I work for a wonderful person. I have a wonderful family, and I have a wonderful home in Bellevue and I've got this wonderful new home that, hopefully, I'll be able to pay off someday."
-- The Omaha World-Herald Co. is owned by Berkshire Hathaway.
She’s rich. I thought the Dems wanted rich people to pay high taxes?
Even if you count both halves of SS and Medicare, the legit way of doing it is (income tax + employee’s payroll tax + employer’s payroll tax) / (gross pay + employer’s payroll tax). You have to count the employer’s side in addition to the gross pay because it is part of the total pay and benefits. Counting the employer’s payroll tax only in the numerator is crooked. Dividing by the pay after deductions and exemptions is outright intellectual fraud. You might as well just make up a number.
I agree with counting the employer's payroll tax.
Dividing by the pay after deductions and exemptions is outright intellectual fraud. You might as well just make up a number.
However, I disagree on this. Suppose that person A makes $100,000 in gross pay, gives $90,000 in charity and pays the other $10,000 in taxes. Then suppose that person B also makes $100,000 but gives nothing to charity and pays $20,000 in taxes. Person A is paying 100% of taxable income to person B's 20% but is paying 10% of gross pay to person B's 20%. By your logic, person B is paying a higher tax rate despite the fact that he is left with $80,000 and person A is left with nothing. Deductions are a separate issue. If they are unjust or inequitable, then they should be changed. But they should not be used to compare tax rates. I write more on Buffett's tax rate versus that of his secretary at this link.
This is easily solved, the House Ways and Means Committee needs to hold Hearings on Taxation then ORDER BOTH TO TESTIFY UNDER OATH and Bring their TAX RECORDS for further examination. When it is proven that they BOTH LIED in an effort to defraud the Taxpayers out of more of their hard earned money based on THEIR FRAUDULENT REPRESENTATION of FACT, PUT THEM IN PRISON and Seize their Assets for their CRIMES AGAINST THE PUBLIC. FRAUD. Call these people out, force them to prove their ridiculous statements.
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