June 28, 2007
Warren Buffett, the third-richest man in the world, has criticised the US tax system for allowing him to pay a lower rate than his secretary and his cleaner.
Speaking at a $4,600-a-seat fundraiser in New York for Senator Hillary Clinton, Mr Buffett, who is worth an estimated $52 billion (£26 billion), said: “The 400 of us [here] pay a lower part of our income in taxes than our receptionists do, or our cleaning ladies, for that matter. If you’re in the luckiest 1 per cent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 per cent.”
Mr Buffett said that he was taxed at 17.7 per cent on the $46 million he made last year, without trying to avoid paying higher taxes, while his secretary, who earned $60,000, was taxed at 30 per cent. Mr Buffett told his audience, which included John Mack, the chairman of Morgan Stanley, and Alan Patricof, the founder of the US branch of Apax Partners, that US government policy had accentuated a disparity of wealth that hurt the economy by stifling opportunity and motivation.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/money/tax/article1996735.eceread the rest of the article by Tom Bawden from Times Onlinehere
2 comments:
berk...
It is always money stories....
do you like it??
I think it is boring, don't you?
pis apres tout chacun son point de vue...
The fact that he admits the injustice and denounces it (for he is such a powerful man) is DRAMATICALLY (in the English sense!) MEANINGFUL.
Things might change after all.
Even the most powerful can come to admit injustice is unfair and try to make up for it.
Post a Comment