Showing posts with label Warren Buffett. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Warren Buffett. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

WARREN BUFFETT SUED BY OBAMA’S IRS… EVEN HE ISN’T SAVE - WAIT UNTIL THEY COME AFTER YOU FOR OBAMA’S SECOND-TERM TAXES AND OBAMACARE

WARREN BUFFETT SUED BY OBAMA’S IRS

By AJ

Obama and his rich pals think you are just another useful idiot like the Occupy (OWS) crowd.

While Obama seeks to enact the “Buffett Rule” to place a higher tax burden on families/small businesses who make $250K per year or more, his Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is suing Warren Buffett.

Obama’s pal just doesn’t want to pay his taxes… but he has no problem stumping for Obama and calling for a higher tax burden on families and small businesses.

“Get this: Uncle Sam is suing Warren Buffett's company over taxes. Yes, taxes. The US government, in a little-followed case in Ohio, filed a lawsuit this month against a unit of Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, seeking $366 million in taxes and penalties. The Berkshire division at the centre of the suit is NetJets, the private-aircraft company that caters to the nation's wealthiest - the people Buffett says should pay more in taxes.

It is an odd twist that a company controlled by Buffett - perhaps the most outspoken businessman in the country in support of raising taxes on the 'mega-rich' - is now in a dispute with the government over his company's paying too little in taxes.”

But it gets better… Buffett’s NetJets has now filed a lawsuit against the IRS.

“Now, NetJets and its sister division, which have filed their own suit against the IRS, say they "are stuck with a $642 million-plus bill for past taxes the IRS never indicated they were required to collect".

Obama’s rich friends do not want to pay their taxes, but they want to instill envy in the hearts of the uneducated and sing their “tax the rich” song.

Obama’s pal and Jobs Adviser, Jeffrey Immelt, has benefited since Obama took office through the same tax loopholes that Obama criticizes on the campaign trail. General Electric paid no Taxes in 2009, General Electric Paid No Federal Taxes in 2010.

“…GE's success at avoiding taxes is nothing short of extraordinary. The company, led by Immelt, earned $14.2 billion in profits in 2010, but it paid not a penny in taxes because the bulk of those profits, some $9 billion, were offshore. In fact, GE got a $3.2 billion tax benefit.”

Before blindly jumping on the “Tax the Rich” bandwagon, people should ask two simple questions:

  1. If Obama makes people pay even more in taxes, will I get some of that money? (Answer = No).
  2. Why are Obama’s millionaire and billionaire friends unwilling to pay more in taxes themselves?

Video:  Patriotic Millionaires Higher Taxes Treasury Department Donation The Daily Caller

Maybe it’s time to rethink the envy that Obama is selling, or at least see it for the BIG LIE that it is.

Video:  Milton Friedman: Why soaking the rich won't work. Reference:

Private jets, Warren Buffett and tax lawsuit

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-03-28/news/31249610_1_ticket-tax-tax-battle-first-tax

General Electric paid no Taxes in 2009

http://www.politisite.com/2010/04/12/general-electric-paid-no-taxes-in-2009/

General Electric Paid No Federal Taxes in 2010

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/general-electric-paid-federal-taxes-2010/story?id=13224558

Obama's Second-Term Taxes 

By DICK MORRIS  - Published on TheHill.com on April 10, 2012

If Obama is reelected, the tax increase he and a Democratic Congress would impose on middle- and upper-middle-income Americans would be disastrous. It's easy to lose sight of his tax plans because he has hidden them in a variety of nooks and crannies, including the Simpson-Bowles Commission Report, the Pelosi budget of 2009 and the various tax proposals advanced by his party. But, should he win, they will all come out of hiding, and together, they will be the principal legislative thrust of his efforts in 2013.

For a couple making $250,000, these tax hikes would add another $3,000 to $4,000 a month in taxes (depending on whether they were self-employed).

