>In a long statement last week, Mr. Buffett defended himself by pointing to his long advocacy for a fairer taxation system, and then he immediately told on himself by undermining the very idea of taxes in the same letter. “I believe the money will be of more use to society if disbursed philanthropically than if it is used to slightly reduce an ever-increasing U.S. debt.”<p>>In other words: I believe in higher income taxes on people like me, but I’m highly organized to avoid having income to report, and I don’t really believe in taxes because I think I should decide how these surplus resources are spent.<p>I really don't like this slant. If somebody truly believes in taxes, they would pay taxes they don't need to pay? Nonsense. It assumes so much and paints charitable contributions as... malicious? Or at least it implicitly assumes that Buffett's billions aren't deserved (in whatever sense the author thinks it means to deserve something), and should be assumed to be the property of the public.<p>Buffett's signed the Giving Pledge, and has given tremendous billions to charity, with many more billions to come. The charitable causes he supports aim to solve real problems that governments are often poorly suited to solve. Having a policy preference of a higher tax rate while minimizing the taxes you pay is not hypocrisy for either billionaires or middle class Joes.<p>Seems to me that throwing Buffett under the bus is equivalent to saying... "we don't care if you try to help the world. If you're a billionaire, you're evil." If that sort of opinion becomes popular, good luck getting billionaires to give to charity when they're just gonna get yelled at for it.
The author either does not understand or chooses to ignore how taxes work.<p>Buffet's wealth has increased, but the vast majority of that is held assets increasing in value. If you have signed baseball card in your attic and something occurs to make the value of that card skyrocket, your personal wealth has increased but you don't owe any taxes on that increase. Eventually if you sell that item you'll owe taxes on the gains, but you are under no obligation to sell. Increase in value is not income, Buffett wasn't getting handed hundreds of millions in cash every month.<p>Buffet's wealth went up by 37% from 2014 to 2018. In the same time period the Dow Jones rose 49%. The difference is billions of dollars Buffett was giving away (had he kept the money instead of making donations his wealth would've risen 55% in that time period). Tax credits for philanthropic gifts are neither new nor malicious.
Are there more “Good Politicians” than good billionaires?<p>Trying to make being a billionaire impossible(which is what the author of the article seems to have as a goal) will end up giving more power to politicians to try to pick winners and losers more so than the current system.
I don't understand either the lionization or demonization of the rich as doing anything other than maximizing their self-interests (greed) with the power and wealth they've accumulated by compounding.<p>The purposeful gamification of the US tax system is self-evident by it's Enron-like accounting complexity.<p>The accretion over decades of a litany of exemptions and credits, numerous changes to the tax codes, and minimization/dodging chicanery are the evidence of regulatory capture by the rich to make themselves richer.<p>Furthermore, the special privileges afforded to the rich for their income and balance sheets compared to the property, savings, retirement, and income of individual workers is completely unfair.<p>Over a certain point of income, personal or corporate, the tax rate should increase geometrically.