My latest at Da Tech Guy Blog, Warren Buffett and his American dollars for Canadian doughnuts, on the newest tax exile, is up.
Please read it and contribute to Da Tip Jar!
What we ought to discuss, instead of how much Warren Buffett’s secretary earns
Last year I asked, Just how much money does Warren Buffett’s secretary make?
In the annals of class-warfare propaganda, the answer appears to be somewhere Between $200,000 And $500,000/Year, which considering how much her boss pulls in, is not unreasonable.
She even went on TV (imagine that!) to say she feels she represents all secretaries, but also is “the poster woman for [Obama’s] tax policy”, which means the “poster woman” is in the top 1%,
I would like to see their tax returns, Warren’s and Debbie’s. Warren even says “I think if you’re an ultra-rich guy and there’s a strong suspicion that you’re paying taxes at a rate that’s half the rate of what Deb pays, you’re going to expect some heat.” Until Warren coughs up his personal tax returns, we should dismiss anything he says as hypocritical propaganda.
But all this is a distraction. Not only Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Owes Taxes Going Back To 2002, Buffett’s Burlington Northern Santa Fe LLC is among U.S. and Canadian railroads that stand to benefit from the Obama administration’s decision to reject TransCanada Corp. (TRP)’s Keystone XL oil pipeline permit.
The Keystone XL pipeline would have reduced America’s dependence on oil dictatorships and created an estimated 20,000 jobs; however, Democrat Rep. Jan Schakowsky dismisses that with the comment,
Twenty thousand jobs is really not that many jobs and investing in green technologies will produce that and more.
Buffett is directly profiting from Obama energy policies while feeding into the Obama propaganda machine.
That, my friends, is the real story.
UPDATE, Monday 30 January,
Warren Buffett: Stop talking about the woman I keep dragging into the spotlight, via Instapundit.
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Just how much money does Warren Buffett’s secretary make?
According to the WSJ, long-term capital gains and dividends are taxed as follows:
For taxpayers in the 15% income tax bracket and below, the rate is zero. For those in the 25% bracket and above, the rate is 15%
and the federal income tax rate for people earning $10,000,000 or more is 26.3%
| Adjusted Gross Income, 2009 | Average Federal Income Tax Rate (%) |
|---|---|
| $10,000 to $15,000 | 6.8% |
| $15,000 to $20,000 | 6.6% |
| $20,000 to $25,000 | 8.7% |
| $25,000 to $30,000 | 9.7% |
| $30,000 to $40,000 | 10.0% |
| $40,000 to $50,000 | 10.6% |
| $50,000 to $75,000 | 11.6% |
| $75,000 to $100,000 | 12.3% |
| $100,000 to $200,000 | 16.3% |
| $200,000 to $500,000 | 24.6% |
| $500,000 to $1,000,000 | 28.8% |
| $1,000,000 to $1,500,000 | 29.4% |
| $1,500,000 to $2,000,000 | 29.6% |
| $2,000,000 to $5,000,000 | 29.7% |
| $5,000,000 to $10,000,000 | 29.1% |
| $10,000,000 or more | 26.3% |
| Average | 17.8% |
Warren Buffett claims that his secretary is taxed at a higher rate than he. President Obama repeated that claim
“Warren Buffett’s secretary shouldn’t pay a higher tax rate than Warren Buffett.
She may be, if she’s pulling in a salary in the vicinity of $2-$5 million per year, claims no deductions, and has no capital gains.
Otherwise, the evidence doesn’t support Warren’s claim, particularly considering the various tax exemptions, deductions, etc., that change the numbers when you look at what people actually pay. Today Stephen Ohlemacher did a FACT CHECK: Are rich taxed less than secretaries?
This year, households making more than $1 million will pay an average of 29.1 percent of their income in federal taxes, including income taxes and payroll taxes, according to the Tax Policy Center, a Washington think tank.
Households making between $50,000 and $75,000 will pay 15 percent of their income in federal taxes.
Lower-income households will pay less. For example, households making between $40,000 and $50,000 will pay an average of 12.5 percent of their income in federal taxes. Households making between $20,000 and $30,000 will pay 5.7 percent.
The latest IRS figures are a few years older — and limited to federal income taxes — but show much the same thing. In 2009, taxpayers who made $1 million or more paid on average 24.4 percent of their income in federal income taxes, according to the IRS.Those making $100,000 to $125,000 paid on average 9.9 percent in federal income taxes. Those making $50,000 to $60,000 paid an average of 6.3 percent.
Obama’s claim hinges on the fact that, for high-income families and individuals, investment income is often taxed at a lower rate than wages. The top tax rate for dividends and capital gains is 15 percent. The top marginal tax rate for wages is 35 percent, though that is reserved for taxable income above $379,150.
