Good stuff. Could we immediately stop taking taxes from anyone who takes this pledge? Considering the high percentage of the government that's full of corrupt and incompetent bunglers running questionable programs, I have immensely more faith in talented and driven people deploying their resources better to improve the world. The idea that $300M would go into the U.S. government sending "aid money" directly to a dictator's government in Africa instead of Gates deploying it to wipe out malaria is no good, for instance.
Easy to say for a guy who built his wealth starting with an insurance company, which uses government regulation to make most of its money. Wealthy people put their money into the insurance company because life insurance payouts aren't taxable but estate taxes are. Then Buffet's insurance company gets to invest that money in low risk bonds to get basically free money before paying it out. This only exists because of insurance company lobbying - it only adds friction to the system and wastes time and resources, while insurance companies get rich extracting money from the system. This is how Buffet built much of his starting capital.
Then he keeps most of his earnings in the holdings company, and only occasionally pays capital gains. The guy's gamed huge loopholes in the U.S. tax system his whole life, and then has the audacity to say that "the rich" should pay more taxes? Physician, heal thyself.
Edit: Reply instead of downvoting? There's a bunch of not commonly known facts in this comment and it's getting some downs, a non-fact progressive viewpoint is getting some ups... that's got to be the most disappointing thing about HN lately, the trend towards up/downvoting based on politics and not content in a comment.
And what should he do? He plays the system that's there. At least he's honest enough to say the system that's there is tilted in his favor. But, I do ask the question seriously? Run for government? Fund progressive candidates who would raise tax on higher incomes?
Stick to business and stay out of trying to be a folk hero? Or pay higher tax rates voluntarily to set an example? Campaigning for a tax increase when a lot of his money came from helping people use a tax loophole created by his industry doesn't seem particularly righteous.
That does nothing to solve the overall problem, though. It would give us back Buffett's taxes, but they pale in comparison to the aggregate taxes being avoided by the thousands of other super rich.
As a businessman, he's required to exploit these loopholes, much like a lawyer is required to defend a client they know to be in the wrong. What makes Buffett special is that he, unlike so many other super rich, is choosing to publicly draw attention to the system they all know to be broken.
Also the Gates family seems honest about it too. Bill Gates Sr. (co-chair of the Gates foundation) also advocates changing tax policy, on the logic that every software or biotech company benefited from federally funded research, which they got for free, not to mention those just renting office space to them.
Theoretically that makes sense, but it doesn't address the real issue. If you cut taxes for the rich, everyone else just pays more, unless you directly address government inefficiency/corruption. Until that's done, no amount of tax cuts or tax hikes will make a smidge of difference.
Chances are these billionaires are pledging to make these donations specifically to avoid taxes. I agree that the government would probably waste the tax money anyway, but ultimately the government needs some way to pay off its debt, and taxing the rich makes more sense than expecting the middle class to foot the bill.
Of course if these billionaires put significant amounts of money toward various respectable aid programs it may reduce the amount that the government needs to spend, allowing it to direct more money toward paying off the debt.
This is a common misconception about donations. Donating money never makes you better off financially because donations are eligible for tax deductions, not credits.
Choosing where it goes is a cool benefit. It's like you can pay a smaller percent and they will choose, or you can pay a bigger percent but you get to choose where it goes? It's very possible that I'm totally misunderstanding the rules.
That's just brilliant. Lets give people who have more money than they can spend a mechanism by which they can (a) remain wealthy and (b) get out of paying taxes ever again. That will be especially good because the top, say, 30% probably pay more in taxes than the remain 70% have.
You're not under some silly impression that if the government suddenly had less money that they would cut spending are you?
