Stop Coddling the Super-Rich

[crazy canuck]

It was 100 000$ exemption, and it was from 1985 to 1994.

It was 500,000 reduced to 100,000 in 88 and then eliminiated all together in the 90's.  There are special rules for agriculture as you pointed out.

[Alcibiades]

Well, for better or worse, Obama heard.

Obama: Warren Buffett Is Right On Taxes


President Barack Obama just endorsed Warren Buffett's op-ed in the New York Times today calling on higher taxes on the wealthy.
"He said we've got to stop coddling billionaires like me," Obama said at a town hall event in Cannon Falls, MN, a stop on his three-day bus tour. "That's what Warren Buffett said."
"He pointed out that he pays a lower tax rate than anybody in his office, including the secretary," he added. "He figured out that his tax bill, he paid about 17 percent. And the reason is because most of his wealth comes from capital gains."
"You don't get those tax breaks, you're paying more than that," Obama said.
The president also called for the new Super Committee tasked with $1.5 trillion in deficit cuts to embrace Buffett's proposals for more substantial savings.
Buffett defended increasing taxes from claims that doing so would hurt the economy, writing: "I would note that a net of nearly 40 million jobs were added between 1980 and 2000. You know what's happened since then: lower tax rates and far lower job creation."
Obama will hold another town hall in Decorah, Iowa this afternoon.


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-warren-buffett-is-right-on-taxes-2011-8#ixzz1V9OozzEy

[Admiral Yi]

"He pointed out that he pays a lower tax rate than anybody in his office, including the secretary," he added. "He figured out that his tax bill, he paid about 17 percent. And the reason is because most of his wealth comes from capital gains."
"You don't get those tax breaks, you're paying more than that," Obama said.

Yes I do.  We all do.

[Martinus]

Anyway, I'd rather coddle the super-rich than the super-poor. The super-rich usually shower and use expensive perfume, unlike the super-poor. 

[Eddie Teach]

But it's the expensive perfume habit that makes them poor. 

[crazy canuck]

Anyway, I'd rather coddle the super-rich than the super-poor. The super-rich usually shower and use expensive perfume, unlike the super-poor. 

Your recent past contradicts this assertion.

[garbon]

Anyway, I'd rather coddle the super-rich than the super-poor. The super-rich usually shower and use expensive perfume, unlike the super-poor. 

Your recent past contradicts this assertion.

[Berkut]

This is pretty damn funny.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-august-18-2011/world-of-class-warfare---warren-buffett-vs--wealthy-conservatives?xrs=share_copy

[Martinus]

Anyway, I'd rather coddle the super-rich than the super-poor. The super-rich usually shower and use expensive perfume, unlike the super-poor. 

Your recent past contradicts this assertion.

I said "usually". It's different when I'm paying for the perfume.

[Ideologue]

Anyway, I'd rather coddle the super-rich than the super-poor. The super-rich usually shower and use expensive perfume, unlike the super-poor. 

Your recent past contradicts this assertion.

Hiyo.

[The Minsky Moment]

If you read the article, you realize that the real culprit isn't that the tax rates need to be raised, but that there are too many tax breaks available to the super-rich.

I thought it was the fact that capital gains are taxed at a lower rate than earned income.

IIRC its partially that, but Warren is also annoyed by the treatment of carried interest, which basically treats the bulk of hedge fund and private equity fee income as preferential long term cap gains for tax purposes.