Warren Buffet's Secretary Needs a New Accountant

Warren Buffet and his favorite Liberal Barack Obama want the "Rich" to pay their fair share of taxes. Buffett wants the "Super Rich" to pay more in taxes. Buffett said that his rule would not impact someone making $50 million. Obama wants those who make $200,000 or more (single) and those who make more than $250,000 (couples) to pay more in taxes. New data from the Internal Revenue Service suggest that the "Rich" isn't what you think it is.

The IRS data indicates that someone who makes $154,643 would land in the top 5% of taxpayers in 2009. Someone who makes $343,927 would land in the top 1% of Taxpayers. So much for taxing millionaires and billionaires.


The following chart shows the breakdown of different buckets of taxpayers by share of Adjusted Gross income for all taxpayers, by share of Income Tax paid, and the Average Tax Rate by category (i.e. Top 1%). Buffett's claim that his tax rate is lower than his secretary suggests that his taxable income is very different than the vast majority of U.S. Taxpayers. Obama can safely stop campaigning on the Buffett/Secretary situation. It's an outlier.


















Maybe a more interesting chart is the ratio of the Ratio of the Share of Taxes paid compared to the Share of Income reported. At 100%, a taxpayer would pay the same share of taxes as they would earn in terms of their share of income. If the ratio is above 100%, you pay a larger share of taxes than your share of income. If the ratio is below 100%, you would pay a smaller share of taxes than your share of income.

Clearly, the "Rich" are paying more than a fair share of their taxes (although Democrats never really define what "Rich" is). If you ask me, it's the tax rate that will continue to fund the Big Government policies of the modern day Democratic Party.