White House Gets Behind Buffett Rule: Hot Trends

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Popular searches on the Internet Tuesday include billionaire investor Warren Buffett as the White House pushes the Buffett Rule, which theorizes that millionaires and billionaires should not pay lower percentages of their income than middle-class citizens.

The White House said the Buffett Rule would make it more difficult for the nation's richest to lower their tax bills and would ultimately make the tax code fairer for everyone. President Barack Obama has said the millionaires and billionaires should pay at least 30% of their income in taxes. The president is set to speak about the Buffett Rule Tuesday in Florida.

Democrats in the Senate are now pushing a bill that would incorporate the Buffett Rule into the current tax code, with the White House's support.

Sony(SNE) is trending as the company has revised its expected net loss for the past fiscal year to 520 billion yen ($6.4 billion), its biggest net loss ever.

The revised loss is much wider than previous forecasts of a loss of 220 billion yen. Sony said the additional loss is due to a charge of 300 billion yen from write-offs of deferred tax credits primarily in the U.S.

The company maintained its February forecast for a 95 billion yen annual operating loss. The Japanese electronics giant also said it would return to profit in the current year ending March 2013 with an operating profit of 180 billion yen ($2.2 billion).

CEO Kazuo Hirai plans to unveil his strategy for reviving the company in a briefing on Thursday.

Reports said this week that Sony plans to cut 10,000 jobs, or 6% of its global work force.

Supervalu(SVU) is another popular search after the company reported it swung to a fourth-quarter loss, weighed down by costs related to store closings and layoffs as well as impairment charges.

The grocery chain operator said it lost $424 million, or $2 a share, in the quarter ended Feb 25, compared with a year-earlier profit of $95 million, or 44 cents a share. Excluding items, the company's results still beat expectations.