Posted on 08/25/2011 4:51:29 AM PDT by Kaslin
WARREN BUFFETT is the billionaire CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, a friend and political supporter of Barack Obama, and a well-known advocate of higher taxes on the rich. He is also a hypocrite, whose actions belie his words.
For several years now, Buffett has been calling for significant tax hikes on extremely wealthy Americans like himself. Last week, in a New York Times column headlined "Stop Coddling the Super-Rich," Buffett lamented that the $6,938,744 he forked over in federal income and payroll taxes in 2010 amounted to just 17.4 percent of his taxable income. "What I paid," the world's most famous investor observed, "was . . . 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."
Buffett has not made his employees' tax returns public, but the federal tax burdens he ascribes to them appear to be highly atypical. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the overall federal tax load shouldered by Americans -- comprising income, payroll, corporate, and excise taxes -- is quite progressive. CBO reported last summer that "households in the bottom fifth of the income distribution paid 4.0 percent of their income in federal taxes, the middle quintile paid 14.3 percent, and the highest quintile paid 25.1 percent. Average rates continued to rise within the top quintile: The top 1 percent faced an average rate of 29.5 percent." If Buffett's numbers are right, his employees must be among the highest-taxed workers in America.
Yet Buffett doesn't argue that his workers' federal taxes should be cut. He demands that his own be raised.
As many critics have noted, Buffett can voluntarily send Washington more money than he owes in taxes. Anyone can. Since 1843, the Treasury Department notes on its website, the government has maintained an account "to accept gifts, such as bequests, from individuals wishing to express their patriotism to the United States." Deposits to that account are added to the government's general fund, but the feds also accept contributions -- by credit card, electronic payment, or check -- specifically earmarked for paying down federal debt.
It would be nice to think that those who insist so vehemently that Washington's debt crisis cannot be resolved without higher revenues are taking the lead and freely reaching into their own pockets. Alas, no. Donations to the Bureau of the Public Debt, The New York Times reported last year, only trickle in at an annual rate of about $2 million to $3 million.
What makes Buffett a hypocrite isn't that he champions an immediate tax increase on the wealthy, yet donates nothing extra to Washington himself. Merely favoring a change in the law doesn't oblige anyone to act as if the change has been enacted.
But Buffett doesn't just propose higher taxes on millionaires and billionaires as a matter of abstract policy. He argues that he personally (along with what he calls "my mega-rich friends") has been "spared" any shared sacrifice, that he personally has "been coddled long enough," that he personally shouldn't get "extraordinary tax breaks" when so many Americans are struggling. He frames his call for higher taxes as an avowal of his own moral obligations. Were he to put his money where his mouth is and voluntarily send the Treasury a big check, his call for higher taxes would carry greater moral authority. His failure to do so is not just intellectually inconsistent, but hypocritical.
Buffett isn't greedy. He is an extraordinary philanthropist who has undertaken to give 99 percent of his immense fortune to charity, and who, with Bill Gates, actively encourages other billionaires to spend down half or more of their wealth in charitable donations.
And why is he giving all that money to charity instead of to Uncle Sam? Because, as he has said in interviews, he knows it will do more good that way and be used more effectively. Who would disagree? For all Buffett's talk of being undertaxed, he believes what nearly everyone believes -- that he can allocate his money more wisely than the government. And not just that he can, but that he should.
When the Sage of Omaha calls for higher taxes, his words get plenty of attention. But his actions speak louder, and convey a markedly different message.
He;s a damn HYPOCRITE!!! He put his BILLIONS into a TAX FREE SLUSH FUND with another Billionaire!!!!
He has a lot of money invested overseas, one would suppose to keep his taxes lower.
The Onan of Omaha
I have always held this hypocrite in contempt. Typical “Do as I say, not as I do”, Limousine Lib. Its easy to mouth off like this once you have a couple billion in the bank So he makes $30 million instead of $60 millio this year. Big deal. He already has his. He’s lived a life of luxury. Now that he’s old he turns into a scold who wants to force everyone to turn into government serfs. He needs to move himself and his family into a shack somewhere and give away all his money. Then I’ll listen to him.
Show me one liberal that is not a hypocrite.
