Everyone needs to pay their “fair share” according to Obama. Maybe his executive aides should be the first pockets picked for the $833,000 in back taxes. After them, try collecting the $3.5 Billion or so owed by federal employees. Americans are bombarded each day by the President and his minions messages of greed by the “rich” while his own employees and “well heeled and connected friends” continue to fail to pay their “fair share”.
The list is starting to pile up… not dollars, but manure! Warren Buffett’s calls for increased taxes should start with his tax fight over $1 Billion in taxes that dates back a decade or so. He champions more taxes nowadays, but has taken just the opposite stance in his writings for years. As Forbes point out…
One cannot fault Buffett for striving to maximize after-tax returns for himself and his shareholders within the confines of the law as it existed at any point in time. What is shameful is that, in an effort to advance a political agenda, he would now use his credibility to rewrite history and deny that tax rates and characteristics can have substantial economic effects by altering the financial calculations confronting businesses and individuals.
And then there is the Bank of America deal he made for warrants and preferred stock. The structure of that deal avoids a big chunk of tax too.
He gets $300 million in dividends each year on his preferred stock. Dividends bring a major tax advantage: the dividends-received deduction.
It allows corporations to exclude 70% of the interest they’re paid when calculating taxes, leaving Buffett’s company with a 10.5% effective tax rate. The deduction eliminates some double-taxation, says tax expert Robert Willens.
And the there’s Reverend Al Sharpton and his tax problems. Maybe Obama should have collected the money when he invited Al to the White House to discuss income tax rates. The New York Post points this out in an op-ed…
As The Post’s Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein reported last year, Sharpton “owe[d] the IRS $2.6 million in income tax, and nearly $900,000 in state tax.” And his personal pride and joy National Action Network owed more than $880,000 in unpaid federal payroll taxes, interest and penalties, Vincent and Klein found.
But here’s the bottom line: Sharpton is happy to spread the gospel about “tax fairness,” but if tax law were “fair” — that is, if it were applied to him like everybody else — he’d have been out of the picture a very long time ago. It’s as simple as that. [emphasis mine]
How true. Most Americans would have been thrown in jail a long time ago if they owed this much money to the Government. He will probably cut a sweetheart deal or even get a pardon from this Administration. Buffett gets to run around telling everyone to pay more taxes without being forced to own up to his own hypocrisy. Obama’s own aides are shirking their “fair share” of the tax bill.
That’s different though!!! The rest of us. Pay up and shut up!!!
Links referenced in this article:
Buffett’s Billions Can’t Buy Him Exemption From His Tax-Averse Past
Warren Buffett’s Bank of America Deal Comes With Tax Break
36 Obama aides owe $833,000 in back taxes
Rev. Al deep in the red
Obama Meets With Rachel Maddow, Al Sharpton, ‘Influential Progressives’
Photo Credit: Official White House Photo by Pete Souza