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Berkshire Hathaway Now Pays 5% of All Corporate Income Taxes in America

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Re: Berkshire Hathaway Now Pays 5% of All Corporate Income Taxes in America

#151

Post by FredPret »

Gud wrote: post #135
FredPret wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea is that corporations are the most efficient entities in the economy in terms of allocating capital. They have to be, or they go under. And when they have extra cash, investors tend to demand that it be deployed or paid back to them as dividends. So the natural incentive is for companies to run with the leanest possible capitalization and generate the biggest possible profits. So when you take cash aw…

The problem of course is that capital is mostly concentrated to a few, well connected families. How does that fit into the equation?

Numbers to back that up?

The annual Global Wealth Report from UBS [0] usually shows a very wide base of millionaires in the rich countries (there are 23 million millionaires in the US) and a rapidly rising crop of new rich people all over the world, especially the rapidly growing countries like India and China.

Even for those at the very tip of the pyramid, the 0.01%, there's a ton of turnover. Who was the richest family 0, 10, 25, 50, 100, 150, 200 years ago? The answers are all very different.

[0] https://www.ubs.com/global/en/wealthmanagement/insights/glob...

Re: Berkshire Hathaway Now Pays 5% of All Corporate Income Taxes in America

#152

Post by crazygringo »

colechristensen wrote: post #77
crazygringo wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it's not. It shows how much more profitable Berkshire Hathaway has been than other big companies. Which is what it's known for. You'd never want other companies paying as much tax if they didn't have the profit to back it up. It would bankrupt them.

>You'd never want other companies paying as much tax if they didn't have the profit to back it up. It would bankrupt them. They do have the profit in that the money they make doing things exceeds the money they spend to do the thing, but though a series of tricks of varying legality and ethics they make it so on paper they do not have "profit" and therefore successfully avoid taxes. Amazon reported losses for the fir…

You seem to be misunderstanding. Amazon paid no corporate taxes because it was reinvesting everything into growth. There's nothing illegal or unethical about that – in fact it's not a bug, it's a feature. We incentivize that because it means that Amazon winds up paying more taxes in the long run. Once it no longer has growth opportunities but is just raking in the profits, it winds up paying tons of taxes. Way more taxes than it would've been paying when it was much smaller. It benefits the tax base to let companies make their own decisions about when to grow and when to turn a profit. The last thing you want to do is to start taxing revenue rather than profit, because that slows down economic growth in the entire country. That would be terrible policy. It's not about tricks, it's literally about maximizing tax revenue over the long-term.

Re: Berkshire Hathaway Now Pays 5% of All Corporate Income Taxes in America

#153

Post by MichaelZuo »

TZubiri wrote: post #147
MichaelZuo wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does this relate to my comment? The 5% is a relative measure against all other corporations in the USA.

Oh that would be pretty clear to me: Corporate tax paid by Berkshire Hathaway / Sum of Corp Tax paid by all US corps = 5/100 = 1:20 It's clear what it means, how they measure it would be another story, but I'm sure there is public budget information that clearly indicates what the 2024 taxation for that type of tax was.

You need to re read my comment… I’m not asking about doing basic fractions.

Re: Berkshire Hathaway Now Pays 5% of All Corporate Income Taxes in America

#154

Post by strangattractor »

gruez wrote: post #7
strangattractor wrote: post #3

Wow and they still make money despite paying their fair share. Who would have ever thought.

But corporate taxes are on profit, not revenue, so almost by definition any company that "paying their fair share" is "still makes money".

I think Berkshire keeps a lot of money parked in T Bills and other Dividend paying investments so they get a lot of cash. They don't seem to play the Tax evasion game as much as some other companies IMO.

Re: Berkshire Hathaway Now Pays 5% of All Corporate Income Taxes in America

#155

Post by _DeadFred_ »

Gud wrote: post #135
FredPret wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea is that corporations are the most efficient entities in the economy in terms of allocating capital. They have to be, or they go under. And when they have extra cash, investors tend to demand that it be deployed or paid back to them as dividends. So the natural incentive is for companies to run with the leanest possible capitalization and generate the biggest possible profits. So when you take cash aw…

The problem of course is that capital is mostly concentrated to a few, well connected families. How does that fit into the equation?

