Warren Buffet owes 1 billion in back taxes

[Misty]

On Monday, The Blaze reported that Warren Buffett’s company, Berkshire Hathaway, owes back taxes dating to 2002. The news is significant because in a recent op-ed column for the New York Times, Buffett, one of President Obama’s staunchest supporters, stated that, to now, the “super wealthy” have been coddled and deserve to be taxed at an even higher rate than they currently are.

When Buffett made his revelation earlier in the month, most assumed his company was up-t0-date on its taxes. That assumption has turned out to be incorrect, however — and to a substantial degree perhaps.

According to Berkshire’s 2010 annual report, the company has been in a near decade-long struggle with the IRS over its own taxes. Using public documents, a certified public accountant detailed Berkshire’s tax problems to Americans for Limited Government researcher Richard McCarty, revealing the damage could be close to $1 billion."

Update: Warren Buffett’s Company Owes Nearly $1 Billion in Taxes | TheBlaze.com

 

[Misty]

Not only does he owe back taxes he has been fighting the IRS since 2002.

Meanwhile, McCarty believes Berkshire‘s current issues may be consistent with the company’s long-time history regarding taxes, noting, *“this is not the first time that Berkshire Hathaway has tangled with the IRS.”

“They fought a 14-year battle over the dividends received deduction. That case was just resolved in 2005,” McCarty said.

He fought for 14 years to keep from paying taxes.

 

[StevenC]

Just more proof Buffet is a hipocrite.
He says the rich aren't paying enough yet he fights the IRS.
He also make use of every possible deduction available to himself. If he really wanted to pay more he could just skip the deductions.

 

[grunt11b]

You wont hear Obama bashing him anytime soon. The rich are not paying there fair share only if they are not a supporter of the destruction of this country.

 

[konradv]

A. It's BH's corporate taxes, not WB's individual taxes that are in question.

B. He was talking about rates not deductions, the source of BH's problem.

FAIL

 

[syrenn]

Ah yes, the man who thinks we should pay more taxes..... just not him.

 

[StevenC]

A. It's BH's corporate taxes, not WB's individual taxes that are in question.

B. He was talking about rates not deductions, the source of BH's problem.

FAIL

If he feels he should pay more why is he taking deductions?

 

[Ravage]

Wow...a financial story from the guy who shilled worthless gold plated coins that weren't worth shit.

 

[konradv]

A. It's BH's corporate taxes, not WB's individual taxes that are in question.

B. He was talking about rates not deductions, the source of BH's problem.

FAIL

If he feels he should pay more why is he taking deductions?

He isn't, the corporation is. I realize corporations are supposed to be people, just not a specific person. Even though he is CEO, he has the obligation to do what's best for the shareholders and could get sued, if he didn't do everything to protect their fiduciary interest. That has nothing to do with his or his secretary's personal taxes.

 

[Skull Pilot]

That's why dimwitcraps love him because they are more likely not to pay their taxes than republicans

The Daily Beast Ranks the Party, Democratic or Republican, With the Most Tax Cheats - The Daily Beast

 

[FuelRod]

My shocked face.

 

[Misty]

A. It's BH's corporate taxes, not WB's individual taxes that are in question.

B. He was talking about rates not deductions, the source of BH's problem.

FAIL

Taxes are taxes pal, and warren doesn't want to pay his and has been fighting it for a decade.

Warren Buffet is a hypocrite liar plan and simple.

 

[Misty]

Oh my here is another tax evader democrat hack.

"MSNBC star Al Sharpton owes the IRS $2.6 million… But he did finally pay the Peabody Hotel in Memphis the $106,981 that he owed for a 2008 conference.
The New York Post reported:
The Rev. Al Sharpton’s nonprofit paid him nearly $242,000 — even as it carried $1.6 million in debt, according to documents obtained by The Post."

MSNBC Star Host Al Sharpton Owes IRS $2.6 Million | The Gateway Pundit

 

[Misty]

That's why dimwitcraps love him because they are more likely not to pay their taxes than republicans

The Daily Beast Ranks the Party, Democratic or Republican, With the Most Tax Cheats - The Daily Beast

Oh my how embarrassing for self righteous democrats.


"The verdict? Turns out Republicans have the bigger names—Jack Abramoff, Randy “Duke” Cunningham—but Democrats have the most tax scandals by a margin of 18 to 7."

 

[Misty]

How embarrassing this must be for President Obama, whose major speech theme so far this campaign season has been that every single American, no matter how rich,*should pay their “fair share” of taxes.

Because how unfair — indeed, un-American — it is for an office worker like, say, Warren Buffet’s secretary to dutifully pay her taxes, while some well-to-do people with better educations and higher incomes end up paying a much smaller*tax rate.

