Millionaires Support Millionare's Tax

    In all fairness to millionaires they as individuals are not the ones blocking any sensible tax reform in the progressive direction. As a matter of fact 68 percent of millionaires favor raising taxes on millionaires. In addition fully 61 percent of those with an after tax income of $5 million or more favor raising taxes on millionaires.

    “what this tells us is that there are a number of wealthy folks who said: ‘Gee, we need to increase taxes to stimulate the economy. No one likes to be taxed more, but the reality is maybe it has to be done.’”

    http://thinkprogress.org/

     Meanwhile under Rick Perry's latest flat tax scheme-he's proposed a 20 percent flat tax in trying to keep up with Cain's truly awful 9-9-9 plan-it turns out that Warren Buffet-who in fairness is a billionaire who has called for taxes to be raised on the wealthy-could pay as little as .0.2 of his income in taxes. This is because most of his income is in capital gains not wages; the only amount of his income that would be taxed is the combination of the salary he pays himself at Berkshire Hathaway and what he makes as a director at the Washington Post for a combined total of $600,000-his total income  was $62,855,038 last year.  Currently he only pays about 11 percent of his income in taxes anyway.

    CHENEY: Former Vice President and Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney fares almost as well under Perry’s tax plan. Cheney reported $3.1 million in income on his 2007 tax return (the most recent available), including $2.1 million in dividends and capital gains. Since he’d only pay Perry’s 20 percent tax on his other income, his tax bill would be reduced by about two-thirds — a $387,000 cut. Cheney’s effective rate, which was 19.1 percent in 2007, would be 6.4 percent under Perry’s plan. Of course, this is probably fine with Cheney, since he believes that deficits don’t matter.

     OBAMA: Even though President Obama has said that “people like me don’t need another tax cut,” Perry’s plan would give him a big one. The Obamas reported relatively little investment income on their most recent tax return. Still, they would get a $60,000 tax cut from Perry’s plan because they paid more than 20 percent on their other income ($1.8 million from the President’s salary, book sales, and other items). President Obama has proposed the polar opposite of Perry’s plan by suggesting the “Buffett rule,” which would ensure that millionaires can’t pay lower taxes than middle-class families.

    PERRY: Perry himself would receive a tax cut of $6,310, based on the income reported on his most recent tax return. That would drop his effective rate from 18.6 percent to 15.8 percent. (If Perry has another large capital gain like he did from selling land in 2007, he’d benefit even more. Had his tax plan been in effect that year, the Perrys would have saved more than $150,000 in taxes on $1.1 million of income and paid a minuscule 3.8 percent effective rate.)

     Romney needs to some how top these miserable plans. If he comes up with one worse than Perry and Cain-Cain is worse than Perry actually-it is going to be one ugly sight.