From: Wall Street Journal
Obama's favorite tax adviser refines his soak-the-rich policy.
Investors undertook their annual pilgrimage to Omaha
this weekend to hear Warren Buffett
opine on markets and the world. One surprise is that the Berkshire Hathaway CEO
seems to have adapted his famous Buffett Rule of taxation when it applies to his
own company.
Readers may recall the original Buffett Rule that
President Obama offered as part of his re-election campaign that essentially
posited a minimum tax rate for the rich of about 30%. Mr. Buffett heartily
endorsed the idea and Mr. Obama hauled out St. Warren as a soak-the-rich cudgel
to beat up Mitt Romney in
countless speeches.
So it was fascinating to hear Mr. Buffett explain
that his real tax rule is to pay as little as possible, both personally and at
the corporate level. "I will not pay a dime more of individual taxes than I owe,
and I won't pay a dime more of corporate taxes than we owe. And that's very
simple," Mr. Buffett told Fortune magazine in an interview last week. "In my own
case, I offered one time to match a voluntary payment that any Senators pay, and
I offered to triple any voluntary payment that [Republican Senator] Mitch McConnell
made, but they never took me up on it." MORE
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