Guess who’s looking to avoid Obama’s “patriotic” tax increases: The Washington Post and Warren Buffett!
It appears that the Washington Post intends to pay all of its projected 2013 dividends in 2012. Corporations typically pay dividends one every quarter but that is simply a custom, not a law. So the Washington Post company plans to pay all four of the dividends it planned to pay in 2013 in December 2012. Why? Well, in 2012 the tax on dividends is 15%. In 2013 the rate can go as high as 43.4%.
And guess who the largest shareholder in the Washington Post company is. Right, you Mensa member you, it’s Warren Buffett with 1.7 million shares. That means that Warren “I’m not being taxed enough” Buffett is going to collect $17 million this year on which he pays less than half of what his patriotic share would be.
Do you think that a discreet phone call was made to the Washington Post by its largest shareholder who wanted to avoid paying his “fair” share? Why so cynical? Don’t you believe in coincidences?
I don’t want to call this “crony capitalism” or part of the culture of corruption, but the next time Warren Buffett opens his fat trap about not paying enough in taxes, I want to shove this down his throat. Buffett has built his entire empire around tax avoidance. Berkshire Hathaway is organized as an insurance company with an insurance company’s ability to defer income while in in reality it’s a mutual fund. The special deal Buffett got from the Washington Post is simply one in a long string of special deals that Buffett has been able to pull off because of his wealth. A lot of the businesses that he owns were purchased as below-market deals because the heirs of the founder wanted to cash out.
Rush Limbaugh is right about Buffett: he’s using his tax-me-more rhetoric to deflect the Left from going after his wealth by pretending he’s one of them. And they have always fallen for it. In reality, Buffett, not Romney, is the real vulture capitalist, swooping in on sick and dying companies and lending them money in return for terms that no one else can get. He’s made literally billions that way. This Washington Post dividend is simply the cherry on the sundae.
I don’t want to call this “crony capitalism” or part of the culture of corruption, but the next time Warren Buffett opens his fat trap about not paying enough in taxes, I want to shove this down his throat. Buffett has built his entire empire around tax avoidance. Berkshire Hathaway is organized as an insurance company with an insurance company’s ability to defer income while in in reality it’s a mutual fund. The special deal Buffett got from the Washington Post is simply one in a long string of special deals that Buffett has been able to pull off because of his wealth. A lot of the businesses that he owns were purchased as below-market deals because the heirs of the founder wanted to cash out.
Rush Limbaugh is right about Buffett: he’s using his tax-me-more rhetoric to deflect the Left from going after his wealth by pretending he’s one of them. And they have always fallen for it. In reality, Buffett, not Romney, is the real vulture capitalist, swooping in on sick and dying companies and lending them money in return for terms that no one else can get. He’s made literally billions that way. This Washington Post dividend is simply the cherry on the sundae.
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