Or, worse,*skipping their taxes altogether.

A*new report just out from the Internal Revenue Service reveals that 36 of President Obama’s executive office staff owe the country $833,970 in back taxes. These people working for Mr. Fair Share apparently haven’t paid any share, let alone their fair share.

Previous reports have shown how well-paid Obama’s White House staff is, with 457*aides pulling down*more than $37 million last year.

[...]The*report*finds that thousands of federal employees*owe the country more than $3.4 billion in back taxes. That’s up 3% in the past year.

Democrat hypocrisy: 36 Obama aides owe $833,970 in back taxes to the IRS | Right Wing News

 

[waltky]

Granny says if dem ultra-rich 1%er's don't pay their fair share o' taxes, the economy gonna collapse an' we gonna have a economic chaos on our hands...

Americans Making Over $50,000 a Year Paid 93.3 Percent of All Taxes in 2010
April 14, 2012 – Americans making over $50,000 paid most of the federal taxes that were paid in the U.S. in 2010.

According to statistics compiled from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) by the Tax Foundation, those people making above $50,000 had an effective tax rate of 14.1 percent, and carried 93.3 percent of the total tax burden. In contrast, Americans making less than $50,000 had an effective tax rate of 3.5 percent and their total share of the tax burden was just 6.7 percent. Americans making more than $250,000 had an effective tax rate of 23.4 percent and their total share of the tax burden was 45.7 percent. Out of the 143 million tax returns that were filed with the IRS in 2010, 58 million – or 41 percent – of those filers were non-payers. In other words, only 85 million actually paid taxes.

But Tax Foundation data also shows that people who didn’t pay any income tax received $105 billion in refundable tax credits from the IRS. Additionally, statistics from the Tax Foundation shows that the federal tax code is 3.8 million words long – 3.5 times longer than all seven books of J.K. Rowling’s famous Harry Potter series combined. According to Scholastic.com, the total word count of all seven Harry Potter books is 1,083,594 words with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone being the shortest (76,944 words) and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix the longest (257,045).

In contrast, the federal tax code is 3.8 million words, almost a tripling of its size since 2001 when the Joint Committee on Taxation estimated the tax code to be 1,395,000, and almost doubling its size since the Tax Foundation's estimates in 2001.

Source

See also:

Boehner: Obama Should Contribute 10% More of His Income to the Government
April 17, 2012 – House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said on Tuesday that President Barack Obama should voluntarily contribute 10 percent more of his income to the federal government to match the 30-percent rate of taxation the president believes wealthier people like him should pay.

In 2011, Obama paid only slightly more than 20 percent of his income in federal taxes. President Obama has been pushing his “Buffett Rule” tax proposal since last fall, which would mandate that people making $1 million a year (or more) pay a tax rate of at least 30 percent. On Jan. 19 this year, Obama said, “Let me be absolutely clear: I should pay more taxes, and folks in my income bracket should pay more taxes, and certainly folks who are making billions of dollars should pay more taxes, not because I want to take their money and just give it to somebody else.” Then on Apr. 11, Obama said, “I’d just point out that the Buffett Rule is something that will get us moving in the right direction towards fairness, towards economic growth. It will help us close our deficit and it’s a lot more specific than anything that the other side has proposed so far.”

At a Capitol Hill press conference on Tuesday, CNSNews.com asked Speaker Boehner, “President Obama paid about 20 percent in taxes, should he voluntarily contribute an extra 10 percent to reach the 30 percent?” Boehner said, “Sure, sure.” According to his publicly disclosed tax returns, President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle had an adjusted gross income in 2011 of $789,674 and they paid 20.5 percent in federal taxes on that income. That income puts the Obamas in the top 1 percent of taxpayers in the United States.

In his April 11 remarks, Obama noted, as he has frequently in the past, that the billionaire investor Warren Buffett paid a tax rate lower than his secretary’s rate. (Buffett reportedly paid a rate based on dividend income while his secretary paid a rate based on personal income.) After the Obamas 2011 tax returns were released, the White House announced on April 13 that the president’s own secretary, Anita Decker, who makes $95,000 a year, paid a tax rate “slightly higher” than that of the president. White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage said this “is exactly why we need to reform our tax code and ask the wealthiest to pay their fair share.”

American citizens can voluntarily make donations to the U.S. Treasury online at “TreasuryDirect” to “help reduce the public debt.” Donations can be made from a checking account or with a credit card. A vote to end a Republican-led filibuster on the "Buffett Rule" in the Senate on April 16 was defeated 51-45, short of the 60 votes need to end the filibuster.

Source

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Some animals are more equal than others

Also Berkshire Hathaway structured many of their acquisition as stock swaps so teh Seller could avoind or delay paying tax and that's a vast multiple of the $1B they own