we are in an age of tight budgets and tough choices, and I rise today to introduce legislation that would address some loopholes in the Tax Code that provide ways for Americans with superhigh incomes to pay lower tax rates than are paid by regular hardworking, middle-class families. These middle-class families feel they are struggling to get by but then find that some people with extremely high incomes are actually paying a lower, all-in federal tax rate than they are. To them, it defies common sense, and I think for all of us it defies common sense. Americans deserve a straight deal, and right now they are not getting one from our tax system. To see the unfairness of our current tax system, we don't have to look much further than the national headlines. According to a Forbes magazine report last fall, billionaire Warren Buffet ``paid just 11.06 percent of his adjusted gross income in Federal income taxes'' in 2010. Mr. Buffet is the first to express his dismay at this circumstance and acknowledges that the rate he pays is lower than the tax rate paid by his own secretary. Mr. Buffet has called for a correction of this anomaly, and I agree with him. So does President Obama, who, in his State of the Union Address, said Washington should stop subsidizing millionaires. I agree. We should celebrate the success of people who are earning $1 million and more a year, but we don't--particularly in this time of tight budgets and hard choices--need to subsidize that.…
Share
More from Sheldon Whitehouse
Over the longer term, accelerating our transition to clean energy will lower energy costs, insulate consumers from these kinds of price spikes, and reduce America’s dependence on foreign despots and greedy fossil fuel companies.
We look forward to working on a bipartisan bill that will speed infrastructure development, lower energy costs, and create good-paying jobs.
It’s wrong that corporations can use their wealth to secretly exploit foreign tax havens while everyday Americans contribute their fair share. This common-sense legislation would shine a light on the murky world of offshore tax dodging to…
The Department failed to respond to Congress, and instead, on May 18, 2026, announced that it had settled an unrelated IRS lawsuit with President Trump to create a $1.8 billion slush fund to compensate alleged victims of DOJ…