For a couple making $150,000, they would add another $1,200 to $1,400 per month.
Let's all realize that Obama let a massive deficit accumulate precisely because he realized that doing so gave him the leverage he would need to raise taxes and increase, permanently, the size of government in America. Reagan let the deficit pile up so liberals couldn't spend more money. Obama did so in order to make conservatives vote for higher taxes.

How will he tax us? Let us count the ways:

• Most basic, of course, will be an increase in tax rates. Those paying 33 percent will now pay 36 percent. People paying 35 percent will now pay 40 percent. Most people accept and expect that Obama will raise these brackets if he is reelected. But they don't realize what else he will do.

• As he advocated in the 2008 campaign, he will eliminate the ceiling on wages that must be taxed for Social Security. Currently, wages are taxed at 6.2 percent (now, temporarily, at 4.2 percent) up to a ceiling about $100,000 per year in income. The ceiling rises with the cost of living. But Obama will eliminate the ceiling and subject all wages to FICA taxation. (In his campaign, he spoke of a "carve-out" for those making between $100,000 and $200,000, where income would be exempt from FICA, but don't count on it.) For those who are employed, the increase in FICA taxes will mean an effective increase in their tax bracket of 6.2 percentage points. For the self-employed, it will mean a whopping 12.4 percentage point increase, bringing their effective tax rate, if they are in the top bracket, over 52 percent. Obama has refrained from addressing Social Security's financial problems and will do so until after the election. But his solution will be higher taxes, not curtailed benefits.

• All deductions for mortgage interest, charitable giving and state and local tax payments would likely end for those making more than $250,000.

• Even for those making less than $250,000, the Bowles-Simpson recommendations call for replacing the current tax deduction for mortgage interest, charitable giving and state and local taxes with a tax credit. Usually 8 percent is mentioned as the tax credit level.

So add it up:

Case A
Married couple
Income: $250,000
Home: $300,000 (mortgage interest: $20,000)
Property taxes: $15,000
Self-employed
Basic tax rate: +5% +$12,500
FICA on full income: +$18,600 ($9,300 if employed)
No deduction
Mortgage interest +$ 6,500
Prop Taxes +$5,000
State income tax (9%) +$7,500
Total additional tax: +$50,100 ($40,800 if employed)

Case B
Married couple
Income: $150,000
Home: $200,000 (mortgage interest: $10,000)
Property taxes: $10,000
Self-employed
Basic tax rate: +3% +$ 4,500
FICA on full income +$6,200 ($3,100 if employed)
8% credit, no deduction
Mortgage interest +$ 2,500
Property taxes +$ 2,500
State income tax (6%) +$ 1,500
(calculation replaces deduction at 33% bracket with an 8% credit)
Total additional tax: +$17,200 ($14,100 if employed)

Can we afford Barack Obama for four more years? No way! And don't say you weren't warned!

Related:

A Wicked Financial Storm Descends on America

Nothing to Do With Health Care!  It’s All About New Taxes and Tax Collection

Monday, December 5, 2011

Business Insider: ‘Obama Is About to Give a Huge Class Warfare Speech’

Barack-Obama1Looking to channel Theodore Roosevelt, President Obama will deliver an economic speech Tuesday and cite the importance of everyone paying their “fair share.”

Obama will travel to Osawatomie, Kansas to make the remarks — the site of the progressive Republican Roosevelt’s “New Nationalism” speech in 1910.

The White House confirmed the Roosevelt connection in a press release, stating, “Just over one hundred years ago, President Teddy Roosevelt came to Osawatomie, Kansas and called for a New Nationalism, where everyone gets a fair chance, a square deal, and an equal opportunity to succeed.”

Obama will “talk about how he sees this as a make-or-break moment for the middle class and all those working to join it,” the statement said. “He’ll lay out the choice we face between a country in which too few do well while too many struggle to get by, and one where we’re all in it together – where everyone engages in fair play, everyone does their fair share, and everyone gets a fair shot.”