Don't forget a large amount of US stocks are held by overseas individuals. So the burden is put on American workers in order to protect the capital of overseas millionaire investors.

Re: Berkshire Hathaway Now Pays 5% of All Corporate Income Taxes in America

#156

Post by mulmen »

gruez wrote: post #92
vel0city wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Companies don't do any of that. It doesn't need food, movie tickets, or European vacations. And yet they sure seem to cater a lot of lunches and dinners, pick up the costs for large corporate events, pay for suites at event venues, and fly executives around the world in private jets.

>And yet they sure seem to cater a lot of lunches and dinners, Those are taxed at 50% rate, specifically for this reason https://www.irs.gov/publications/p15b#en_US_2025_publink1000... >pick up the costs for large corporate events define "costs"? >pay for suites at event venues, and fly executives around the world in private jets. If it's for legitimate corporate purposes, I don't see the issue, because as a contract…

$500.00 a night is $182,500.00 per year. That’s 20% of comp. What “better thing” does the IRS have to do? I don’t disagree with you that the IRS has limited time and resources and should maximize their impact but comparing a nightly expense with annual income doesn’t make that case.

Re: Berkshire Hathaway Now Pays 5% of All Corporate Income Taxes in America

#157

Post by Aloisius »

msgodel wrote: post #144
FredPret wrote: post #65

Here's some interesting thinking about different kinds of tax: https://economicsobservatory.com/which-taxes-are-best-and-wo... > "Raising the income tax rate has by far the least negative effect on GDP. In the long run, the simulation shows that the economy pretty much returns to baseline levels, with a slight increase in potential output. The opposite is true for corporation taxes. A rise in the corporation tax rate…

Who cares what the GDP is if the country is unpleasant or impractical to live in? Income tax is extremely retarded and our country was started by shooting people who suggested significantly less extreme taxes.

It's the effects of a lower GDP that people tend to care about.

And those effects are unpleasant and make the country more impractical to live in.

Re: Berkshire Hathaway Now Pays 5% of All Corporate Income Taxes in America

#158

Post by FredPret »

_DeadFred_ wrote: post #155
Gud wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem of course is that capital is mostly concentrated to a few, well connected families. How does that fit into the equation?

Don't forget a large amount of US stocks are held by overseas individuals. So the burden is put on American workers in order to protect the capital of overseas millionaire investors.

Or overseas investors are sending capital to America, where it enlarges existing businesses and creates new ones, leading to more jobs, more competition for the consumer's dollar, and more tax for the US government when money is paid out to those investors.

If it was so simple to use capital to exploit the rest of society, why would these investors not simply invest where they are? Why go to the trouble and expense of investing their money in a different country?

Re: Berkshire Hathaway Now Pays 5% of All Corporate Income Taxes in America

#159

Post by msgodel »

Aloisius wrote: post #157
msgodel wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares what the GDP is if the country is unpleasant or impractical to live in? Income tax is extremely retarded and our country was started by shooting people who suggested significantly less extreme taxes.

It's the effects of a lower GDP that people tend to care about. And those effects are unpleasant and make the country more impractical to live in.

GDP going up does not absolutely improve people's quality of life (and there's quite a lot that can make GDP go up while making every participant in the economy miserable.) That's why optimizing for it makes no sense.

Re: Berkshire Hathaway Now Pays 5% of All Corporate Income Taxes in America

#160

Post by FredPret »

msgodel wrote: post #159
Aloisius wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the effects of a lower GDP that people tend to care about. And those effects are unpleasant and make the country more impractical to live in.

GDP going up does not absolutely improve people's quality of life (and there's quite a lot that can make GDP go up while making every participant in the economy miserable.) That's why optimizing for it makes no sense.

More money is strictly better; if you think rich countries are "unpleasant or unpractical" to live in, try living in a poor one.

You're right that GDP is far from the only thing that matters. But sacrificing growth for intangible benefits is a tradeoff that should be made very carefully indeed.

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