Days after Barack Obama unveiled his “Buffett” tax for millionaires, news has trickled out that the billionaire after whom the tax is named plans to headline a big fundraiser for the president’s re-election campaign. Warren Buffett, the so-called Oracle of Omaha, is scheduled to take part in a fundraiser in October in Chicago at the home of a major investment banker, the business publication Crain’s has reported. Price per ticket: Just $35,800 a pop. Buffett is also expected to headline a fundraiser later this month in New York to benefit Obama and the Democratic Party as they prepare for the 2012 election. The world’s third richest man is clearly throwing his support once again behind Obama – and making himself a political target in the process. He recently urged the president to raise taxes on the rich in a New York Times column, saying the superwealthy are already coddled. Read Buffett column here. To support his case, Buffett has frequently said that his secretary pays a greater share of her income in federal taxes than he does. In his Times column, Buffett said he paid 17.4% of his taxable income to the federal government in 2010. The “other 20 people in our office,” he wrote, had “tax burdens” ranging from 33% to 41%. There’s no reason to doubt Buffett about his 2010 tax rate. After all, he earns most of his money from dividends and capital gains such as the sale of stock. Dividends are taxed between 5% and 15% and capital gains are taxed at a 15%. Both rates are much lower than the ordinary 35% federal tax bracket that Buffett is in. Yet the tax rates of Buffett’s office workers, assuming they earn middle-class salaries, are a different matter. Data from the IRS paint a very different picture. In 2009, for example, people who earned under $100,000 paid an average federal rate of 12.3% or less on their taxable income, which adjusts for deductions. And those who earned between $100,000 and $200,000 paid 16.3%. Download IRS data here. People who earned $1 million or more, meanwhile, paid federal taxes at rates ranging from 26.3% to 29.7% of their taxable income, according to IRS data. Buffett’s office workers are not said to be superrich, however. Even if Social Security taxes and Medicare taxes are included, Buffett’s office workers probably paid less than 20% of their taxable income to the federal government. Read criticism of Buffett claim here. In a separate analysis last year, for example, the nonpartisan Congressional Office found that middle-class and upper middle-class households paid 14.3% to 17.4% of their income in federal taxes in 2007, including Social Security contributions. The 2007 data was the most recent available. See CBO report here. Of course, figuring out a person’s tax rate often varies because of the complexity of the tax code and the abundant use of deductions. Without more data from Buffett, it’s impossible to know just how much his office workers actually paid in federal taxes. Even if they are paying more than their boss, however, most rich people clearly do pay more in taxes – much more – than the middle class. Buffett is the exception, not the rule, as a report by AP shows.

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