Reply #5: maybe not after Bush

[hfojvt]

but in 2000, those making income over $10,000,000 were paying an average rate of 25.4% and those making between $5,000,000 and $10,000,000 were paying an average rate of 28.5%. That's on all their income too - not just the top rate.

Under Huntsman's plan, rich people will not be paying anywhere near 23%, because all of their dividend and capital gains income would be TAX FREE, and that's about 80% of their income.

So Huntsman would eliminate some of the loopholes which are currently enjoyed by the middle class, and even the poor. He would, for example, presumably take away my IRA deduction and also the Retirement Savings Credit on line 51 of the 1040 (which I generally use to eliminate all my Federal Income taxes (a whopping $191 in 2008) but I guess instead of paying $0 in 2008 on income of $11,968.74, under Huntsman's plan, I would pay $254.

Meanwhile, Huntsman just created a loophole for Warren Buffet that you could drive an aircraft carrier through, making all of his dividend and capital gains income tax free.

Huntsman apparently strongly disagrees when Buffet said that "my class has been coddled enough". In the immortal words of John Paul Huntman "I have not yet begun to coddle".