In my blog post last week on inequality I expressed sympathy with Warren Buffett’s concern that the share of the income paid in taxes by the very wealthy is considerably smaller than the shares paid by many middle class Americans. But I am troubled by what he proposes to do about it.
He suggests that the 12 member congressional panel set up to cut current and future federal deficits leave tax rates unchanged for 99.7 percent of taxpayers, and only raise rates on the approximately 250,000 households who make more than $1 million. Simple calculations show that a tax increase on such a small number of households, even a very large tax increase, would have a negligible effect on total tax revenue, and hence on closing the budget deficit. As we will see, there are more sensible ways to improve tax revenue.
Warren Buffett has persuaded 68 other billionaires to follow his example and promise to give at least half their wealth to charities. But why hasn’t Buffett proposed also that the very rich make large gifts to the federal government to offset what he considers ridiculously low taxes on their incomes and wealth? My guess is that he and the others who pledged to give away their wealth to charity would have little confidence in how the government would spend such gifts. Buffett, for example, is giving most of his wealth to the Gates Foundation, not to the federal government, and is relying on how this foundation will spend his vast gift. Given this reluctance to make large gifts to the federal government, why should anyone have confidence that the federal government will spend additional tax revenue in a sensible way?
