Below is some history on Warren Buffet and the fact that he brags about paying less taxes that his secretary.  The money Buffett receives is from investment gains, not wages. Therefore, he pays  only investment gains and not the high taxes we pay on wages.

Here is a very rich man and he is ragging that rich people do not pay enough taxes.  He can say that because he is rich but does not take a salary (wage) from this company so he doesn’t have to pay any income tax only dividend tax (capital gains).  So it is easy for him to rag about rich people not paying enough taxes.   In my eyes he is a hypocrite.  If he wants to give the government treasury more money – they certainly will take it – Obama would love that donation and Buffett loves Obama.  If he feels so guilty – just write a check addressed to the U.S. Treasury.

Buffett says he’s still paying lower tax rate than his secretary

by Chris Isidore CNN Money
March 4, 2013: 11:20 AM ET

Warren Buffett says despite a higher tax bill this year than in 2012, he’ll likely still pay a lower rate than his secretary.

Warren Buffett says even though he and other top earners are paying higher taxes this year, he thinks he’s still paying a lower rate than his secretary.

In 2013, capital gains for those earning more than $400,000 ($450,000 for couples) will be taxed at 20%, up from 15%. And high-income households also will pay an additional 3.8% in Medicare taxes on their investment income for the first time. The top marginal tax rate also rose for the wealthiest wage earners, but since Buffett’s income is from investment gains, not wages, that’s not a factor.

But part of the problem is that his secretary’s tax bill also went up since a partial payroll tax holiday ended, raising what she pays for social security by 2 percentage points.

“I’ll be a fair amount higher, 8 or 9 points higher,” Buffett said of his own tax rate in an appearance on CNBC Monday. “But the differential between me and the rest of the office, not just my secretary but the rest of the office, was greater than that. It’ll be closer, but I’ll probably be the lowest paying taxpayer in the office.”

Buffett has been advocating for a minimum tax on top wage earners — those like himself who benefit from the fact that capital gains are taxed at a lower rate than regular earnings. His proposal, popularly known as the Buffett rule, has the support of the Obama administration but is strongly opposed by Republicans in Congress.

Asked if the rise in the capital gains rate and the top marginal tax rate that took effect this year were pointless since he’s still paying less than his secretary, he responded, “It was better than no change.”

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NEW YORK (The Street) — Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A – Get Report) (BRK.B – Get Report) does not pay dividends despite being a large and mature business with strong cash flows.

Warren Buffett wrote in his 2012 Annual Report that, “We relish the dividends we receive from most of the stocks that Berkshire owns, but pay nothing ourselves.”

The Oracle of Omaha, who is hosting some 40,000 investors this weekend at his famed annual meeting in Omaha, clearly likes receiving dividends — nearly 90% of his portfolio is in dividend stocks. So why exactly does he refrain from paying them?

Warren Buffett’s Dividend Stock Strategy

How Warren Buffett Survives on $1,923.09 a Week

Written by Steve Christ

Posted April 15, 2010 at 3:05PM

Here is something that you may not realize about Warren Buffett: counting only his take-home pay, the Oracle of Omaha is a pauper compared to his peers.

With a yearly salary of just $100K from Berkshire-Hathaway, the grandfatherly Buffett just barely finds himself among the top 30% of earners — a mere pittance for one of the world’s richest individuals.

But as we all know, there is more to this story than meets the eye. After all, Warren is not exactly wondering where his next meal is coming from…

The difference, in this case, is in the dividends.

Dividend Stock Strategies

You see, aside from the paycheck he received from his “day job,” Warren earned an estimated $42,583,971 in income last year from the dividends spun off from his own personal holdings.

Those dividend money machines accounted for 99.76% of his estimated 2009 income, keeping him flush with cheeseburgers and business jets.

And with the yields on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note hovering in the 3.8% range and the market struggling to rebound, Buffett’s dividend portfolio will likely outperform in 2010, adding to his massive fortune.

True to form, he buys them, holds them, and watches them grow. Simple — but effective.

