Categories: Polls

Do you agree with Warren Buffett that the rich should pay more taxes?

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by macleans.ca on Wednesday, August 17, 2011 12:56pm - 19 Comments

Tags: debt, deficit, opinion polls, taxes, Warren Buffett

http://profiles.google.com/lxmilne Alex Milne

According to the US and Canadian right, the richest of our citizens and corporations don’t need to pay for the privilege of living in a free society, using the people’s roads, air, water.
After all why should they pay?
Anonymous

I see theft of the property of others is still popular among McLean’s readers.

It’s clear that wealth envy isn’t the exclusive preserve of Marxists.
Anonymous

considering that I have to pay extra on $20000 income, one would think that the government would stop giving the obscenely rich tax breaks
Anonymous

considering that I have to pay extra on $20000 income, one would think that the government would stop giving the obscenely rich tax breaks
Anonymous

The only good reason for the rich not paying taxes is that they carry enormous financial risk when making equity investments in Canadian companies which add value to domestic resources and labour and these companies pay very high taxes on the total value-added. But reality is the rich are very shy of risk and avoid investments that add value to domestic resources and labour and that the corporations in which they do invest pay even less taxes on profits than our rich investors. The mutually beneficial social contract between corporations, the rich and citizens has been broken for a very long time now and quite simply our rich and their corporations have way to much representation of their interests without appropriate balancing taxation. The ascendancy of the rich and the declining power of the middle and working classes is tearing our society apart and destroying the presumption of equality and the commonality of interests. This social contract has nothing to do with marxism, it has to do with equity, citizenship and commonsense. But what political parties are interested in representing commonsense? Michael Major\
http://www.facebook.com/people/Kim-Morton/100001709487631 Kim Morton

In reality it is the poor that are not paying their fair share of taxes. The poorest pay no taxes but use more government services while the rich pay to cover both their share and the poors share. And while the rich generally don’t mind helping those in need they do get tired of freeloaders. Raise taxes on the rich too much and they will take their marbles to a friendlier climate..

Anonymous

That’s almost completely false. True, the poor use more welfare and more healthcare. However, they do not benefit nearly as much as the rich do from our monetary system, our justice system, our law-enforcement systems, our financial regulation system, or our basic transportation and communication infrastructure as the rich do. The rich might pay a bit more, but they get a lot more use out of our public systems as well. Of course, often they don’t even pay more because they can afford the various tax shelters that they have paid politicians to provide them.
The bulk of the system, supporting both rich and poor, are the vast numbers of people who exist at the low middle class level.Also, your comment about the rich generally don’t mind helping those in need is bunk as well. Statistics Canada has tracked donation levels and has found that the percentage a person is willing to give doesn’t change regardless of wealth level. If you tend to give about 10% to charities or whatnot when you’re nearly dead broke, you’ll give about that much when you’re filthy rich as well. Being wealthy does not make you a more generous person.

Raise taxes too much and they’ll move, true. But “too much” is a pretty vague figure, especially when you take into account the non-monetary aspects of where people live.
http://sweetbearies.com Sweetbearies

There are plenty of rich people who are just lazy as you consider poor people to be. For instance, kids that come from rich families are born into opportunity, and they can go to pretty much any elite school they want. A poor kid whose mother is single and on food stamps would have to work much harder to get into the same school. I have seen kids whose parents paid for their college tuition party and barely study, only cramming to pass their finals. The kids putting themselves through college working a job or two actually study, and appreciate what they are learning. So I would say there are some lazy rich people, some lazy poor people, but a lot of hard working people who will never be billionaires. Even if you rise above poverty, get scholarships to go to a good school, and open your own business, this could all be wiped out in this economy. Rich kids born into luxury without responsibilities are given many things just because of who their parents are. Poor kids on welfare will never even have a fraction of the amount the wealthiest people will have. I do believe we each should work as hard as we can, but stereotyping the poor on government assistance as lazy is not necessarily true, or the whole picture.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ISZHR4YAZ6K5ZEZ7F2JQH7JU7Y PoCoTex

To all of you who think that the “rich” should pay their “fair share”, be careful what you wish for. All taxes, over time, grow insidiously so that all – including you – are affected by them, not just the “rich”. Consider the income tax in the U.S. It was originally agreed by the U.S. Congress and all the States to tax the “wealthy”, to make them pay their fair share to society. It gradually crept into everyone’s lives (like the “Blob”) so that today nearly *all* income earners and those who save are taxed. Consider the “Alternative Minimum Tax” in the U.S. brought in a number of years ago to make sure that the wealthy again pay at least a minimum of – you got it – their “fair share”. Today, the AMT affects all middle-to-high income earners, by no means its intended target.

As for myself, I have decided not to earn any more than I do since I may very well fall into the category of the “wealthy” and thereby end up paying yet more of my “fair share”.

