The whole Buffett vs his secretary tax thing is just as misunderstood as the 1992 hot coffee lawsuit against McDonald's, which at the time was considered to be

The whole Buffett vs his secretary tax thing is just as misunderstood as the 1992 hot coffee lawsuit against McDonald's, which at the time was considered to be frivolous and a sign that the legal system in the US is broken. I recommend reading the actual facts behind this case [1] - it will make you appreciate our legal system. Similarly, the Buffett story can be traced back to an interview he gave in 2007 where he shared that his tax rate was 17.7%, whereas the average tax rate of the employees in his office was 32.9% [2]. On the surface, this is shocking and will make you want to rebel against the system. But a closer look reveals that the bulk of Buffett's income comes from dividends and long-term capital gains, which are taxed at a much lower rate than ordinary income. We might argue about the specific tax rate numbers, but fundamentally there are good reasons for those tax rates not to be identical [3], and as such Buffett paying a lower tax rate should not be causing any outrage (don't confuse this with my view of the overall tax code, I am just focusing on the specific example above). By the way, you may wonder why Buffett does what he does, including giving the interview I referenced above and going through the trouble of collecting the tax rate of his employees, sharing his own tax rate, etc. He's coming across as being generous for voicing his support for a higher income tax rate for the wealthy (aka, the Buffett rule). But in reality he's just deflecting from other potential sources of taxes, such as taxing people on wealth vs on income (which someone in his wealth bracket can easily live without). This scheme becomes even more obvious when you observe his attacks on Elizabeth Warren [4] (who is pro-wealth tax), while being more "aligned" with AOC [5]. [1] https://www.caoc.org/?pg=facts https://www.caoc.org/?pg=facts [2] https://www.fool.com/taxes/2020/09/25/why-does-billionaire-warren-buffett-pay-a-lower-ta/ https://www.fool.com/taxes/2020/09/25/why-does-billionaire-w... [3] https://taxfoundation.org/why-capital-gains-are-taxed-lower-rate https://taxfoundation.org/why-capital-gains-are-taxed-lower-... [4] https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/03/02/warren_buffett_elizabeth_warren_would_do_better_if_she_was_less_angry_and_demonized_less.html https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/03/02/warren_bu... [5] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/04/ocasio-cortez-and-warren-buffett-agree-on-this-key-point-about-taxes.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/04/ocasio-cortez-and-warren-buf...