But that is not the only advantage to be had by building a portfolio like Warren’s. The other benefits of a divided-based portfolio include:

•Safety – If preserving your money is as important to you as it is to Buffett, dividend investments are preferable because of their low risk.
•Diversification – If the balance of your portfolio tilts towards growth, dividend investments can help you diversify acting as buffer against unpredictable market swings.
•Access – Dividend-paying stocks offer investors ready access to their income streams, unlike similar investments in 401(k)s and IRAs, which are retirement based and carry penalties for early withdraws.
So don’t believe for a second that income investments are boring and are only suited for the gray-haired crowd. The larger truth is that dividend-paying stocks should be a part of every well-balanced portfolio — young, old, or somewhere in between.

Here’s why…

Even in bear markets, dividend-paying stocks typically do well, especially if those companies have a strong history of increasing the dividend payout.

That’s because investors win two ways when a company increases its dividend. First, the yield on your initial investment goes up with the dividend; second, and even better, the dividend increase often propels the share price higher.

That’s an unbeatable combination in today’s tough markets. And it’s the reason that investors are so eager right now to gobble up companies with solid dividend yields.

So What is Dividend Yield?

In short, a dividend yield is a cash payout that you receive for simply being a shareholder, sort of like receiving a bonus based on a company’s earnings.

Moreover, these “bonuses” also offer lower tax rates than similar investments in savings, CDs, or money market accounts. Thanks to a change in the tax law, dividends are now taxed at only 15%. That’s considerably better than the 35%+ taxation levied against ordinary income. (Even though these tax changes may eventually be eliminated.)

Dividend yield is simply your rate of return from the dividend payouts, exclusive of any stock price appreciation. It’s calculated by dividing the dividends you receive over a year’s time by the price you paid for the stock.

I’ll give you an example: Your dividend yield is 5% if you paid $20 per share, and you receive $1 per share in dividends ($1/$20) over the 12 months following your purchase.

Dividend yield, however, is not a fixed number. It changes along with the share price. For instance, say someone else buys the same stock a week later when the share price had moved up to $25. Instead of 5%, their dividend yield would only be 4% ($1/$25).

However, as Warren Buffett would surely tell you, picking successful dividend-paying stocks is not as simple as buying the stocks with the highest yields. In fact, the stocks with the highest yields often trip up investors the most.

So if you really want to invest like Warren Buffett, you can spend your time pouring over his annual letter to shareholders, or you can create a dividend money machine of your own by following the famed investor’s own personal holdings.

Warren Buffett’s Personal Portfolio

The latest filings from his personal portfolio showed that he had multi-million-dollar stakes in 10 companies as of the end of last year.

Per the SEC, they included investments in:

•Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC)………………………… 14, 812,857 shares
•Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ)………………….4,973,200 shares
•Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG)……………………..4,375,000 shares
•Kraft Foods (NYSE: KFT)…………………………….8,000,000 shares
•Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT)………………………………4,200,000 shares
•US Bancorp (NYSE: USB)……………………………..8,365,000 shares
•General Electric (NYSE: GE)…………………………7,777,900 shares
•United Parcel Service (NYSE: UPS)…………………1,429,200 shares
•Ingersoll-Rand (NYSE: IR) ……………………………….636,000 shares
•Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM)……………………………..421,800 shares
Among them, they pay an average dividend yield of 2.3%, with Buffett concentrating 77% of his investments in the top five stocks. That plan allows Buffett to “get by” on the $1,923.08 found in his weekly paycheck.

That, my friends, is how the other half lives.

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Now for the rest of the story where Buffett endorses a liar, Hillary Clinton.  It is hard to believe that someone like Buffett, who is supposed to be so smart, would endorse this person.  It tells me he is not so smart after all.  He is endorsing a communist; but, what do I know, they say birds of a feather flock together.

Buffett Endorses Clinton, Likens Republican Debate to vaudeville

Reuters/Rick Wilking

(Bloomberg) — Billionaire Warren Buffett pitched his support behind Hillary Clinton during a campaign stop on Wednesday in Omaha, Nebraska, saying that he and the Democratic presidential candidate share a commitment to helping the less affluent.

