Billionaire wannabe  philanthropist Warren Buffett is the inspiration behind the Obamanation's plan to "tax the rich." He wrote in the New York Times that he should be paying more taxes and urged Washington to up tax rates on the rich.

Now here's the rub, and why we should never take the sly old dog seriously ever again. He is a hypocrite. Warren Buffet; world's wealthiest hypocrite! For Buffett’s company, Berkshire Hathaway, is fighting to avoid paying taxes the government says it owes! The bill has been estimated at $1 billion.

So while Buffett says the rich aren’t paying their fair share his own company has been avoiding  paying a larger share.

This battle has been going on for a decade, all the while Buffet was chuntering on in assorted interviews about how he would love to pay more taxes....Now a group called Americans for Limited Government (ALG) says that, according to Berkshire Hathaway’s own annual report, the company is in a standoff with the US Internal Revenue Service over its tax bills.

Buffet is planning to give most of his fortune to charity, adding to the fantastic sums already in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. These mega “charities” seldom achieve much, despite good intentions. From my experience of them in Britain they set up lucrative careers for thousands of “charity workers,” mostly pushing politically correct ideas. Check out all big charities and pay special attention to what the top executives earn, then add in more large sums for expenses, pensions etc. Nice work if you can get it.

No, if Buffet really wants to put his socialist ideas into practice, all he has to go is write a check for tens of billions of Dollars to help his poor old Unc, who hasn’t a bean to his name….

An editorial in The New York Post put it like this: “Obvious question: If Buffett really thinks he and his 'mega-rich friends' should pay higher taxes, why doesn’t his firm fork over what it already owes under current rates?”

That's a simple question and one that we should put to all those who think raising taxes on anybody achieves anything other than moving enterprise overseas.

Here’s the whole story from The New York Post, which carries the headline I was going to use. So next time you see this old coot using his alleged “home town charm,” remember, he is very rich. He could pay off a big chunk of US debt tomorrow. And he ensures his firm avoids as much tax as possible!

Warren Buffett, hypocriteLast Updated: 11:51 PM, August 28, 2011Posted: August 29, 2011This one’s truly, uh ... rich: Billionaire Warren Buffett says folks like him should have to pay more taxes -- but it turns out his firm, Berkshire Hathaway, hasn’t paid what it’s already owed for years. 

That’s right: As Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson notes, the company openly admits that it owes back taxes since as long ago as 2002.“We anticipate that we will resolve all adjustments proposed by the US Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) for the 2002 through 2004 tax years ... within the next 12 months,” the firm’s annual report says.  

It also cites outstanding tax issues for 2005 through 2009.Obvious question: If Buffett really thinks he and his “mega-rich friends” should pay higher taxes, why doesn’t his firm fork over what it already owes under current rates?  Likely answer: He cares more about shilling for President Obama -- who’s practically made socking “millionaires and billionaires” his re-election theme song -- than about kicking in more himself.  

Buffett’s free to back Obama, of course. And if his firm wants to keep its tax bill low, well, that’s its right, too.But it would be nice if this “pro-tax-hike” tycoon were a bit more honest about it.Start, for example, with his grossly disingenuous recent claim that, as he wrote in The New York Times, he paid only 17 percent of his income last year to the government -- even as many working stiffs who make far less than him coughed up higher percentages.  

Fact is, unlike most other folks, Warren Buffett gets most of his income from dividends and capital gains, which are nominally taxed at 15 percent.Left unsaid is that much of that is taxed at 35 percent (via the corporate income tax) before he even gets his hands on it. So in effect, he’s paying taxes twice (that is, when his companies actually pay, anyway).  Counting both taxes, his effective rate would really be well north of 40 percent for a big chunk of his income.

There’s more. Obama, and co-conspirators like Buffett, claim to want to slap only “millionaires and billionaires.”  But in 2009, for instance, fewer than a quarter-million taxpayers (less than two tenths of 1 percent) reported income over $1 million -- and their combined bill was less than $200 billion. Raise the top tax rate on them by 13 percent, as Obama wants (from 35 percent to 39.6 percent) and you bring in only another $26 billion, tops -- and that’s if your tax hike doesn’t stifle the economy and kill jobs (which it surely would).

Yet what’s $26 billion in a world of $4 trillion federal budgets with trillion-dollar-plus deficits?  No wonder Obama’s hikes on “millionaires and billionaires” actually start with folks earning as little as $200,000.   Looks like Buffett’s not the only disingenuous one here. But again, that’s clear from their individual behavior: Obama, Buffett and Democrats like Bill Clinton keep saying they want to pay more taxes.Fine. They can always write checks.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/warren_buffett_hypocrite_E3BsmJmeQVE38q2Woq9yjJ#ixzz1YWjzfBrJ