Business Insider, which described it as “a huge class warfare speech,” has more on the Obama-Roosevelt connection:

Roosevelt‘s ’New Nationalism’ speech on August 31, 1910 called for new government reforms to level the playing field for average Americans against a class of industrial barons.

“The essence of any struggle for healthy liberty has always been, and must always be, to take from some one man or class of men the right to enjoy power, or wealth, or position, or immunity, which has not been earned by service to his or their fellows,” Roosevelt said. “That is what you fought for in the Civil War, and that is what we strive for now.”

Roosevelt called out special interests who pulled the strings of government — a message we’ll likely hear Obama adopt.

“Class warfare” became a buzzword in September after Obama proposed the “Buffett rule” tax rate on the wealthy. As Republican opposition rang in, Obama responded by declaring, “This is not class warfare. It’s math.” He shifted positions just two days later, saying of the class warfare jab, “I wear that charge as a badge of honor.”

Monday, August 15, 2011

Cannon Falls, MN Obama's First Stop

Obama’s Big Job’s Bus Tour… 3-days ending in Chicago and then back to Washington D.C. and off to Martha’s Vineyard…

image

Cannon Falls, MN Obama's First Stop
by TE

Under green trees in a peaceful setting with a river flowing in the background, President Obama made his first address to rural America on Monday, August 15, in Cannon Falls, Minnesota. The event appeared to be perfectly staged as he chastised  the "other side" for  "political problems", not "government problems"  in Congress.  After his address, ten questions asked by loyal Obama supporters fed the fuel for the man in the white shirt with kaki colored pants taking credit for everything good and accepting none of the blame for anything bad.

All of this was, of course, done under the pretext of not campaigning for the 2012 election.  This may have seemed somewhat believable, until toward the end of the questioning one man praised Obama and said:  "I don't think we should solve this debt crisis on the backs of the middle class and poor.  We should have the millionaires and billionaires to do this.  I campaigned and voted for you in 2008 and I will do the same in 2012."

Many rural listeners of  RFD TV  tuning in to hear the special televised program that had preempted the regular programming of the Julie Goodnight, Aaron Raslton, and Craig Cameron horse shows may have been disappointed because the president did not directly speak about Executive Order 13575 that he signed on June 9 designed to begin taking control of over almost all aspects of the lives of the 16% of our population that live in rural areas.

Around 200 people were in attendance sitting around picnic tables and folding chairs.  President Obama began his speech by recognizing the attendance of Governor Mark Dayton (Democrat); Senator Al Franken (D); Senior Senator Amy Klobuchar (member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, an affiliate of the Democratic Party.); Representative Tim Wallace ; Congressman Keith Ellison ( member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party; Agriculture Secretary Vilsack; and Major Robby Robinson

The address mainly consisted of praise from Obama by the hand selected questioners and a rehash of how $5 Billion in assistance to small and medium size farmers had been used  to  continue  programs for: expanding broadband service, biofuels, green energy, and job creation.

image

He began his speech by offering excuses for a bad economy.  Blaming the Arab Spring and Japanese Tsunami,  he said these things are not in our control, but the political climate is. He urged people to contact their representatives.  He said "We now have a political culture that doesn't want to move America forward, but want to place the burden on future generations... The debt ceiling is a self-inflicted wound and had his plan been put forth to fix the situation, the other side would rather see their opponents lose than have America win."  He warned:  "We cannot have patience with that kind of behavior anymore."

His five-step plan that he is hoping  Congress will implement includes:

    1.  Renewing  the payroll tax credit which, according to Obama, "would put $1000 in your pocket".

    2.  Rebuild America by passing the Infrastructure Bill

    3.  Corporations would be given tax credits for hiring veterans

    4.  Expanded trade deals to ship "Made in America" goods such as cars to other countries

    5.  Encourage entrepreneurs by investing in their ideas

Pushing the philosophy for "Taxing the Rich", he said that Warren Buffet had told him, "We got to stop coddling billionaires like me" (…after which Buffet admitted he had cheated on his taxes).  Obama wants more spending for investments in education, research, and infrastructure, but also believes we need to cut back on programs that don't work.  He compared the answer to our deficit problem as "much like running his own household, where if he told Michelle that she had to cut back on her spending, but he would keep his golf clubs... wouldn't work."

