Is Warren Buffet telling the truth about his taxes?

Yes, he is telling the truth. His corporate taxes are in negotiation with the IRS and will be paid.

As your article points out, they are not at the top of their tax bracket only paying 29%.

Why would you even ask this question? It should be abundantly clear to anyone who has ever dealt with the IRS that their estimates of tax liability are fraught with errors and erroneous suppositions. Certainly Buffet and anyone else who has good sense would contest the IRS on any tax case whatsoever. Further, Buffet’s comments about the tax code are justified, but also taken out of context. The man is not going to pay anymore than the tax code requires, nor should he.

You tell me. Doesn’t make sense does it?

He’s so rich that there would be no point for him to lie. The risk is far greater than the reward.

How the heck would I know, I am not his accountant . . .

Why would he claim he does not pay enough taxes while fighting the IRS over paying taxes?

Warren Buffet got called out by House Republican Tim Huelskamp and a group of GOP congressmen. They apparently thought they could outsmart the wizard of Omaha. But read here who got the last laugh. Buffet showed the tax-cuts-for-millionaires crowd to be the buffoons they are. They apparently didn’t even know that the budget committee they control has full access to the IRS records, and that those records show that the 400 top income filers in the nation earn an average income of $227 million a year, but pay a tax rate substantially less than average middle class working stiffs

Buffet countered their request by not only telling them what he earned and paid, but by issuing a challenge to the owner of the Wall Street Journal where the op-ed appeared, Rupert Murdoch. If Murdoch will show his return, Buffet will do the same. No reply from Murdoch or Faux News to date.

I wonder if Buffet’s list of “super rich” will include Jeffrey Immelt? Now what a hoot that would be to see Immelt’s income tax records. His company, the largest corporation in America paid zero federal taxes in the US this year and Immelt ‘s a member to the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board and Obama’s newly appointed chairman of the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness! Council.

I would love Buffett for speaking up about that and the fact that this man, the chairman of Obama’s Jobs and Competitiveness Council, just moved his company’s Healthcare Division’s XRay facilities to China. It is really, really hard for me to wrap my brain around that.

@bkcunningham Perhaps it would be easier to wrap your brain around the possiblities of you moving into that top 1%? Or your children moving into it. Would that be ok?

@plethora About that….

The excerpt that made me post that link :
“In my view, the American dream of striking it rich is merely a well-marketed fantasy that keeps the bottom 99.5% hoping for better and prevents social and political instability. The odds of getting into that top 0.5% are very slim and the door is kept firmly shut by those within it.”

@bkcunningham Buffet’s list includes the 400 income tax filers who had the largest incomes of all Americans. If Jeffrey Immelt made it into that rarefied crowd, he’s on the list. But as chairman of General Electric, he probably fell WAY short of Buffet’s list. TThe median income to make the top 400 was $227 million a year, and I do not know of any corporate CEO who makes that sort of money. If your point is that Democrats can be bought by well funded lobbyists then point taken. But Jeffrey Immelt being on the President’s Economic Council is no evidence of that. Would you rather the board be comprised of business failures and paupers?

@plethora There will always be a top 1% no matter how we manage our economy. That is not the issue. I don’t want to make everyoinoe equal, and I don’t think more than a handful fo far left Americans do. The issue is that the incomes of the top 1% have gone up 300% in the last 30 years while their taxes have been cut by more than 50%. The incomes in real terms of the rest of us have stayed just about flat while our taxes have gone up. Income and wealth disparity has now hit levels not seen since just before the Great Depression. And yet the Greedy Oligarch Pig handlers are manipulating their God, Guns, Gays, Christian Taliban, Anti Abortion, hate Muslims and hate Immigrants base to cut their own financial legs out from under themselves for the benefit of the wealthiest 1%. After all, that’s who really funds Republican politics these days.

The politics of division of Americans the GOP is using may make some sense politically. People are afraid in these hard economic times, and fear makes divide and conquer easy, as Hitler so ably demonstrated. It may give the GOP enough votes to further enrich their wealthy handlers. But it is lousy politics for this nation’s future. The GOP may love to wrap themselves in the Flag and carry a Cross, but they are acting as Christian as Jacob Marley and as patriotic as Benedict Arnold.

He argues he’s not paying enough in taxes because he’s not. Most of Buffet’s income is paid in stock options, not monetary salary. Stock options are capital gains, and their maximum tax rate is 15%… well below the highest tax bracket for regular monetary income, and in fact pretty well below the average tax bracket.

@WestRiverrat and @bkcunningham, what is the lie you guys think Buffett is telling here, exactly?

@bkcunningham, last time we talked about this subject, you demonstrated a serious misunderstanding of what Buffett was saying and what taxes he pays. I’m disappointed to see that your position has barely changed since then.

In particular, it seems like you guys are confusing Buffett’s corporation and corp. taxes in general with his individual status as a tax filer. Warren Buffett is not Berkshire Hathaway; Jimmy Immelt is not GE.

Also, from what I’ve read about him, Immelt strikes me as kind of a scumbag… like most “successful” businessmen, it seems. I’ve read articles where he complains about how people are saying mean things about him, and how people should “want me to succeed” because what’s good for bidness is good for America. I imagine Obama works with him because Obama is naively obssessed about working together with the other side, even if the other side is crazy and malevolent.