Why It Is a Mistake To Call Warren Buffet A Hypocrite

First off welcome to my first post, and thank you for joining me for this journey. Without further ado: on with the show.

The following post was written as a response to the above image, and is designed to illustrate how badly some people bend the truth in attempt to have a particular fact or news item support their particular perspective. It took me a while to find enough facts to really understand what was going on (as it seems most major news carriers declined to cover it; as in reality there was nothing to it), but I felt like sharing anyways.

Okay lets begin with this:

1) FACT: The reason that Berkshire Hathaway is refusing to pay the taxes in question is because they feel that "the IRS is using "erroneous, wrongful and illegal" interpretation of the U.S. Tax Code in regards to their tax assessment." In fact Berkshire Hathaway previously won a similar suit in 2002 resulting from a similar assessment by the IRS, but, due to the fact that the IRS is currently auditing returns from 2007 to 2009, the company has not yet had the chance to go to court over these most recent allegations.

2) FACT: In the previous case, "U.S. District Judge Lyle Strom, who presided over a three-day nonjury trial, ruled that the IRS mistakenly rejected the deductions because an agent used faulty methods to deny the deductions, resulting in the company paying an excess of $23 million in taxes and interest.

An appeal by the IRS was denied by the court in 2006."

http://www.omaha.com/article/20110904/MONEY/709049884

3) FACT: Berkshire Hathaway may not pay the top marginal rate (35 percent), but their last effective tax rate was 29 percent; which is a great deal higher than over a quarter of the the U.S. corporations comprising the S&P 500 (which paid under 20 percent over the last half decade).

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/29/warren-buffett-taxes-berkshire-hathaway_n_941099.html

4) FACT: In a recent study of 280 companies on the Fortune 500 list, it was found that from 2008-2010 the average tax rate was 18.5%; which means that Berkshire Hathaway is paying over 50% more taxes than most large corporations in our country.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/11/focus-0

4) FACT: Berkshire Hathaway is not refusing to pay taxes. Rather, they are saying that they feel that IRS's application of the tax code is incorrect, the courts have previously agreed with them in that assessment, and due to that fact they are deferring the payment of those taxes until the court system has an equal opportunity to evaluate these most recent claims.

5) FACT: In other cases where there was not a previous ruling to support their claims, Berkshire Hathaway companies have paid their taxes in full as requested, and then gone to court to recoup the funds that they feel were improperly assessed.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-11-21/buffett-s-netjets-sues-u-s-over-642-7-million-in-taxes.html

6) FACT: There is a difference between corporate taxes and and the individual taxes that someone might pay on their income. To say that they are the same is ridiculous; as corporate tax code is infinitely more complex than those used for individuals, and there is a great deal more ambiguity regarding how those laws are applied.

7) FACT: Just because someone believes that there is something wrong with the tax code that is applied to individual citizens does not mean that they necessarily agree with the IRS on every ruling. If Berkshire Hathaway wants to fight what they feel is an appropriate assessment of their returns: they have that right. It does not make them or Warren Buffet a hypocrite.

8) QUESTION: Seriously which one of you is really going to be affected by an increase of taxes on the wealthy? Why even worry about this? Do any of you really think that it is fair that someone like Mitt Romney paid 13.9% taxes when he made 21.6 million in 2010; especially when you consider that the average American, the teacher, the soldier, or the small businessman (or woman... don't mean to be sexist here) pays 20.4%?

http://www.economist.com/comment/1220380

9) QUESTION: If you answered yes to any of the questions above... do you think you could loan me some money? I really need a new lens for my camera :).

Jeremy is that enough fact checking for you? (I assume I am the official fact checker of the Jeremy Guider Facebook page; so I thought you were probably talking to me :).)