President Barack Obama’s proposal to raise the income tax rate on Americans who make $1 million a year or more could generate annual revenue of $20 billion, investor Warren Buffett said Friday on Bloomberg Television.
Buffett, chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway Inc, said he has received some complaints about his support for higher taxes on the nation’s very wealthy but more people have expressed support.
The White House tax proposal, he said, would only affect about 50,000 Americans and “would raise, perhaps as much as $20 billion a year.”
People who make money with money, only, pay very low taxes at very high levels of income,” he said. The economy will not suffer under the proposal, he said.
Regarding the economy, Buffett said: “We have a recovery going. We are not in any double-dip recession.” Most of Berkshire’s businesses, he said, “are doing very well.”
As for the holding company’s new stock-buyback program, Buffett was asked under what conditions the company would execute a purchase. “If the stock is cheap, we will buy it in. If it isn’t cheap, we won’t buy it in.”
“If the (stock) price is attractive, we could spend a lot of money” on repurchases of Berkshire stock, he added.
Berkshire added a total of about $4 billion in common stock of various companies to its portfolio in the third quarter, Buffett said.
Asked if any banks in the euro zone have approached him about an investment, he said he had received “very, very few” inquiries but that Berkshire “would not be a good prospect” for assistance.
