Warren's paid them
There's a huge argument going on regarding Berkshire Hathaway. They admit to certain tax discrepancies going back to 2002. (http://www.nypost.co...yjJ#ixzz1WRoIlYSf)
But both Forbes and the NYPost ignore that Berkshire Hathaway isn't owned exclusively by Buffet. (And Berkshire has been paying taxes - http://www.huffingto...way_n_941099.html)
What The Post hence assumes is that Berkshire Hathaway pays taxes at the top marginal rate of 35 percent. The corporation's effective tax rate was last put at 29 percent, according to Forbes.(http://finance.yahoo...-pay-taxes-forbes)
So how to make sense of GE's taxes? The outcry seems to focus on the $5 billion in profits GE made in the U.S. Now if GE were to pay the 35% statutory federal corporate tax rate on that, it would come to $1.75 billion. Yet, as the Times trumpeted, GE has recorded a $3.25 billion tax benefit for the year on its U.S. operations. It's important to understand that this "benefit" is not a refund (which is why the Associated Press should be doubly embarrassed for being fooled Wednesday by a bogus GE press release concocted by the Yes Men that said the conglomerate intended to return its $3.2 billion tax "refund" to the U.S. Treasury). It just represents an amount GE will balance out against other tax obligations.(http://finance.yahoo...-pay-taxes-forbes)
But why does GE get this benefit? Simple: its finance arm, GE Capital, lost a lot of money during the financial meltdown (roughly $30 billion) and it's still carrying those losses forward and deducting them from current income. As GE spokesman Gary Sheffer wrote in his response to the Times story: "Without these financial crisis losses at GE Capital, GE's tax rate would have been near the average of other multinational corporations." He added, "In short, when you lose money, you don't pay taxes."