> No one among the 25 wealthiest avoided as much tax as Buffett, the grandfatherly centibillionaire. That’s perhaps surprising, given his public stance as an advocate of higher taxes for the rich.
It is clickbait, emotion inducing garbage. Buffett’s stance for higher taxes has nothing to do with the fact that he had less income than other rich people.
I expected better from ProPublica. Arguing for taxing unrealized gains is fine, but trying to make it seem like Buffett is doing something sneaky to churn emotions is bullshit writing.
I read through the ProPublica article. What I got from it was:
1. They have a lot of unrealized gains.
2. They have losses.
3. They take out loans against those gains. I assume the play there is "I'll deal with it later (after 20 years of inflation-rate interest)."
4. They set up charities.
5. They lose money owning sports teams.
Yes, that summarizes it, but all of that was already known and did not to be supported by leaked tax records. The root cause is automation and technology is allowing for more winner take all markets, combined with government money printing and reduced power of labor to negotiate for a bigger piece of the pie means assets keep getting more and more valuable.
Which lead to ever widening wealth gaps which might not be good for society, so taxing unrealized gains might be an answer.
What's your personal 'true' tax rate? Taxes paid divided by all income and all gains (unrealized capital gains, increase in real estate value, etc...).
I'm sure you don't know. No one knows or has a frame of reference. It was chosen to emphasize the narrative. It's like comparing the carbon/waste from mining, manufacturing, delivery and use of a electric car vs. the carbon from burning a tank of gas -- and saying "ah ha! the total lifetime of an EV is worse for the environment than driving around town in a gas car"