We are being subjected to class-warfare propaganda.
Warren, since you think the government is doing such a stellar job of managing things, leave the rest of us alone, and put your money where your mouth is and give all your income and all of your assets to the government. I beg you.
In the meantime, pay up: Berkshire Hathaway Owes Taxes Going Back To 2002
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Warren Buffett keeps begging
Buffett: I beg you to raise my taxes
Warren Buffett, the third wealthiest man in the world with a net worth of around $80 billion, is demanding the U.S. government make the rich like him pay higher taxes and says they should no longer be protected like endangered “spotted owls.”
Warren’s own spotty logic shines through here: Stop Coddling the Super-Rich because he only paid $6,938,744 in federal taxes last year.
Last year my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf — was $6,938,744. That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that’s 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.
Well, I’m so glad Warren rounded up to the nearest dollar. However, to the best of my knowledge, Buffett has never made his tax returns public, so who knows?
Warren, dearest, you can stop bellyaching and start preaching by example: Give ALL your money to the federal government. Every red cent. I asked you to do it last year, and you’ve kept me waiting.
Step up to the plate, Warren.
I beg you.
UPDATE,
Here’s the address, Warren,
Gifts to the United States U.S. Department of the Treasury Credit Accounting Branch 3700 East-West Highway, Room 6D37 Hyattsville, MD 20782
If you send it via FedEx they’ll have it by Wednesday morning.
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Hey, Warren, put all your money where your mouth is
Every so often Warren Buffett goes on TV and calls for higher taxes. This from the guy who’s paid, according to Forbes, perhaps less than $10 million in taxes, a tiny percentage of his $50 billion net worth. I say perhaps because, to the best of my knowledge, Buffett has never made his tax returns public.
Buffett is big-business, with his Berkshire Hathaway holding company stock selling (today) at $119,675.00 per share. Berkshire Hathaway has 1 million shares, which means that Buffett heads a company worth more that the gross national product of a few small Latin American countries.
How does Buffett manage to pay so little in taxes? For one, Buffett, who wants everybody to pay for big-spending big government, donates sizable amounts to tax-exempt philanthropies, such as the Gates Foundation. Forbes, again,
He donates appreciated Berkshire Hathaway stock — which costs him pennies on the dollar — to charity, and receives a fat, juicy tax deduction at the appreciated price without having to pay a capital gains tax on the appreciation. (And, note that the money actually sits in his own charitable organization.) He’s saving income taxes with the ordinary deduction so it’s essentially a tax shelter.
He builds up his massive net worth and doesn’t have to sell stock while deferring capital gains. When he does take a capital gain, it’s at a 15% rate, and he lives in a low-tax state.
Buffett has been known to complain that he paid taxes on the lower-rated capital gains rate rather than the higher income-tax rate. Well, play me the world’s smallest violin, Warren.
Mind you, I’m all for capitalism. America is the greatest country in the world because historically it afforded its citizens the ability to legally prosper and live in abundance. What I object to is billionaires who got their own aiming to prevent anyone else from attaining the same, or more, as they.
This latest time around Buffett was on ABC’s This Week, and told Christiane Amanpour that “People at the high end, people like myself, should be paying more taxes”,
The “high end”, by the way, in tax code terms, bunches together anyone making over $250,000/yr, whether you own one small restaurant or Berkshire Hathaway. If Warren were to gift you three shares of BH, he’d put you well over that amount.
Victor Davis Hanson wonders if Buffett has taken to preaching higher taxes in his later years as a form of penance,
Why did Buffett not become an advocate of higher taxes on those who make over $250,000 when he was in his twenties and thirties and desperately trying to pile up his first five or so million? Did he really pay astronomical income taxes at those astronomical tax rates in the 1950s and 1960s or seek to avoid them through capital gains lower taxes and write-offs? Why do so many of these zillionaires chase the dollar almost to the exclusion of all else, and then only when wildly successful in a manner that the other 99% were not, suddenly in the twilight years want to make it tougher on others? Is that the price of penance?
Ann Coulter was saying that she would even support a specific tax expressly on Warren Buffett.
Never mind spiritual penance or IRS codes. To the best of my knowledge nothing prevents anyone from writing a check to Uncle Sam for any amount, be it small or large. He doesn’t need to claim a tax deduction if he doesn’t want to. The IRS is not going to haul him off to jail for that. Correct me if I’m wrong.
So, if Warren Buffett thinks he’s not paying enough, let him show us, in a grand gesture to end all grand gestures, just how much he is willing to pay. He can put all his money – every red cent of it – where his mouth is, and leave the rest of us in peace.
Fifty billion ought to pay for a government program or two.
Cross-posted at Hot Air.
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