A good summation on the blovating buffoon named Buffett from plancksconstant.org:
All the years Warren Buffett was making billions he said nothing about the rich paying more in taxes. Now he’s singing a different tune. The extra taxes he proposes would not affect his wealth, only his new income, but it certainly would keep millions of others from their full potential and from possibly knocking him off the top 3 list of the richest men in America.
If Warren Buffett were an honest, decent person, he would take his own advice and write a check for 35% of his income to the US Treasury. But Warren Buffett is a low-life, greedy, chiseling scumbag that wants new rules for everyone else after he played the game and won. This is like Babe Ruth, after hitting 714 home runs, telling the Baseball Commission that 415 feet is too short for a home run, it should be made 830 feet.
Warren, if you think the rich should pay more then write the effin’ check and shut up - leave us out of your self-serving opinions.
Also of note BUFFETT TO CO-HOST OBAMA FUNDRAISER IN NYC COST as much as $38,500 a head
Article link: http://www.businessinsider.com/buffett-to-co-host-obama-fundraiser-in-nyc-2011-8
Supposedly he donates 90% to the Bill Gates charities, and I bet it’s not that he wants to help those that really need help. It’s to get his taxes lower
self-ping.
“”Buffett lamented that the $6,938,744 he forked over in federal income and payroll taxes in 2010 “”
To do this, he had to be on someone’s payroll. Whose payroll is he on? Berkshire Hathaway? I would love to see his tax return.
AGREED!!!
Shelter his BILLIONS Forever.. Family and friends on the board get paid from this Charity.. Sure, they’ll hand out a few bucks to stay legal.. As for raising taxes.. That will in turn place more family businesses for sale just to get out from under the tax.. I wonder who has been there in the past to help those families and purchase the family assets?/sarc
After acquiring control, Buffet began phasing out the manufacturing part over a decade or two. Berkshire became a holding company based on an insurance business model for several reasons, among them is the fact that income on reserves left in reserves is not taxed.
By the time Berkshire had acquired a number of wholly-owned subsidiaries, Buffet shifted his focus of investment from shares of publicly traded companies to a distinct preference for companies where Berkshire could afford at least an 80% stake in the company where the acquired company could be treated as a wholly-owned subsidiary with balance sheet consolidation. Income from the acquired company could be taxed along with Berkshire's other income and taxed only once instead of being treated as dividends and taxed twice.
Buffet has used his annual reports to boast about his tax prowess as one of the reasons Berkshire has been more profitable than other companies permitting extra growth. Berkshire, itself pays no dividends, again because Buffet knows it allows shareholders to avoid double taxation on dividends and that he can compound those tax-deferred dollars at a much higher rate than Berkshire's shareholders. Buffet knows and understands the apparent hypocrisy.
It gets even more interesting because Gates and Buffet challenged Carlos Slim to give half of his fortune to the poor just as Gates and Buffet have done. Carlos Slim declined their request and labeled it as irrational saying, "Instead of giving their fortunes to the poor, Buffet and Gates should use their fortunes to build factories, and give them jobs instead."
But there is even more. If you have read Snowball, Buffet's autobiography, Buffet loved his father. Howard Buffet was one of the most Constitutionally conservative Republican Congressmen to ever sit in the House of Representatives. In the run up to the 1952 Republican convention, Senator Robert Taft was a head in the primaries, but the Rockerfeller Republicans and other RINOs who had recruited Ike to run as a Republican outmaneuvered Taft and his supporters at the convention. Howard Buffet was Taft's mid-western campaign chairman, and reportedly on Taft's short list for running mates. We all know the convention and election outcome at the national level, but what about at the Nebraska level?
In Buffet's subsequent house bid, the Rockefellers ran a RINO in the Nebraska primaries and beat Buffet's father who never ran for office again. Has Buffet been carrying on a sixty year revenge vendetta with the Republicans and conservatism?
One last thing, Buffet's view of gold is well known. Howard Buffet wrote one of the most compelling arguments for gold and gold money that has ever been written. You can read it for yourself:
I like that.
He's probably got some angle ..... if his Form 1040 taxes go up, the additional top-line revenue might get S&P to raise the rating on the senior Treasurys, so that Buffet's net worth would go up more, by some multiplier, than the increase of his taxes. He might pay an extra $7 million but see his net go up by a couple billion.
And of course his better-paid employees' taxes would go up some more, as they got chumped by the boss.
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