“The rich are always going to say that, you know, just give us more money and we’ll go out and spend more and then it will all trickle down to the rest of you,” Buffett, chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., said in the interview. “But that has not worked the last 10 years, and I hope the American public is catching on.”
“But I think that people at the high end -- people like myself -- should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we’ve ever had it.”
Warren Buffett has argued that he isn’t being asked to pay his share. He went around his office, asking people what share of their income they pay in income taxes. Buffett’s 17.7 percent tax rate compared a bit too favorably with the 30 percent tax rate paid by his secretary.
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Warren Buffett is offering a hand if the federal government needs a few extra days to reach an agreement on the debt ceiling.
If a solution is at hand but misses the Aug. 2 deadline, Buffett said, Berkshire Hathaway Inc., the Omaha investment company he heads, would be willing to pay its next quarterly income tax early to help tide over the government.
Berkshire paid about $5.6 billion in corporate income taxes in 2010, so its quarterly payment would be more than $1 billion.
http://www.omaha.com/article/20110717/MONEY/707179925Buffett said he thought Democrats would do a better job in evening out the field for those who had drawn the unlucky tickets in life.
"We're going to have to get more money from somebody. The question is, do we get more money from the person that's going to serve me lunch today, or do we get it from me? I think we should get it from me. I have a lower tax rate, counting payroll taxes, than anybody in my office. And I don't have a tax shelter -- I just take the form and fill out the numbers. I think that's very wrong, and I think that if we're going to get money -- and we're going to need money; we are not taking in enough money at the federal government level ... it shouldn't be the bottom 98%. It should be more from people at the top."
"If you get $100 billion more of taxes ... from people like me at the top, it means you borrow $100 billion less out of the economy. Somebody has to come up with that $100 billion ... you're taking the money from the economy either way. The only question is whether you take it by borrowing or by taxes. And I see no problem in taxing people at the very high levels significantly more than they're being taxed now. And I might very well cut taxes even further for the people at lower levels."
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