WARREN BUFFETT IS QUALIFIED TO BE A HYPOCRITE

Warren Buffett, hypocrite is the title of an article in the NEW YORK POST. A hypocrite because he said recently that people like him should pay more taxes, yet his company admits, according to the Post article that it owes back taxes.

As Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson notes, the company [Berkshire Hathaway] openly admits that it owes back taxes since as long ago as 2002.

Mr. Buffett owns Berkshire Hathaway. In addition, Berkshire Hathaway apparently still has unresolved tax issues for tax years 2005 through 2009.

Obvious question: If Buffett really thinks he and his “mega-rich friends” should pay higher taxes, why doesn’t his firm fork over what it already owes under current rates?

By the way, there is no law that prevents someone from writing a check to the IRS. In fact the law specifically provides for that kind of payment. Therefore if anyone feels they underpay their taxes, the remedy is simple send a check!

When someone like Warren Buffett makes the claim, that he pays a smaller percentage of his income in taxes than many of his employees do, he is being a little disingenuous.

...he wrote in The New York Times, he paid only 17 percent of his income last year to the government -- even as many working stiffs who make far less than him coughed up higher percentages.

Disingenuous because he makes most of his money in the form of qualified dividends. Dividends which are taxed when he receives them at a rate of 15%. (All citizens pay from 0% to a maximum of 15% on qualified dividends.) But the actual rate on those dividends for Mr. Buffett is closer to 40% or more, because they are also subject to taxation when Berkshire Hathaway files their corporation return.

Raise the top tax rate on them by 13 percent, as Obama wants (from 35 percent to 39.6 percent) and you bring in only another $26 billion, tops -- and that’s if your tax hike doesn’t stifle the economy and kill jobs (which it surely would). Yet what’s $26 billion in a world of $4 trillion federal budgets with trillion-dollar-plus deficits?

The $26 Billion is not enough to pay our $4 Trillion debt, so when Obama and friends say millionaires and billionaires, they also must tax those who make as little as $200 thousand. $200,000 is quite a lot, but it takes five of those taxpayers to get to $1,000,000.

What about the 51% of taxpayers who pay nothing, nada, zip? Shouldn't they pay something? Not only do the top half pay all the income taxes, many in the other half get back all they paid plus some of what the top half payed.