Friday, October 14, 2011

USA: Buffett Made $63 Million Last Year, Paid 17% Tax Rate

No wonder he's fucking laughing!

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Billionaire investor Warren Buffett this week showed a little more leg in his campaign to get Congress to raise taxes on the uber-rich.

In a letter to Republican Rep. Tim Huelskamp Tuesday, Buffett revealed that his adjusted gross income last year was $62,855,038 and that his taxable income was $39,814,784. Buffett said he paid $15,300 in payroll taxes.

Buffett also said his federal income tax bill came to $6,923,494, or 17.4% of his taxable income -- two points he revealed in a New York Times op-ed in August urging Congress to tax the wealthy more. Buffett provided a copy of his correspondence with Huelskamp to CNNMoney's Poppy Harlow.

He said in an interview that the roughly $23 million difference between his AGI and taxable income was due largely to deductions he took for charitable giving and local taxes.

Two key reasons he only paid 17.4%, however, is because a lot of his income came from investments, which are taxed at a lower rate than wages, and because payroll taxes are assessed only on wage income.

"People who make money with money are getting taxed at a far lower rate than people who make money by their own labor," Buffett told CNNMoney.

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