Reuters Money
The rich respond to Obama’s “Buffett Rule”
Once the debt ceiling rancor faded, financial gurus and observers had little reason to think debate on taxing the wealthy would ignite again before Nov. 23. That’s when the 12-member congressional super committee issues its recommendations on finding at least $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction.
Then came President Obama’s announcement on Monday of the “Buffett Rule,” a plan to raise taxes on American households making more than $1 million annually. Suddenly, the millionaires who support such a plan — like Warren Buffett himself — had cause for hope after many months of anti-tax furor and tax hike inaction.
“It’s an excellent policy proposal,” says Wealth for the Common Good co-founder Chuck Collins. “The defenders of wealth and power are going to crazy over this proposal, but our job is to help balance the story. We’re already putting out calls; our members will call their legislators; they’ll organize their peers; they’ll write letters to editors.”
Yet it was also as though the Buffett Rule came with an unspoken corollary: Where proposals to tax the rich come, rhetoric and strong words on both sides of the issue will surely follow.
“The President’s speech today drew a clear line in the sand between patriotic Americans and people who just use the United States as a place to park their planes on the way to St. Bart’s,” says Agenda Project founder Erica Payne, who has worked closely with Wealth for the Common Good. “This issue is not complicated. It is not nuanced. If you care about your country, you pay taxes. If your country is in trouble, you pay more taxes.”
Under the President’s proposal — spelled out in a 67-page report issued by the Office of Management and Budget — the Buffett Rule (named for billionaire Warren Buffett) would mean that “No household making over $1 million annually should pay a smaller share of its income in taxes than middle-class families pay. As Warren Buffett has pointed out, his effective tax rate is lower than his secretary’s. No household making over $1 million annually should pay a smaller share of its income in taxes than middle-class families pay. This rule will be achieved as part of an overall reform that increases the progressivity of the tax code.”
Indeed, the 2,500 folks of high net worth who make up Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength would definitely agree — though not all of them find the President’s latest proposal exciting, let alone revolutionary, even though it’s sure to meet stiff opposition from anti-tax Republican lawmakers.
It’s time for the “Net Worth Tax”. Income and payroll taxes attack the production of wealth, stifling growth and restricting the accumulation of wealth (“the rich get richer”), while the wealthy, such as Mr. Buffet, accumulate more.
Why not tax all wealth, instead of wealth production? It seems a very simple task to require each citizen to report an annual Net Worth statement to the IRS, detailing assets & liabilities (real-estate, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, collectibles, savings, etc. . . . including offshore bank accounts) and a simple flat tax be paid monthly to the IRS, eliminating the withholding of income, social security, and medicare payroll taxes.
This Net Worth Tax, would answer both political sides by truly “taxing the rich,” and unfettering societies’ wealth producers, creating growth like never seen before. Nay sayers will say it would be impossible to enforce accurate reporting. However, I don’t see where enforcement would be more difficult than current complicated system of reporting income and deductions. Failure to report accurately would result with similar punishments