Monday, September 19, 2011

Dishonesty About the Buffet Rule

President Obama wants tax reform to adhere to his newly formulated “Buffett Rule” which states: Families and small businesses making more than $1 million should not pay a smaller share of their income in taxes than a middle income family.

Okay, let's look at the data for 2009 (most recent IRS data):

Income Level                   Taxes % Taxable Income    Taxes % Adjusted Gross Income
$1,000,000-1.5MM                  29.4%                                    25.3%
$10,000,000+                           26.3                                        22.6

$50,000-75,000                        11.6                                         7.7
$75,000-$100,000                    12.3                                         8.5
$100,000-200,000                    16.3                                        11.9

I did this in ten minutes using publicly available data from the IRS. Which conclusion should I draw here:

a) The President isn't smart enough to do the research that I did?
b) The President knows fully what the data shows and is being intentionally misleading?

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