How would you feel about taking a pay cut and paying more in taxes?
Meet Ted Weschler. He just did both. And he’s happy about it.
You might have heard about Mr. Weschler. He was hired by Warren E. Buffett last week to help invest Berkshire Hathaway’s piles of cash.
Mr. Weschler, a successful but little-known 50-year-old hedge fund manager, plied his trade from a small office in Charlottesville, Va., above an independent bookstore, reaping huge returns for his investors, some 1,236 percent over a decade. In the process, his $2 billion fund put him comfortably in the millionaires’ club, and at the rate he was going, he was on his way to the more exclusive cadre of billionaires.
Here is a quick measure of his wealth: he paid $2,626,311 in a charity auction to have lunch with Mr. Buffett in 2010. That’s how they met. A year later, Mr. Weschler paid $2,626,411 to dine with him again.
In his new job at Berkshire, he is expected to be paid significantly less than he was making. (We’ll get to the formula for his compensation in a moment.) And he is going to be giving up a huge tax break. Instead of paying the 15 percent capital gains rate on most of his income like most hedge fund managers and private equity executives, he is going to be taxed at the 35 percent ordinary income level as an employee.
His decision — and his compensation structure — are worth considering as the country weighs President Obama’s proposal to increase taxes for the ultra wealthy in what has been called the “Buffett Rule.”
The plan is aimed at ensuring that millionaires pay the same effective rate as middle-income families. In part, it takes aim at the controversial “carried interest” income, or the profits that hedge fund managers and other big investors take home as part of their pay. That compensation is now taxed at the capital gains rate of 15 percent, far below the 35 percent top rate on ordinary income. Mr. Obama hopes to close that loophole.
Many Republicans have derided the Buffett Rule, saying it would hurt the economy. “If you tax job creators more, you get less job creation,” Representative Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, argued on Fox News Sunday. “If you tax investment more, you get less investment.”
Link to entire article: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/new-buffett-manager-gets-higher-taxes-and-less-pay-by-choice/?ref=business
Meet Ted Weschler. He just did both. And he’s happy about it.
You might have heard about Mr. Weschler. He was hired by Warren E. Buffett last week to help invest Berkshire Hathaway’s piles of cash.
Mr. Weschler, a successful but little-known 50-year-old hedge fund manager, plied his trade from a small office in Charlottesville, Va., above an independent bookstore, reaping huge returns for his investors, some 1,236 percent over a decade. In the process, his $2 billion fund put him comfortably in the millionaires’ club, and at the rate he was going, he was on his way to the more exclusive cadre of billionaires.
Here is a quick measure of his wealth: he paid $2,626,311 in a charity auction to have lunch with Mr. Buffett in 2010. That’s how they met. A year later, Mr. Weschler paid $2,626,411 to dine with him again.
In his new job at Berkshire, he is expected to be paid significantly less than he was making. (We’ll get to the formula for his compensation in a moment.) And he is going to be giving up a huge tax break. Instead of paying the 15 percent capital gains rate on most of his income like most hedge fund managers and private equity executives, he is going to be taxed at the 35 percent ordinary income level as an employee.
His decision — and his compensation structure — are worth considering as the country weighs President Obama’s proposal to increase taxes for the ultra wealthy in what has been called the “Buffett Rule.”
The plan is aimed at ensuring that millionaires pay the same effective rate as middle-income families. In part, it takes aim at the controversial “carried interest” income, or the profits that hedge fund managers and other big investors take home as part of their pay. That compensation is now taxed at the capital gains rate of 15 percent, far below the 35 percent top rate on ordinary income. Mr. Obama hopes to close that loophole.
Many Republicans have derided the Buffett Rule, saying it would hurt the economy. “If you tax job creators more, you get less job creation,” Representative Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, argued on Fox News Sunday. “If you tax investment more, you get less investment.”
Link to entire article: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/new-buffett-manager-gets-higher-taxes-and-less-pay-by-choice/?ref=business
