Editorial do WSJ
For a guy who spends a lot of time advocating for higher taxes, Warren Buffett does a remarkably good job of minimizing his own corporate tax bill. This is all to the good for Mr. Buffett and his fellow Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, who no doubt can invest the money more wisely than the federal government is likely to do.
Mr. Buffett's recent decision to invest in Bank of America represents another tax-avoidance triumph for the Berkshire chief executive. U.S. corporations are subject to a top federal income tax rate of 35%, the second highest in the world. But the Journal's Erik Holm notes that Mr. Buffett and the Berkshire bunch won't pay anything close to that on their investment in BofA preferred shares.
That's because corporations can exclude from taxation 70% of the dividends they receive from an investment in another corporation. This exclusion is intended to prevent double- or even triple-taxation as money is earned by one company, paid to another company and then ultimately paid out to shareholders. The policy makes sense; we only wonder why the exclusion isn't 100%.
With the 70% exclusion for Mr. Buffett and his fellow shareholders, Berkshire will enjoy an effective tax rate of 10.5% on the $300 million in dividends it will receive each year from Bank of America.
We're tempted to suggest that Mr. Buffett should do what he might call the patriotic thing and volunteer Berkshire to pay the full 35% rate as a good corporate citizen. But even if Mr. Buffett won't say it, most Americans know that more jobs will be created if the money is deployed by the Berkshire bunch than by the Beltway boys.
Gates & Buffet and their program “The Giving Pledge” trying do gather American billionaires to donate part of their fortune.
ResponderExcluirWhat do they intend to do with this action? Join Obama in his socialistic objectives? Instead of financing the political stand of economic liberalism, the system which made them rich, they promote themselves as philanthropist to their own personal glory.
Socialists in other way, through their national and international organizations they do finance elections for social governments in order that these governments extort those who generate wealth and produce, in order to do their philanthropic work with somebody else’s money not with their own.
That is to have a clear idea of how to win the game of power. Millionaires like Buffet are their precious allies in this game.