posted October 16, 2011 01:19 PM            

if someone is already putting the bulk of their money in charitable donations, fair enough. there isn't much "charitable" about FOX news or any of murdoch's other businesses. in fact they have made their fortunes on spite, gossip, invasion of privacy and backhanders.

unlike muddoch, buffet lives a fairly simple life. he lives in a fairly simple house and has opted not to ditch his wife every twenty years or so...while i am sure his accountants have taken every legal loophole just as yours do, he is now in the position my father found himself in years ago, when the IRS decided it was a loophole too far and sued him for what they declared he owed.
my father's response was a massive heart attack, since his income had gone down and his expenses increased in the interim.

posted October 17, 2011 10:06 AM            

It's the hypocrisy of Warren Buffett, Kaiser, millionaires for tax reform, Jeffery Immelt and Barack Hussein O'Bomber...who, having an avenue to march down and pay more taxes...choose to minimize their taxes using every tax dodge available...and apparently some which are not legal...and refuse to pay their back taxes...while hectoring and lecturing everyone else on the glories of "Paying Their Fair Share".

That's leftist hypocrisy for you. Accuse others of doing exactly what you are doing and call them immoral, unethical, uncaring, rapacious...among other unflattering epitaphs.

If I owed the government more than a BILLION DOLLARS in back taxes, I'd keep my mouth firmly shut about millionaires and billionaires paying a higher tax rate...at least until I'd paid my own back taxes...and changed the manner in which I take compensation to minimize my own taxes.

If I were Jeffery Immelt, head of General Electric...which paid NO CORPORATE INCOME TAXES...and moved whole divisions of General Electric to China, you wouldn't find me heading up O'Bomber's American Jobs Council or shooting off my mouth about the rich paying more in taxes.

posted October 17, 2011 12:09 PM            

he talked a seriously conservative game and implemented no end of liberal policies. as LBJ observed at the time, nixon was one of the best democratic presidents in years...all the while he SAID he was for conservative policies. what is conservative about wage and price freezing, mandating a maximum road speed, to name just two of his "socialist" policies?

as LBJ said quite plainly, a democrat trying the same stunts would be clobbered, but because nixon talked the opposite game, he got away with it...for awhile.

face it, we are being squeezed by BOTH sides. obama is the exact opposite of nixon. he makes all kind of "socialist" noises and goes ahead and puts Immelt and others like him - taylor of monsanto on the fda, etc etc etc - in positions they have no business being in.(actually, they do have business being there, THEIR business not ours)

after awhile one starts to notice that "socialism" and even "communism" are TOOLS of the BIG capitalists, rockefellers, morgans, rothschilds, etc...it all goes back to big money. not you, not even someone like obama, who is a tool, whether willing or not.

i wish you would read that book i posted. buckminster fuller described it a different way but it is the same old same old.

marx was not a rich boy, he was FUNDED by the rich, rothschilds, warburgs, etc. as was hitler. they are playing both sides against the middle - we the "sheeple". so when do we, and HOW do we, stop it?

posted December 26, 2011 01:12 PM            

Buffett was advising the government on TARP...Troubled Asset Relief Program and knew which banks and financial institutions were going to be bailed out..or not. You didn't think TARP just suddenly materialized out of thin air one day in late 2008...did you?

Buffett invested $5B in Goldman Sachs...which got a bailout from American taxpayers. At the time Buffet bought his stake in Goldman, the stock price had been knocked down to basement level prices and the general public didn't know if Goldman Sachs was even going to survive. But, Warren Buffett knew Goldman Sachs was going to be bailed out by taxpayers. Then, a funny thing happened..not funny haha, but funny as in odd. Goldman Sachs exercised their right to buy Buffett's shares back by paying Buffett a 10% overage over what Buffett paid. Warren Buffett made a cool $500,000,000 from his purchase of Goldman Sachs stock in just a few months.

Now, if you...or I had collaborated with the Congress and White House and then used the insider information Buffett got into which companies were to be bailed out with taxpayer money, we would now be fighting off a federal prosecution by the Justice Dept and sending truck loads of documents to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

posted January 01, 2012 06:13 PM            

Now, so much for your "Patriotic Millionaires".

