U.S.
billionaire Warren Buffett accused the government of ignoring a
solution to narrowing his country's budget gap: getting rich people to
pay more in taxes. (Nati Harnik/Associated Press)
中新网9月19日电
据新加坡《联合早报》消息，美国总统奥巴马今天会宣布一项提高富人最低稅率提案，向年收入超过100万的富人征收所谓的“巴菲特税”，以拉近这个阶层和中
产阶级的缴税率差距。不过，这项提案可能无法在国会过关，共和党之前已表明坚决反对富人多缴税的做法，认为这将增加小商家的税务负担，不利于创造就业。
奥巴马援用美国“股神”巴菲特的理念和名字，将这项增加富人税率的提案，称为“巴菲特条规”(Buffett Rule)。
巴菲特早前呼吁美国有钱人缴纳更多税款，为改善国家财政状况作出贡献。他上月在《纽约时报》撰文指出，他和那些超富的友人长期得到国会中亿万富豪之友的特别关照，依所得缴交的税率相对比中产阶级的纳税人少。
美国一些富豪享有低税率，是因为依现有的所得税，投资所得的课税比例低于薪资所得；投资所得的税率一律是15%，薪资所得的税率是介于10%到35%之间。
奥巴马为振兴美国的经济增长及创造新工作，以压低当前高达9.1%的失业率，日前提出了4470亿美元计划。征收“巴菲特税”将可解决这项计划的部分经费来源。
白宫公关主任法伊弗上周六在“推特”上表示，这将是另一套“替代最低稅”(AMT)税法，以确保富豪缴纳的税率，至少和中产家庭的税率相当。
《纽约时报》报道，奥巴马在今天演说中不会明确地说明向富人征收的税率等细节，目前也不清楚在这项计划下将增加多少收入。该报说，受“巴菲特税”影响的纳税人只占0.3%,，也就是不到45万人。美国去年有1亿4400万人报税。(中新网金融频道) 动态更新： （http://www.cbc.ca/news/yourcommunity/2011/09/should-rich-people-pay-more-in-taxes.html）
Updated Sept. 19: U.S. President Barack Obama will announce a proposal Monday to increase tax revenues
in part by placing limits on deductions for wealthy filers. The
so-called Buffett Rule is named for billionaire investor Warren Buffett,
who has complained that he and his peers should be paying more in
taxes.
Obama's proposal would also repeal Bush-era tax rates for couples making more than $250,000.
Originally posted Mon., Aug. 15:
Amid the wrenching debate over where the U.S. government is going to
find more than $1 trillion worth of spending cuts in the next decade,
Warren Buffett said in an editorial published in Sunday's New York Times
that lawmakers continually ignore an obvious solution to the budget gap
- getting rich people to pay more in taxes than they currently do.
The
Berkshire Hathaway chairman (and third-richest man in the world) notes
he paid almost $7 million in income tax last year. "That sounds like a
lot of money," he wrote, "But what I paid was only 17.4 per cent of my
taxable income -- and that's actually a lower percentage than was paid
by any of the other 20 people in our office."
Almost without exception, successive U.S. presidents since the 1980s have aggressively cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans based on the theory that they will then reinvest those proceeds, which creates more jobs and wealth for everyone underneath.
In
1992, Buffett noted, the richest 400 people in America earned a
collective $17 billion and paid an average of 29 per cent in tax on it.
By 2008, however, the 400 richest people in the country earned more than
$90 billion. But their tax bill had fallen to just over 21 per cent.
"I know well many of the mega-rich and, by and large, they are very decent people," Buffett wrote.
"Most wouldn't mind being told to pay more in taxes as well,
particularly when so many of their fellow citizens are truly suffering."
By
and large Canadians pay more taxes than Americans do, in part because
we have a larger basket of social programs. But not all income is
treated equally, and Canada's tax code is full of exemptions and
incentives designed to encourage us to invest in certain ways.
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