Buffett calls for more taxes on ‘mega-rich’

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett is calling on the so-called mega-rich to pay more in taxes. Buffett wrote a New York Times opinion piece saying that he would immediately raise rates on households with taxable income of more than $1 million, and he would add an additional increase for those making $10 million or more. He also recommends that the 12 members of Congress charged with devising a deficit-cutting plan leave rates for 99.7% of taxpayers unchanged. “My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress,” Buffett wrote. “It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice.” Buffett noted that the mega-rich pay income taxes at a rate of 15% on most investment income but practically nothing in payroll taxes. The middle class, meanwhile, typically falls into the 15% and 25% income tax brackets and is hit with heavy payroll taxes. He says Washington legislators “feel compelled to protect us, much as if we were spotted owls or some other endangered species.” Buffett says he knows many of the mega-rich well, and most wouldn’t mind paying more in taxes, especially when so many fellow citizens are suffering. Buffett also says he has yet to see anyone shy away from investments because of tax rates on potential gains, even when rates were much higher in the mid-1970s, 1980s and 1990s.