A reporter caught up with a bunch of them at a meeting and asked them if they thought the very rich should pay more to the government. They all thought that was a fine idea...until the reporter pulled out a laptop and opened the page for the US Treasury Dept where citizens could donate money to the federal government.

Each and every one of these so called "partiotic millionaires" refused to donate a thin dime.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3X_8YRjv014

Further, I said Warren Buffet made 500 Million dollars off just one bit of insider information he got from government officials...including elected Senators and House members.

posted January 18, 2012 08:17 PM            

He's matching voluntary contributions made this year and last year by Rep. Scott Rigell, a Republican representing Virginia.

In a letter to Rep. Rigell released today by Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett writes he's "particularly impressed that you took this action before my challenge."

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/impressed-delighted-warren-buffett-matches-204656439.html

posted January 18, 2012 10:56 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by Randall:
That's like me dropping a penny in a homelesss man's donation cup.

---

Oh Randall, you`re kidding me, right?

A penny isn`t the point nor is Buffets amount. It`s the paying forward that counts up. Both monetarily AND karma

Love him or not, his $$ will be a plus not a negative and every penny counts.

... and a Capitalist needs all the Accelerated Karma they can aquire

posted January 18, 2012 11:29 PM            

I don't recall hearing Scott Rigell bloviate about the rich paying more to the federal government...unlike Buffett who set up his tax liabilities in such a way as to only pay a Capital Gains tax of 15%. Rigell just went ahead and sent money he didn't owe to the federal government.

Sounds like Buffet has been behind the curve in donating even though he's the one bloviating.

Don't misunderstand what I'm saying.

I believe everyone has the perfect right to reduce their tax liability to the lowest possible level.

posted January 19, 2012 11:18 AM            

of course a dollar would put him closer, but it all adds up, and if you gave everyone a dollar you would soon be holding the cup yourself.

posted January 19, 2012 11:09 PM            

those on welfare pay no income taxes

those who earn under 11K per year pay no income taxes

and those who write off every mouthful and other penny they spend as "business" expenses also often pay no income taxes.

half the country is living below the "poverty line"

yet they flinch NOT A PENNY in returning their meagre income INTO the economy.

meanwhile, the 1% (catchy little meme, eh, even jwhop is using it now!) DO pay about 40% of the taxes in the country...and OWN at least 40% of the country and its wealth.

however they are paying much lower SHARES of their wealth than the rest of us. their food budgets do not consist of most of their money either.

and a good deal of their money sits offshore where it grows and pays no taxes whatsoever.

i feel so sorry for them. especially since they have never had it so good, in terms of taxes, well not since 1912 anyway!

the fact that neither of you can understand what warren buffet has learned...that you can be rich enough, already!...is not his fault.

the fact that he doesn't see the country as a CHARITY to which he should donate singlehanded is perfectly reasonable. he wants ALL his class to be subject to TAXES which go into the running of the country. i don't think he wants to run the country, just his business.

the argument that taking a few extra thousand from these folk will mean that they won't be able to spend that money on investment or hiring another housecleaner, is very tempting and superficially persuasive...but

we have been dragging that argument for years now and it has not resulted in MORE, but LESS jobs and investment in american product.

posted January 19, 2012 11:19 PM            

but when he does so it would be more respectable and convincing if he just paid his taxes...

posted January 19, 2012 11:37 PM            

and those who write off every mouthful and other penny they spend as "business" expenses also often pay no income taxes.
False, every penny spent is not deductable as a "business expense".

half the country is living below the "poverty line"
Yeah, thanks O'Bomber

meanwhile, the 1% (catchy little meme, eh, even jwhop is using it now!) DO pay about 40% of the taxes in the country...and OWN at least 40% of the country and its wealth.
And...your point IS???

however they are paying much lower SHARES of their wealth than the rest of us. their food budgets do not consist of most of their money either.
They're also paying a higher tax rate on their earnings...except for Buffett and certain other bloviators who show all their income comes from "capital gains".

and a good deal of their money sits offshore where it grows and pays no taxes whatsoever.
False, American are required to pay taxes on income...including interest income no matter where their money is parked.

