Warren Buffett wrote an op-ed last week making his case for higher taxes on the rich, like himself, who he said shouldn’t pay at lower marginal rates than their underlings—and indeed Buffett paid a relatively paltry $6.9 million in taxes last year. It’s possible (actually, it’s certain) that Buffett would have paid more were it not for all his philanthropy—billions of dollars put into foundations that help starving kids in Africa and such and which also serve as tax shelters, allowing the rich to spend their money on social welfare as they see fit, rather than forcing them to turn their money over to government bureaucrats to do the same job with less efficiency and perhaps in the support of some cause a hypothetical billionaire tax avoider does not support.
When asked if he agreed with Buffett’s call for higher taxes, fellow billionaire Charles Koch objected on just such grounds:
