Millionaires Back Buffett Tax If They’re Exempt

[kpete]

Millionaires support Warren Buffett’s view that the wealthiest should pay more in taxes, as long as it’s other rich Americans, according to a survey released today.

About 71 percent of millionaires surveyed said they agree with Buffett, chairman and chief executive officer of Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A), that the very wealthy ought to pay more taxes and give more to charity. That included 49 percent who said that they’re “not in the same league” as Buffett and that the higher taxes shouldn’t apply to them personally, according to the survey from PNC Wealth Management, a unit of Pittsburgh-based PNC Financial Services Group Inc. (PNC)

“When we compare ourselves to somebody else, we always think that they should do more,” said R. Bruce Bickel, senior vice president of PNC Wealth Management, whose parent company is the sixth-largest U.S. bank by deposits. The 555 respondents, each with investable assets of $1 million or more excluding real estate, may be saying, “‘I don’t consider myself the ultra- wealthy, when I compare myself to a Buffett,’” Bickel said.

Buffett, 81, the world’s third-richest person according to Forbes magazine, urged Congress in August to raise taxes on households earning more than $1 million. About 236,883 households earned $1 million or more in 2009, according to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.

the rest:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-17/buffett-tax-on-wealthy-backed-by-millionaires-if-they-re-exempt.html

[SomeGuyInEagan]

1. It reads like a headline from "The Onion." n/t

[SoCalMusicLover]

2. My Thoughts Exactly!

And I'm pretty sure that I'm not in the same league as Warren Buffett either.

We've got a pretty good system going here. I guess if you're in the top 2%, you don't mind an increase in taxes for the top 1%, and so on......

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Just eliminate ALL taxes completely. Nobody likes them, and we should give people what they want, even if it results in the total demise of the U.S.

[bluestateguy]

3. Buffet isn't the 1%. He's the .00000000000000000001%

So I do see the comparison. I would only ask that those with an income of over 1 million pay the Clinton era tax rates, while those in Buffet's league pay the Eisenhower tax rate.

[ieoeja]

4. Apples to Oranges

Or "investable assets of $1 million or more" to "earning more than $1 million".

You may still argue that anyone who has amassed $1 million dollars over, say, thirty years should be charged the same taxes as somebody who earns that much money in a single year. Certainly, averaging an extra 33,000 per year is nothing to sneeze at, after all.

But let's not lose focus of the fact that we are comparing 0.033:1, not 1:1.

The author's group is completely separate from what Buffet proposed.

[hughee99]

5. I know people close to retirement that have roughly around this in a 401K.

They never made more than 100K a year. Yes, they're not poor, but they're not the "super-rich" either.

[jmowreader]

6. A lot of those people are not in the "ultra wealthy" class

My parents have around $2 million in investable assets, but that's only because they never spent a nickel they didn't have to and quite a few nickels they should have over fifty years of employment. Contrast that with these guys who make $2 million a month churning stocks, and you can see where the people Bickel asked about taxes are coming from.

[got root]

7. Duh! Thats the psychology that makes millions of republicans vote

Against their own interest, reliable, year after year.

And their leaders are VERY successful at exploiting that human frailty.

Unfortunately, for the rest of us