Bill Gates’s Dad Says the Rich ‘Aren’t Paying Enough’ in Taxes

[Joanne98]

May 20 (Bloomberg) -- Bill Gates’s father wants the Microsoft Corp. co-founder to pay more in income taxes.

Bill Gates Sr., a retired Washington state lawyer, supports a proposed ballot initiative that would require the state’s highest earners including himself and his son to pay an income tax. Washington now collects no personal income taxes.

“Poor people and middle-income people are paying too much to support the state and rich people aren’t paying enough,” Gates Sr. said in an interview yesterday in Seattle. “That’s the starting point for me.”

The proposed tax on individuals earning more than $200,000 a year and couples earning more than $400,000 would raise $1 billion a year to fund education and health care. While targeting the highest earners, the measure would ease the burden on homeowners with a 20 percent reduction in state property taxes and eliminate the business-and-occupation tax for 80 percent of enterprises in the state, backers say.

Proponents begin collecting signatures today to put proposed Initiative 1098 on the state’s November ballot, amid opposition from critics who say a new tax will discourage spending and investment.

“The last thing our state needs is more job-killing taxes in the middle of a recession,” said Luke Esser, chairman of the state Republican Party.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=a4YNFBDAXnKI&pos=13

[valerief]

1. But only little people pay taxes. The wealthy don't live in our world. nt

[unpossibles]

2. "job killing taxes"?

please.

[jtrockville]

3. Riiiiight. Because the cuts resulted in such an abundance of jobs.

Added: I meant cuts to the wealthy.
Tax cuts to the middle/poor probably DO result in job creation.

[brewens]

4. If all the wealth that has been redistributed to the rich since the 80's really

created jobs we'd be swimming in great new jobs. We'd all be making big bucks. We've practically given them all the money and what did they do with it? They sure haven't been creating a lot of new jobs in this country.

[Scuba]

8. +1+1+1

[Xithras]

5. Simple math says that the argument is bogus.

Bill Gates is worth about $46 billion dollars. None of that is taxable, because it's not income.

Bill Gates sole source of revenue is dividends from his Microsoft stock, which nets him about $175 million a year in income.

Even if Washington were to implement an income tax rate of 11%, the current state income tax rate in Hawaii and the highest in the nation, Gates would only end up paying about $19 million a year in taxes.

$19 million is 0.04% of Bill Gates overall wealth. It would take 2500 YEARS for the state of Washington to tax away his wealth at that rate...assuming that he stops earning ANY money once the taxing starts. In reality, his overall wealth would still rise by $156 million a year.

I fail to see how giving up a 0.04% overall annual gain in your wealth will lead to job devastation, layoffs, and companies fleeing for other countries.

[laurel46]

6. Why do people need a complex reason to tax?

CEO's are obligated by law to make money for their shareholders so why can't we ask our reps to do the same for us and even make it a law? What kind of capitalists are we when there is a legal way to make money by raising taxes on the rich and we do not? For republicans to scream about how unfair it is to take peoples money when the corporations will stomp us mercilessly, is bull. I am a capitalist. The constitution allows taxing in or our country, so why are people so afraid to tax, and tax to the death after what the financiers have done. I think republican voters should be called out for how terrible they are at the capitalist game and to shut up if they don't know how to make money. Have them sign into law that congress is legally liable to make decisions that benefit citizens and it is criminal if they are found out to not have done that. I can dream.

[Tippy]

7. Didn't he say basicly the same thing a few years back?

[PSzymeczek]

9. Yes he did.

And so did Warren Buffett.