Today, the “Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength” visited with Americans for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist to make their case for higher taxes. The group approached ATR with the request last week.

On their website, the Millionaires write: “Please do the right thing for our country. Raise our taxes.”

Norquist pointed out to the group that if they want to pay higher taxes they have several options:

They can cut a check directly to the U.S. Treasury. Any citizen may make a donation today simply by writing a check to the Treasury, to a fund called “Gifts to the United States.” In September, Norquist wrote a letter to Warren Buffett pointing out this fact.

They can cut a check to one of the state “Tax Me More” funds. There are at least eight states that have established Tax Me More funds to allow those who feel they are not paying enough in taxes to contribute to the state treasury.

They can support the “Buffett Rule Act of 2011.” ATR supports this bill which would instruct the IRS to provide a prominent, convenient checkbox line on 1040 forms to allow those so inclined to pay extra income tax. In the House, the bill (H.R. 3099) is being championed by Congressman Steve Scalise (R-La.), and in the Senate (S. 1676) by John Thune (R-S.D.)

ATR also pointed out that the tax code is already steeply progressive, with the top 1% of income earners paying 40% of all income taxes while the bottom half pay just 3% of all income taxes.

Handed to the Millionaires was a copy of Maimonides’ Eight Levels of Charity. A ninth level was added by ATR in good humor, called The Warren Buffett Level: “Not anticipated by Maimonides and lower than all the others, this is when someone doesn’t actually make a charitable contribution but parades around saying he would if he was forced to after everyone else was forced to.” 

Posted by John Kartch on Wednesday, November 16, 2011 6:40 PM EST

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