Look: I am eager to learn stuff I don't know--which requires actively courting and posting smart disagreement.

But as you will understand, I don't like to post things that mischaracterize and are aimed to mislead.

-- Brad Delong

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Monday, August 15, 2011

Quote of the Day - Warren Buffet on Taxation

Stop Coddling the Super-Rich

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, tax rates for the rich were far higher, and my percentage rate was in the middle of the pack. According to a theory I sometimes hear, I should have thrown a fit and refused to invest because of the elevated tax rates on capital gains and dividends. 

I didn’t refuse, nor did others. I have worked with investors for 60 years and I have yet to see anyone — not even when capital gains rates were 39.9 percent in 1976-77 — shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain. People invest to make money, and potential taxes have never scared them off. And to those who argue that higher rates hurt job creation, 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. 

Since 1992, the I.R.S. has compiled data from the returns of the 400 Americans reporting the largest income. In 1992, the top 400 had aggregate taxable income of $16.9 billion and paid federal taxes of 29.2 percent on that sum. In 2008, the aggregate income of the highest 400 had soared to $90.9 billion — a staggering $227.4 million on average — but the rate paid had fallen to 21.5 percent.

2 comments:

Stagflationary Mark said...

It would seem that we are once again in agreement.

Uncanny!

You want to know what else is uncanny?

It would be Repliee competing with humans in the job market someday.

Calgacus said...

Buffett, in one of his annual reports, once made such a point in almost the exact words as Abba Lerner once did. Tax rates just make the government a partner of the investor, with partnership interest the tax rate, in both the gains and the losses. So they do nothing to affect investment. If it's a good investment without a silent partner, its a good investment with him.

Often thought that if Buffett had applied himself to serious economic thought, he could have made something of himself. Ah, well. :)