By the way, if an average were taken, Michelle Obama has taken one out of every nine days since they’ve been in the White House for vacation and Obama has golfed nearly every weekend.

Following the Cannon Falls event, the President will host a town hall event in Decorah, Iowa at Seed Savers Exchange.  Tuesday, August 16th, he will travel to Peosta, IA for a Rural Economic Forum at Northeast Iowa Community College.  The economic bus tour will also feature events in Atkinson and Alpha, Illinois on Wednesday, August 17 before the President returns to Washington.

Maybe at one of these events he will begin to clue us in on  his Executive Order for Rural America which has undertones of a UN take over of our nation's Heartland.

Related:

Obama Begins Bus Tour in Minnesota (Fueled by Big Oil… Flies In On His Private Jet)

Donald Trump Demands that the Obama Campaign Pay for Bus Tour, “It’s a Fundraising (Campaign) Tour”

Obama Conversation With Tea Partier Gets Heated

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Warren Buffett Joins Critics on Obamanomics: Too Much Spending – Too Much Debt – Not Sustainable: Stop Spending, Stop Printing Money and No New Big

Double Dip Recession Around the Corner

Times Topics: Warren E. Buffett

IN nature, every action has consequences, a phenomenon called the butterfly effect. These consequences, moreover, are not necessarily proportional. For example, doubling the carbon dioxide we belch into the atmosphere may far more than double the subsequent problems for society. Realizing this, the world properly worries about greenhouse emissions.

The butterfly effect reaches into the financial world as well. Here, the United States is spewing a potentially damaging substance into our economy — greenback emissions.

To be sure, we’ve been doing this for a reason I resoundingly applaud. Last fall, our financial system stood on the brink of a collapse that threatened a depression. The crisis required our government to display wisdom, courage and decisiveness. Fortunately, the Federal Reserve and key economic officials in both the Bush and Obama administrations responded more than ably to the need.

They made mistakes, of course. How could it have been otherwise when supposedly indestructible pillars of our economic structure were tumbling all around them? A meltdown, though, was avoided, with a gusher of federal money playing an essential role in the rescue.

The United States economy is now out of the emergency room and appears to be on a slow path to recovery. But enormous dosages of monetary medicine continue to be administered and, before long, we will need to deal with their side effects. For now, most of those effects are invisible and could indeed remain latent for a long time. Still, their threat may be as ominous as that posed by the financial crisis itself.

To understand this threat, we need to look at where we stand historically. If we leave aside the war-impacted years of 1942 to 1946, the largest annual deficit the United States has incurred since 1920 was 6 percent of gross domestic product. This fiscal year, though, the deficit will rise to about 13 percent of G.D.P., more than twice the non-wartime record. In dollars, that equates to a staggering $1.8 trillion. Fiscally, we are in uncharted territory.

Because of this gigantic deficit, our country’s “net debt” (that is, the amount held publicly) is mushrooming. During this fiscal year, it will increase more than one percentage point per month, climbing to about 56 percent of G.D.P. from 41 percent. Admittedly, other countries, like Japan and Italy, have far higher ratios and no one can know the precise level of net debt to G.D.P. at which the United States will lose its reputation for financial integrity. But a few more years like this one and we will find out.

An increase in federal debt can be financed in three ways: borrowing from foreigners, borrowing from our own citizens or, through a roundabout process, printing money. Let’s look at the prospects for each individually — and in combination.

The current account deficit — dollars that we force-feed to the rest of the world and that must then be invested — will be $400 billion or so this year. Assume, in a relatively benign scenario, that all of this is directed by the recipients — China leads the list — to purchases of United States debt. Never mind that this all-Treasuries allocation is no sure thing: some countries may decide that purchasing American stocks, real estate or entire companies makes more sense than soaking up dollar-denominated bonds. Rumblings to that effect have recently increased.

