Let's say you and I start off with zero wealth, but we both graduate with a good degree, both get high-paying jobs and both make the same amount of money.
We also pay the same amount of taxes - which sounds fair, right?
Lets say we both make 150K a year, but I spend it all on my living expenses/fun while you are able to live on 50K and save 100K every year.
In 10 years, you will have over a million dollars in savings/investments while I lets say managed to save 10K.
We still make the same salary and pay the same tax but our wealth is grossly unequal. I pay 100X tax-per-wealth than you do. That sounds horrible but in the above example is totally reasonable.
Obviously the Warren Buffet example is a bit different than that but - he pays a ton of absolute $$$s compared to you, me, and anyone else, why is his total wealth an absolute necessity to look at?
In reality, factors outside of someone's control (ex: parent's education and wealth) are greater predictors of their wealth than _any_ decisions they make. I am ok with allowing some people who make irresponsible life choices to get away with lower taxes if it makes the system as a whole fairer.
> why is his total wealth an absolute necessity to look at?
Your claim was that the poor aren't disproportionately taxed. "Poor" is a statement about wealth, not income, and income is an inaccurate substitute for wealth.
Because money needs to move. Having it sit somewhere in a bank account is not something you want to encourage (as a government).
For example, they are often LPs that invest in VC funds to give them cash which is then given to startups to build a business.
> The big picture: The very richest Americans pay much less tax, as a proportion of their total net worth, than the rest of us.
> By the numbers: The bottom 99% of Americans pay about 7.2% of their net worth every year in taxes, per Warren. The top 0.1%, by contrast, pay about 3.2%.
Source: Section 3 here: https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-capital-d213524e-b2f...