Via NY Post:
As stage props go, $200,000 is pretty pricey. But that’s the low end of how much Warren Buffett’s secretary earns in a year, based on IRS tax tables and the information she’s made public.
Still less than her billionaire boss, but still. Can anyone fail to see the irony of President Obama inviting Debbie Bosanek to sit by his wife for his State of the Union Address to use her as an example of tax unfairness, when the Buffett aide likely earns enough to put a bullseye on her back for the tax hikes Obama has long called for on higher earners?
Bosanek and Buffett have told us that he pays federal taxes (mainly on capital gains) at a rate of 17.4 percent, and that she’s taxed (presumably on normal income) at a higher rate. But IRS tax tables from 2009, the most recent year available, show an average federal tax rate of just 12 percent for taxpayers in the $100,000 to $200,000 bracket, rising to 19 percent for people with adjusted gross incomes of $200,000 to $500,000.
So Debbie Bosanek probably is in that $200,000 to $500,000 bracket.
If this is accurate — neither Buffett nor Bosanek has released their tax returns, but only given us a few facts meant to flesh out his claim that she pays a higher rate — she may even be part of the infamous 1 percent. In 2009, that required an adjusted gross income of $343,947.
Adjusted gross income. That’s important. Adjusted gross income is what a person is taxed on after deductions for things like the personal exemption, mortgage-interest payments, qualifying tax credits, etc. So it’s possible her raw salary is even higher.
While running for president and since taking office, Obama has been calling for higher taxes on upper-income earners. He’s been all over the map on that, sometimes saying on the campaign trail he meant millionaires but generally backing legislation that would hike taxes on earnings starting in the $200,000 to $250,000 range.
I have a feeling Buffett and Bosanek are all over the map on their tax-rate claims, too.
ABC News this week used tax information selectively supplied to them by Buffett and Bosanek to make the case for how unfair the nation’s tax system is. It reported, “Bosanek pays a tax rate of 35.8 percent of income, while Buffett pays a rate at 17.4 percent.”
I don’t know how that’s possible, as the maximum federal income-tax rate is 35 percent. The average tax rate for the top 1 percent of earners was 24.01 percent in 2009, according to the IRS. And we’ve been talking about income taxes, have we not?