Then take the second element of the scenario — borrowing from our own citizens. Assume that Americans save $500 billion, far above what they’ve saved recently but perhaps consistent with the changing national mood. Finally, assume that these citizens opt to put all their savings into United States Treasuries (partly through intermediaries like banks).

Even with these heroic assumptions, the Treasury will be obliged to find another $900 billion to finance the remainder of the $1.8 trillion of debt it is issuing. Washington’s printing presses will need to work overtime.

Legislators will correctly perceive that either raising taxes or cutting expenditures will threaten their re-election. To avoid this fate, they can opt for high rates of inflation, which never require a recorded vote and cannot be attributed to a specific action that any elected official takes. In fact, John Maynard Keynes long ago laid out a road map for political survival amid an economic disaster of just this sort: “By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.... The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.”

I want to emphasize that there is nothing evil or destructive in an increase in debt that is proportional to an increase in income or assets. As the resources of individuals, corporations and countries grow, each can handle more debt. The United States remains by far the most prosperous country on earth, and its debt-carrying capacity will grow in the future just as it has in the past.

But it was a wise man who said, “All I want to know is where I’m going to die so I’ll never go there.” We don’t want our country to evolve into the banana-republic economy described by Keynes.

Our immediate problem is to get our country back on its feet and flourishing — “whatever it takes” still makes sense. Once recovery is gained, however, Congress must end the rise in the debt-to-G.D.P. ratio and keep our growth in obligations in line with our growth in resources.

Unchecked carbon emissions will likely cause icebergs to melt. Unchecked greenback emissions will certainly cause the purchasing power of currency to melt. The dollar’s destiny lies with Congress.

Warren E. Buffett is the chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, a diversified holding company.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Warren Buffett Sees Much Higher Unemployment Ahead

Billionaire Warren Buffett says the economy has "fallen off a cliff" over the past six months and consumers have changed their habits in remarkable ways.

Buffett said Monday during a live appearance on CNBC that current economic turmoil has basically followed the worst-case scenario he envisioned.

"It's fallen off a cliff," Buffett said. "Not only has the economy slowed down a lot, but people have really changed their habits like I haven't seen."

Buffett said he's seen the changes showing up in the results of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s subsidiaries. He said Berkshire's jewelry companies have suffered, but more people have been willing to switch to Geico to save money on car insurance.

Buffett predicted that unemployment will likely climb a lot higher before the recession is done, but he also reiterated his optimistic long-term view.

"Everything will be alright. We do have the greatest economic machine that's ever been created," Buffett said.

Buffett said the nation needs a clear message from the government about what the problem is in the economy and what will be done. He said all 535 members of Congress should set aside partisan bickering to deal with what Buffett has called an economic Pearl Harbor.

"What is required is a commander in chief that's looked at like a commander in chief in a time of war," Buffett said.

Fear and confusion has been driving much of consumer and investor behavior in recent months, Buffett said. The nation's leaders need to clear up the confusion about the economy before anyone will become more confident, he said.

A little over a week ago, Buffett released his annual letter to shareholders describing the worst of his 44 years at the helm of Berkshire. The Omaha, Neb.-based company reported sharply lower profit because of its largely unrealized $7.5 billion investment and derivative losses.

Overall, Berkshire's 2008 profit of $4.99 billion, or $3,224 per Class A share, was down 62 percent from $13.21 billion, or $8,548 per share, in 2007.

Berkshire's fourth-quarter numbers were even worse. Buffett's company reported net income of $117 million, or $76 per share, down 96 percent from $2.95 billion, or $1,904 per share, a year earlier.

Berkshire owns a diverse mix of more than 60 companies, including insurance, furniture, carpet, jewelry, restaurants and utility businesses. And it has major investments in such companies as Wells Fargo & Co. and Coca-Cola Co.

Source:  MoneyNews.com