Buffett Blames Congress for Romney’s 15% U.S. Tax Rate (1)

 it seems buffet likes romney.

By Andrew Frye and Andrea Ludtke
Jan. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Warren Buffett, the billionaire
calling for more taxes on the rich, said Mitt Romney’s U.S. rate
of about 15 percent reflects poor laws rather than failings by
the candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.
“It’s the wrong policy to have,” Buffett told Bloomberg
Television’s Betty Liu in an interview today. “He’s not going
to pay more than the law requires, and I don’t fault him for
that in the least. But I do fault a law that allows him and me
earning enormous sums to pay overall federal taxes at a rate
that’s about half what the average person in my office pays.”
Buffett, chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire
Hathaway Inc., supports Democratic President Barack Obama and
said Congress needs to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans
to close the budget deficit. Romney has agreed to release his
2010 tax return tomorrow, under pressure from Republican
opponents, after saying he pays about 15 percent. Romney co-
founded Boston-based private-equity firm Bain Capital LLC.
“He makes his money the same way I make my money,” said
Buffett, 81. “He makes money by moving around big bucks, not by
straining his back or going to work and cleaning toilets or
whatever it may be. He makes it shoving around money.”
Romney, a multimillionaire, reversed course and promised to
speed up the release his tax disclosures after being dogged by
questions during the South Carolina primary campaign. Former
House Speaker Newt Gingrich, one of Romney’s rivals for the
nomination, earned $3.1 million in 2010 and paid an effective
federal tax rate of about 32 percent, returns released by the
candidate on Jan. 19 show. In a debate that day, Gingrich called
on Romney to be more forthcoming.

South Carolina

Buffett said Romney “hurt himself” in his debate
performance before the South Carolina vote and was unable to
effectively answer the criticism about his taxes and disclosure.
Romney, who won the New Hampshire primary this month, was second
to Gingrich in South Carolina on Jan. 21.
“It was more Romney losing ground in the last 10 days than
it was Newt gaining, although Newt made the most of it,”
Buffett said. Romney “did not have a good answer on taxes and
obviously the question was coming.”
“I don’t think that determines who should be president,”
Buffett said.
“We just made a mistake in holding off as
long as we did,” Romney said yesterday on “Fox News Sunday.”
Romney has also been criticized by rivals for his role at
Bain, which made profits by buying and selling companies. Texas
Governor Rick Perry, who dropped out of the race this month,
said Romney had practiced “vulture capitalism.” Winning Our
Future, a political action committee backing Gingrich, depicted
Romney as “more ruthless than Wall Street” in a 30-minute
film.

‘Perfectly Legitimate’

“I think that Mitt Romney did things in the private sector
that lots of people do, and it’s perfectly legitimate to buy
businesses,” Buffett said. “I don’t like buying businesses
with lots of debt, but there’s nothing immoral about it or
anything of the sort.
“In some businesses, they hired more people, in some they
let people go,” Buffett said of Bain. “I don’t believe in
businesses having more people than are needed, so I see nothing
specific about him.”
Buffett has said his tax rate is the lowest among the about
20 employees at Berkshire’s headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska.
Capital gains from most assets held for longer than a year are
taxed at a top rate of 15 percent, while wage income is taxed at
a top rate of 35 percent. The difference between those two
accounts for Buffett’s lower rate.

 

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• title shall be: Buffett Blames Congress for his low U.S. Tax Rat -jjj7- ♂ (0 bytes) () 01/24/2012 postreply 06:38:01