I'm always fascinated that in discussions of the wealthy and taxes, the pro-tax crowd never actually refers to the taxes paid by wealthy taxpayers. Mr. Burman spends an entire paragraph highlighting the money made by the 400 wealthiest taxpayers, but when it comes to describing the total income taxes they paid? 18.23%. Gee, could you extrapolate on that? Maybe put it in dollar terms? Or calculate how many receptionists Mr. Buffet would have to employ in order for them to contribute as much to the federal government as a single one of these wealthy taxpayers? And while I'm at it, how misleading can Mr. Burman be when he compares the effective tax rate of the 400 to the hypothetical receptionist? The IRS figures on total income taxes paid show the income tax code as whole has become more, not less progressive since we began reducing the top tax rate in 1981. Mr. Buffet's hypothetical receptionist today pays fewer income taxes than he/she would have in 1980, and its possible that he/she pays no income taxes at all thanks to bracket indexing under Reagan and the Bush refundable child credit and 10 percent bracket. Moreover, when you're comparing one with the other, what happened to the corporate layer of tax? Mr. Buffet may be an investing genius, but he failed tax policy 101 when he forgot that, as a major shareholder of a public corporation, he shoulders many of the taxes paid by that company even though they don't show up on his 1040. Oops. The Tax Policy Center puts out extremely valuable work, but slipshod analysis like this puts everything you do into question. Mr. Berman obviously has an agenda that pushes him to write blog entries hopelessly flawed by egalitarian cliche. Perhaps all your work is flawed as well?