Posted on 08/17/2011 9:03:24 AM PDT by MissesBush
Berksire-Hathaway has been in the Life Insurance business for decades.
BH sells various life insurance and annuity products - and the very purpose of those products -
LOWERING ONE’S TAX LIABILITY IF ONE HAS SIGNIFICANT WEALTH AND INCOME THAT WOULD BE SUBJECT TO HIGH TAXES DURING ONE’S LIFE AND AFTER ONE’S DEATH WHEN ONE’S HEIRS INHERIT THE WEALTH.
So of course Mr. Buffett wants tax rates to go up like crazy - that will drive TONS OF NEW CUSTOMERS to look for products that Berkshire-Hathaway sells.
Just in case you have some wealth that you want to pass on to your heirs and need to lower your tax liability, here’s a link to brkdirect...
MY SINCERE THANKS to everyone in the SCP (so-called press) for pointing out the fat, stinking, hairy elephant of a conflict of interest on Mr. Buffetts’ populism.
bm
You're exactly right.
Not only that, but people who save taxes based on these regulations are doing EXACTLY what Congress and the President who signed the law want them to do.
The government decides to encourage people to buy homes by providing a tax deduction for home interest. Nobody deserves blame for doing exactly what the government intended.
The government decides to encourage investment in corporations by providing a lower tax rate on capital gains. Nobody deserves blame for doing exactly what the government intended.
If the government eliminated these two laws, I would sell stocks the day before the rates were to rise and pay off my home mortgage. Though this is what ought to be happening, if everybody did this on the same day it would be quite exciting. We are so constrained by these kinds of laws that there is no simple way to get back to the small-government that our Founders intended. It's going to be very painful.
Quite honestly, for the first two years I was in business I paid no taxes on pretty decent EBIDA. I took accelerated depreciation for small businesses during those two years. One year we got back everything I would have paid, and what my wife paid into the system.
Not so lucky in the past couple of years. Although this year has been a capital upgrade year.
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