i feel so sorry for them. especially since they have never had it so good, in terms of taxes, well not since 1912 anyway!
I don't feel sorry for them. I'm just fed up with people who feel entitled to stick their sticky fingers in the pockets of others to steal what they've earned.

the fact that neither of you can understand what warren buffet has learned...that you can be rich enough, already!...is not his fault.
Warren Buffett has learned how to manipulate the system...and does so. Much of his wealth has come from having contacts within government who tip him off to what's going to happen...in advance. Which gives Buffett an opportunity to trade on insider information.

the fact that he doesn't see the country as a CHARITY to which he should donate singlehanded is perfectly reasonable. he wants ALL his class to be subject to TAXES which go into the running of the country. i don't think he wants to run the country, just his business.
False. Warren Buffett doesn't pay taxes on "ordinary income" as most people do. Raising income tax rates wouldn't affect Buffett at all because he doesn't pay "income taxes".

the argument that taking a few extra thousand from these folk will mean that they won't be able to spend that money on investment or hiring another housecleaner, is very tempting and superficially persuasive...but
It's their money, not yours. You don't get to decide where, how or when they should spend it or use it.

we have been dragging that argument for years now and it has not resulted in MORE, but LESS jobs and investment in american product.
O'Bomber and the idiot theorist Socialists surrounding him are the prime cause of less jobs in America.

fact of the matter is everyone was better off when the rich paid higher taxes. and SOME of the seriously rich actually understand that. it's called prosperity consciousness in some circles...
Obviously those who were having their property stolen to fund Socialist redistribution schemes were not better off.

posted January 20, 2012 01:46 PM            

quote:

---

half the country is living below the "poverty line"
Yeah, thanks O'Bomber

---

No, not thanks Obama. Obama didn't cause the recession thank you very much.

quote:

---

False. Warren Buffett doesn't pay taxes on "ordinary income" as most people do. Raising income tax rates wouldn't affect Buffett at all because he doesn't pay "income taxes".

---

That's false. He does take a salary. Also, they can change the tax code to disallow some of the shelters that are available.

quote:

---

It's their money, not yours. You don't get to decide where, how or when they should spend it or use it.

---

Money collected as taxes are the property of the government. It is the government's duty to decide upon allocation.

quote:

---

we have been dragging that argument for years now and it has not resulted in MORE, but LESS jobs and investment in american product.
O'Bomber and the idiot theorist Socialists surrounding him are the prime cause of less jobs in America.

---

Also not true. How many times do you have to be reminded that the recession wasn't the fault of Obama? You also know that employment is growing. These facts may be inconvenient, but we all know that they're true nonetheless.

quote:

---

fact of the matter is everyone was better off when the rich paid higher taxes. and SOME of the seriously rich actually understand that. it's called prosperity consciousness in some circles...
Obviously those who were having their property stolen to fund Socialist redistribution schemes were not better off.

---

posted January 26, 2012 11:18 AM            

O'Bomber even used her as a political prop in his latest litany of lies...also known as The State of the Union Address.

So, O'Bomber wants upper income earners to pay at least 30% in federal taxes. But wait!

O'Bomber doesn't differentiate between income received as "Ordinary Income" and income received as "Capital Gains". He uses those earnings interchangably and there's a problem.

If O'Bomber and his dipstick Socialist comrades were to succeed in raising the Capital Gains tax to 30%, the stock and bond markets would tank overnight; investment capital would flee America and millions more jobs would be lost on O'Bomber's watch.

But, none of that matters to our rigid Marxist ideologe prez, Barack Hussein O'Bomber.

This economic dunce has to go. January 20, 2013 or bust. By "bust" I mean O'Bomber has come close to destroying the US economy. His first 3 years was the 2nd term of Jimmy "The Teeth" Carter whom O'Bomber has already eclipsed as the worst president in US history. O'Bomber needs to take his title, "Worst President" and go home to Chicago. His friends, Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorne, communist domestic terrorist bombers and all his other friends in the Democratic Socialists of America and the Communist Party USA miss Barack terribly.

The Most Important Paycheck in the World
Why don’t we know anything about the finances of Buffett's secretary?
John Hayward
01/26/20122

Warren Buffett’s secretary, Debra Bosanek, is unquestionably one of the most important people in America, and her paycheck stub is one of the most significant documents in the world. The entire U.S. tax code stands on the verge of being overhauled, and a gigantic job-killing tax slapped on upper income earners, because she ostensibly pays a higher tax rate than her billionaire boss.