Introducing Clinton at the rally, Buffett recited statistics about how incomes for the wealthiest people in the U.S. have gone up seven-fold during the last two decades, as their tax rates have fallen. While Buffett said he doesn’t condemn the rich, he said the odds were stacked in their favor.

“That’s a primary reason — there’s a lot of other reasons, but it’s a primary reason — why I’m going to be so delighted when Secretary Clinton takes the oath of office,” Buffett said. “She will never forget the people who haven’t shared the same way” in the nation’s prosperity.

The event Wednesday was a rare appearance for Buffett at a political rally. It followed a fundraiser earlier Wednesday at Omaha’s Happy Hollow country club, where the candidate and billionaire appeared in conversation in front of about 190 people who donated at least $500 to her campaign to attend, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because the event was private.

The gatherings were the culmination of a long evolution for Buffett. The son of a Republican U.S. congressman, he started shifting his allegiance to Democrats decades ago. In 2008, he backed both Clinton and President Barack Obama in the primaries. And he has since gotten more involved, increasing his donations to candidates and speaking out publicly.

Mocking Republicans

On Wednesday, he also took a few jabs at the Republican Party, likening their debates to a comedy routine.

“I’ve listened to all the Republican debates,” he said. “I mean I used to love Abbott and Costello, people like that. This is really, I’m reliving my youth, I mean, vaudeville was never this good.”

He also singled out Republican front-runner Donald Trump for bragging “every five minutes” about how smart he is.

(It looks like Buffett is also throwing stones because he keeps bragging about paying less taxes than his secretary, isn’t that bragging too?)

“Incidentally, I went to Wharton, too,” Buffett said, referring to the University of Pennsylvania’s business school, which Trump attended. “And I left after two years to go to the University of Nebraska.”

(So what does that make Buffett because he left Wharton to attend the University of Nebraska – did he run out of money or was the air too rich?)

Buffett became one of the richest people in the world by building Berkshire Hathaway Inc. into a sprawling conglomerate. In addition to holding major stakes in companies like Coca-Cola Co. and Wells Fargo & Co., his company owns insurers, electric utilities, retailers, manufacturers and a railroad.

After Buffett’s remarks, Clinton emphasized that she and the billionaire agree that the wealthy need to pay more in taxes. Four years ago, Buffett lent his name to President Obama’s proposal that would implement an effective tax rate of at least 30 percent on households earning $1 million or more annually.

(Sounds like he is part of the Hollywood crowd – they use the capitalist system to become rich and then feel guilty on how they swindled the system.  I guess it goes with the territory – same old guilt trip which all of them take and then they all want to punish those behind them and make the system into a communistic system so that no one else can be rich but them.  I never have understood this rich guilt feeling – if you have that much money and you feel guilty – just start giving it to people who can use it.  All of them know those caskets don’t have pocket liners and they sure can’t take it with them when they die.)

Clinton’s View

“I’m gonna fight hard to implement the Buffett Rule,” Clinton said Wednesday, in reference to that measure. “I want to go even further, because Warren is right, as usual,” she added. Clinton, a former secretary of state and U.S. senator, has also pledged not to raise taxes on families making less than $250,000 a year.

The Democratic front-runner last week began rolling out her proposals on corporate taxes, pledging to work to stop inversions and earnings stripping, both practices involving shifting profits overseas. But, with Buffett sitting on stage behind her, she made no mention of those ideas. Buffett was involved with one of those maneuvers last year when he helped finance Burger King’s merger with Canada’s Tim Hortons.

(Yes, Buffett didn’t feel bad when he was involved with one of those maneuvers last year  when he helped Burger King’s merger with Canada’s Tim Horton did he – which is called inversions or earnings stripping – manipulating the shifting of profits overseas).

(He talks big – but he is just another hypocrite. The Republicans  wouldn’t want him in the Republican Party anyway because he wouldn’t fit in the party because he is such a penny pincher and stingy.)

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