Warren Buffett today issued a mea culpa on the Buffett rule, acknowledging that it would have a trivial impact on his very low tax rate. Buffett admitted that the $8 billion of appreciation in his Berkshire Hathaway stock would continue to be untaxed under the Buffett rule. Instead, Buffett announced his support for the annual 15% mark-to-market tax on appreciation in publicly traded stock held by the wealthy proposed by David S. Miller (Cadwalader, New York).
As a first step, he today mailed a $1.2 billion check to the U.S. Treasury and announced the formation of the Tax It Forward Foundation, modeled after the Pay It Forward Foundation, popularized in the 2000 movie Pay It Forward (starring Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt). Buffett urged others to follow his example and Tax it Forward by sending checks to the U.S. Treasury to compensate other taxpayers for bearing the burden of their prior tax planning. In response thus far, the following tax miscreants have sent checks to the U.S. Treasury (or other state and foreign tax authorities) and issued press releases:...MORE
(sorry, I couldn't resist)