Ultimately, you have no right to demand that I pay my “fair share” unless you are willing to do so yourself.

Anonymous

I’m going to assume that you’re not living in Canada, rather than that you’re clueless about how our taxation works, because in Canada, the idea that if you earn more you could wind up making less because of taxes is completely bogus. Our tax rates are done in such a way that you only pay higher rates on the money you earn over and above the lower rate money.

So if the taxes are 10% up to 30k, 15% up to 60k, and 22% after that and you make 59k, you’ll pay 15% on only 29k, and 10% on the first 30. If you started earning another 2000 more, you’d pay that 22% only on the last thousand, with the first $1000 being taxed at the lower 15% rate, for a net gain of 1630 after taxes.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ISZHR4YAZ6K5ZEZ7F2JQH7JU7Y PoCoTex

To all of you who think that the “rich” should pay their “fair share”, be careful what you wish for. All taxes, over time, grow insidiously so that all – including you – are affected by them, not just the “rich”. Consider the income tax in the U.S. It was originally agreed by the U.S. Congress and all the States to tax the “wealthy”, to make them pay their fair share to society. It gradually crept into everyone’s lives (like the “Blob”) so that today nearly *all* income earners and those who save are taxed. Consider the “Alternative Minimum Tax” in the U.S. brought in a number of years ago to make sure that the wealthy again pay at least a minimum of – you got it – their “fair share”. Today, the AMT affects all middle-to-high income earners, by no means its intended target.

As for myself, I have decided not to earn any more than I do since I may very well fall into the category of the “wealthy” and thereby end up paying yet more of my “fair share”.

Ultimately, you have no right to demand that I pay my “fair share” unless you are willing to do so yourself.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ISZHR4YAZ6K5ZEZ7F2JQH7JU7Y PoCoTex

To all of you who think that the “rich” should pay their “fair share”, be careful what you wish for. All taxes, over time, grow insidiously so that all – including you – are affected by them, not just the “rich”. Consider the income tax in the U.S. It was originally agreed by the U.S. Congress and all the States to tax the “wealthy”, to make them pay their fair share to society. It gradually crept into everyone’s lives (like the “Blob”) so that today nearly *all* income earners and those who save are taxed. Consider the “Alternative Minimum Tax” in the U.S. brought in a number of years ago to make sure that the wealthy again pay at least a minimum of – you got it – their “fair share”. Today, the AMT affects all middle-to-high income earners, by no means its intended target.

As for myself, I have decided not to earn any more than I do since I may very well fall into the category of the “wealthy” and thereby end up paying yet more of my “fair share”.

Ultimately, you have no right to demand that I pay my “fair share” unless you are willing to do so yourself.
Mark

What matters a poll of the pisants and peons? People who sit inside their shelters in front of their computers propagating their less than ineffectual opinions? There is no power, no cogency, no real effect in the world. They live and die in impotent anonymity.
Mark

What matters a poll of the pisants and peons? People who sit inside their shelters in front of their computers propagating their less than ineffectual opinions? There is no power, no cogency, no real effect in the world. They live and die in impotent anonymity.

Anonymous

Heed the poll. There is strength in numbers. The rich, if they are wise, should not try to avoid paying more than others as they can well afford it. Revolts are not a thing of the past. Look at the middle east where the rich power brokers are facing a reorganization of wealth on the poor’s terms.
Anonymous

Heed the poll. There is strength in numbers. The rich, if they are wise, should not try to avoid paying more than others as they can well afford it. Revolts are not a thing of the past. Look at the middle east where the rich power brokers are facing a reorganization of wealth on the poor’s terms.
Anonymous

The same was said of authors after the printing press was first invented. I suppose you don’t read.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ZPL6GXO3QR7CKS35I6COSU273Y rg

The notion that the US can either cut spending (while cutting taxes according to many Republicans) OR raise taxes on the rich is a false dilemma. Its a false dilemma because neither action is going to balance the books on its own. The real tradeoff is the one between the need to balance the books in the long-term, while ensuring growth and economic stability in the short and medium term. Spending cuts and tax hikes are likely to have a depressing effect on the economy. Rather than class warfare, we should objectively look at what spending can be eliminated, and which taxes can be raised with the smallest adverse economic impact.On the spending side, corporate welfare, mortgage interest deductions, extraneous US military deployments, raising the age of eligibility for medicare (and capping spending), and means-testing social security, student loans and other programs that wealthy people don’t need.On the tax side, sin taxes, carbon taxes and sales taxes tend to have lighter touches than income or corporate taxes. Estate taxes may even have positive effects, in that they will help create a more even playing field.
http://www.facebook.com/suneil.sarai Suneil Sarai

The middle class needs to pay more taxes. Extra taxation on the upper echelon income earners will not bring in substantial increases in revenue.