Buffet calls for taxing the rich while he sues IRS to avoid paying taxes
EXCERPT:
Billionaire Warren Buffett knows how to separate his social activism from his business management. Over the past several months, as advisor to President Obama, Buffett has been calling for additional taxes on the rich, and telling Americans he also would like to pay more to the government.
However, on November 19th, the true side of Warren Buffett, that of the business mogul, came to light as he is now suing the IRS to avoid paying more than $600 million in taxes levied upon Berkshire subsidiary NetJets.
Warren Buffett, who has been running around complaining that the government should “stop coddling the super-rich” and should raise taxes, is reportedly suing the IRS to avoid $643 million in taxes that the government says Berkshire Hathaway’s NetJets subsidiary owes the government for failing to collect ticket taxes from NetJets customers (who include Mr. Buffett himself). The suit against the IRS is filed by NetJets Large Aircraft Inc., not by Mr. Buffett himself, but Mr. Buffett is CEO of NetJet parent Berkshire and its largest individual shareholder.
They say that actions speak louder than words, and if Warren Buffett’s actions regarding taxation of himself, and his company are any indication, then his words prove him a hypocrite. Just as another Obama administration advisor Jeffrey Immelt worked the system to ensure GE paid no taxes in 2010, the rich play by different taxation laws that contridict the notion that there is a system in place to tax them, or the corporations they run, accordingly to their true earnings.
Buffett is a fraud. A tool and buffoon used by the Communist democRAT Party to stick it to the American people.
Buffett has perfected the “country cousin” routine. He knows that playing the role of the simple Nebraskan and paying lip-service to the principles of the Government Party and their many adherents is the best PR he can have.
At his level, he can’t afford to be on the wrong side of Gov’t.
Buffet gives most of his income to the Bill Gates Foundation. He does not pay taxes on that income due it going to a charity. If he declared it as income he would pay taxes. He obviously would rather have Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation spend his money than to let the Feds get it and spend it
HYPOCRITE!!!
It has been known for years that W.B. and a few of his ilk pay little or no taxes legally. Obama knows it also...but he still used the rich against the poor to elevate his election chances....Americans are not color blind they care little about nor understand how Third World America is becomming...just as long as ‘their guy’ stays in the W.H.
Good article.
What Mankiw might have pointed out is that Buffett’s proposals for higher tax rates on the wealthy not only will NOT affect him, but they WILL affect many of his potential competitors.
Most economists acquainted with “Public Choice Theory” recognize that Big Business (and Big Businessmen) like government regulation because they can usually afford to comply with it, while upstarts — which always threaten to knock those Businessmen off their perch — usually cannot.
The one thing that Big Business really doesn’t like is competition on a free market that gives it no special privileges, and provides no special barriers to entry for newcomers.
this is why “the rich” aka limosine liberals do not care if they are taxed more. It is ALL show and no substance. They will never pay a dime more.
This is about “I got mine” syndrome and keeping any competitor from rising to the top through the taxation turbulance.
Berkshire Hathaway paid about $5.6 billion federal income tax in FY2010
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/pf_article_112560.html
He’s a master FASCIST...
Warren Buffet does a good job of picking stocks. Beyond that he knows nothing of the economy or taxes.And his constant harping on raising taxes is perfect proof of that.I believe the phrase is idiot savant.
He controls the rail roads that ship fuel cross country. If that pipeline from Canada were to ever be built, this guy would suffer a huge financial loss.
It's better to suck up to liberals on taxes, screw the average hard working Joe, than it is to end up losing a few dollars of his OWN money, right?
Sure. Trust this guy. He's doing it for our own good, right? (NOT).
Ok, here’s just ONE little, actually rather large example of subsidy buffett/berkshire gets.
Burlington Northern Santa Fe railway is a major freight line owned outright by Berkshire Hathaway.
Some of us may recall how legally(buffett lobbyists) blocking the canadian shale oil pipeline buildout is a bigtime boost in freight revenue, since BNSF oil tankers are transporting this crude (a la the rockefeller/railroad trust back when, with the exception being that canadian oil producers haven’t been able to take over the railroad like rockefellers did with transport rebates such that they had NO transportation costs). BNSF is paid VERY WELL by US buyers and canadian producers to transport oil all the way down to our refineries to make-—whatever (jet fuel,gas, kerosene diesel). BTW this cost is borne by, US in gas prices. A pipeline would blow those costs away.
But here’s the icing: BNSF is the host railway for major Amtrak routes. Amtrak has to lease those, with a contract that includes supposed maintenance (BNSF probably does this OK but if NOT if damage is untimely to passenger service, Amtrak has to PAY them to maintain). Additionally, amtrak fares are subsidized by US as well, so he gets a piece of that indirectly.
So,Buffett gets US subsidy dollars for his private rails, as well as other cushy govt. cash. Sweet, and damned expensive to taxpayers. Say nothing about his other bizes that get other subsidies (let’s not forget BizJet, using US airports and subsidized FBO air centers). Sweet again.
All that and sheltered non-taxed wealth— and Buffett says the “rich” should pay a fixed rate. He SURE won’t be paying it. The “Ratschild of the Plains” a sage— part of the problem and deceitful farce.