Bill Gates Loses Title Of World's Richest Man

**singersp** · 03-06-2008, 07:07 AM

[size=13pt]Bill Gates Loses Title Of World's Richest Man[/size]

Thursday March 6, 2008

CityNews.ca Staff
citynews.ca

Poor Bill Gates.

That sounds like an oxymoron, but it's not. It turns out the Microsoft founder has lost the one thing money can buy: his position as the richest man in the world...........

**Purple Floyd** · 03-06-2008, 07:24 AM

Buffet must have gotten some major Karma points from this:

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/MellodyHobson/story?id=2118501&page=1

Warren Buffett, the world's second-richest man, is making an unprecedented donation to the foundation run by the world's richest man, Microsoft CEO Bill Gates.

The donations, which will come from Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway shares, would amount to about $37 billion, based on current values.

**BloodyHorns82** · 03-06-2008, 10:07 AM

Sounds like the title went to a deserving person.
He can't even give it away faster than he is making it.

I wish I had that problem.

**jmcdon00** · 03-06-2008, 10:54 AM

In October, Buffett issued a challenge to members of the Forbes 400 richest Americans list, saying he would donate $1 million to charity if the collective group (or a significant number of them) would admit they pay less taxes, as a percentage of income, than their secretaries.

Days after issuing the challenge, Buffett appeared before Congress to encourage it to keep the estate tax. Armed with a few Forbes 400 issues, he told lawmakers that "dynastic wealth, the enemy of a meritocracy, is on the rise."

I have been saying it for years, rich people do pay alot of the taxes, but they don't pay as much as a percentage of income. By reinvesting it they really don't have to claim the income ever. Plus when they do sell shares they pay capital gains rates which max out at 15%. Plus they only pay social security and medicare on the first $100,000(actually a little less) of their earned income(15.3%).
If the estate tax is eliminated they will be able to pass all of their stock on to whoever they want and no one will ever pay tax on it. Currently unless the estate is valued at more than $2,000,000 it doesn't hurt anyone.
I have no problem with rich people, most of the time they are very good people who worked hard for their money, but I agree with Buffet that they are under taxed.