So vital is Bosanek to the future of America that she was invited to sit in a place of honor beside the First Lady at the State of the Union address, a position usually reserved for heroes who have survived dangerous adventures, or the victims of awful tragedies. She was actually mentioned by President Obama in the State of the Union address:

When it comes to the deficit, we've already agreed to more than $2 trillion in cuts and savings. But we need to do more, and that means making choices. Right now, we're poised to spend nearly $1 trillion more on what was supposed to be a temporary tax break for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans. Right now, because of loopholes and shelters in the tax code, a quarter of all millionaires pay lower tax rates than millions of middle-class households. Right now, Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.

Do we want to keep these tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans? Or do we want to keep our investments in everything else - like education and medical research; a strong military and care for our veterans? Because if we're serious about paying down our debt, we can't do both.

And yet, to this day, Americans do not know one single detail about the taxes or income of the woman who will become the template for our system of punitive taxation. How much does Bosanek make? How much does she pay in taxes?

No one imagines for one instant that she pays more in absolute dollars than Warren Buffett. He most likely pays hundreds of times as much, just as well-heeled presidential candidate Mitt Romney pays about 400 times as much money in taxes as the average middle-class taxpayer. The class warfare bleating about “the rich paying their fair share” sounds less compelling when you think about taxes that way… so of course you are never, ever told to think about them like that.

For some reason, a large number of Americans are content to accept Bosanek as the chisel that will be used to re-sculpture America’s tax system, without knowing anything about her at all. Warren Buffett is also willing to quietly tolerate Obama’s endless harping on the “Buffett Rule,” even though as recently as September he stated in public that he had nothing to do with drafting it, and Buffett himself only recommends tax increases on people who make over $50 million per year. As long as leftist class-warfare pieties are respected, and the government gets some more of our money to spend, who cares about the details?

Buffett himself has stated Bosanek pays a 38.5 percent tax rate. There is no reason to take such important information on faith from anyone – we are still nominally free people in America, not servants required to trust and obey our betters without challenge – but if that’s her nominal federal tax rate, she makes over $379,150 per year, according to the IRS tax tables. If 38.5 percent is her total nominal federal and state tax burden, given Nebraska’s top rate of 6.84 percent on incomes above $27,000 per year, she would have to make between $174,000 and $379,150 per year.

Paul Gregory at Forbes decided to try estimating what Bosanek’s income would be, based on the only thing we know about her finances with absolute certainty: her effective tax rate is higher than what Warren Buffett pays on his enormous capital gains. Gregory concluded that Bosanek would have to make at least $200,000 a year to pay a higher rate.

Various respondents to Gregory’s column pointed out flaws in this simple methodology. (Nothing about taxes is simple, once you get past the bottom brackets, which the secretary of a billionaire most certainly does not occupy.) One of the biggest complications is that the comparison we’re supposed to accept, in order to surrender more control over the American economy to President Solyndra , is between effective tax rates. In other words, we’re supposed to compare the dollar amounts paid by Buffett and Bosanek to their total incomes, factoring in all the deductions, exemptions, and other gears turning within history’s most complex tax code. Class warriors sometimes like to dishonestly compare effective tax rates for the wealthy with nominal tax rates (in other words, the rates printed in the IRS booklet for various gross income levels) for the little guys.

With this taken into account, it would be possible for Bosanek to reach a higher effective rate than Buffett with a lower six-figure income, but her salary would still have to be over $100,000 per year. That’s assuming she doesn’t have any capital gains, or other benefits taxed at a lower rate than salaried income.

Is it very likely that she doesn’t have any such benefits, considering that she has been working for Warren Buffett since she was 17… and she is now 55 years old? Does anyone who still retains the mental capacity to question Barack Obama’s rhetoric seriously believe Bosanek spent 38 years working for one of the richest men in America without building up a six-figure salary, plus some impressive benefits? What would it say about Warren Buffett, Obama's economic guru and favorite liberal billionaire, if she hasn't?

