American billionaire Warren Buffett (in picture) has asked the U.S. Congress to raise taxes on the nation’s wealthiest individuals to help cut the U.S. budget deficit, according to Bloomberg.com. He said that this measure will not affect the investments or job growth.

“My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress,” the chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway wrote in an opinion article published in the New York Times. The 80-old-year investor said that the taxes he paid last year amounted to USD 6.93 million.

“That sounds like a lot of money”, said Buffett, adding that “what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income, and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent”.

"Our leaders have asked for “shared sacrifice.” But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched.," Buffet wrote in the opinion for the New York Times.

The American billionaire said that for those making more than USD 1 million, 236,883 such households in 2009, he would raise rates immediately on taxable income in excess of USD 1 million, including dividends and capital gains.

In 1992 the top 400 American earners had aggregate taxable income of USD 16.9 billion and paid federal taxes of 29.2 percent on that amount, according to Buffett.

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com

(photo source: Fortune Most Powerful Women)