The dreaded and evil top One Percent of income earners begin at $350,000 per year, while the top 5 percent begin at $150,000. Barack Obama’s often-stated socialist dogma says that any married person who makes over $200,000 per year is a “millionaire.” Therefore, Debbie Bosanek is quite possibly in the top One Percent, almost certainly in the top 5 percent, and very likely a “millionaire.” None of this is very helpful to Obama’s crude class-envy arguments. A vast number of people who earn less than Bosanek probably does also pay a much lower tax rate than Warren Buffett. 47 percent of Americans pay no income tax at all.

As it happens, there is one other detail we peasants are allowed to know about Debbie Bosanek’s finances: she and her husband just bought a second home in Arizona, “a residence complete with a swimming pool and a professional PGA putting green,” according to The Smoking Gun. The new home was purchased for $144,000, while the couple’s primary residence is a four-bedroom, 2568-square-foot home near Buffett’s corporate HQ, assessed at $217,716 last year. How many of you bitterly envious, hardscrabble hate-the-rich type own over $350,000 in real estate? (And that primary residence probably cost a lot more than $217k before Barney Frank and Chris Dodd got hold of the U.S. housing market.)

Bosanek is a private person who almost never grants interviews, besides sharing a few words with ABC News on the eve of the State of the Union address, which she was understandably excited about attending:

With all due sympathy for Mrs. Bosanek - and sincere hope that her long association with Warren Buffett has been very, very good for her – that is no longer acceptable. The President didn’t just mention her once in passing, as an anecdote to introduce a single speech. He’s been talking about her for a long time, as a pivotal part of his appeal for raising taxes on the rich. America is not a monarchy, in which the King may invite anyone into his court that he pleases, and the peons are allowed nothing but the occasional glimpse of her face. How characteristically arrogant of Barack Obama, to use a private individual as a bludgeon against the American people, possibly without asking her permission… and then tell us we are allowed to know nothing about her, beyond what he and Warren Buffett choose to tell us, which we’re supposed to accept without question… and without asking any further questions.

I recommend every free American citizen insist on either seeing some hard, well-documented numbers, or insist that we never hear another word about Debra Bosanek, ever again. I’m all in favor of respecting her wishes for privacy. She seems like a nice lady, and her loyalty and dedication to her job are admirable. We should be happy to know that much about her, and need to know nothing more. Let Obama make his class warfare arguments with reason, instead of human props.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=49075

posted January 26, 2012 12:28 PM            

(and, apparently, there is something wrong when an ORDINARY PERSON gets to sit next to the First Lady (trans. queen?) at a televised national event? where the hull is king george, anyway?)

this is deliberately attempting to confuse the issue. hundreds of millions of us pay less in dollars but MORE IN PROPORTION to our income than the buffets and other, lesser millionaires among us. THIS is the issue, not how many more dollars a billionaire gives BUT HOW BIG A SLICE OF THEIR PIE.

and this is why the "fair share" is exactly that. why shouldn't mitt, who earns in a day what most do in a year, pay the SAME proportion? why should our excess, investable, riskable money be taxed any less than what the rest of the country needs to LIVE ON?

i remember a friend selling her house during the 90s. she was pleased as punch to take her ONE TIME CAPITAL GAINS WAIVER to the bank, but she is no buffet. she has been living on the proceeds (less than a million!) for years. it has become the source of her income, and why should she not pay the same rate as i do on mine?

no one is asking to tax the basic investment money, except THE FIRST TIME IT COMES IN. ALL income, whether from capital gains or not, should be taxed as such. that is what it is, after all.

and if 30% of 100K leaves someone 70K to live on, 30% of a million leaves 700K. that is hardly a paltry sum or worth moving to another market for.

and speaking of markets,, i am about fed up to HERE with the stock market speculators playing havoc with the price of gas and everything else out here!

posted January 26, 2012 01:26 PM            

it is the superlow capital gains rate that is at issue, randall. no one is talking about "dodgers" here.

if i earn 80K and a third is given to the tax man, and i invest a third of the remains and receive - say 10% profit - then 30% of that 10% should go to the taxman.

hypothetically of course. the 10% profit is NEW INCOME, no one is trying to double tax the principal.