"Did I Mention That Warren Buffet, Obama's Poster Child For Higher Taxes, And his Company Owe American Taxpayers $1,000,000,000?" And Other Tax Day Fun Facts

Yesterday was Tax Day for the American taxpayer, the day when we turn over our hard earned wealth to various government taxing authorities, wealth that is very often immediately turned into waste, criminal fraud, and debt by the American political class. This year's Tax Day is especially interesting since President Obama continues his class warfare strategy of pitting rich against poor by continually pushing his so-called Buffet Tax on American millionaire earners.

Thus, today let's talk about this insane concept of extra taxation that will 1) not provide any kind of tax relief to other Americans, 2) will likely never be used to reduce our stifling national debt of over $15 TRILLION since it is so relatively small (only about $4.8 billion a year, and 3) the many ways that Obama could find much more money within the Federal government if he and his administration would focus on just doing their job rather than focusing on dividing the nation with election year tactics. As we go through the following, mostly depressing tax facts, keep in mind the Buffet Tax and how stupid it really is from a reality, non-political perspective.

Let's start with a list of interesting tax facts, courtesy of the Economic Collapse blog and its "24 Outrageous Facts About Taxes In The United States That Will Blow Your Mind":

1 - The U.S. tax code is now 3.8 million words long. If you took all of William Shakespeare's works and collected them together, the entire collection would only be about 900,000 words long.

2 - According to the National Taxpayers Union, U.S. taxpayers spend more than 7.6 billion hours complying with federal tax requirements. Imagine what our society would look like and how much quicker our nation's economy would grow if all that time was spent on more economically profitable activities.

3 - 75 years ago, the instructions for Form 1040 were two pages long. Today, they are 189 pages long.

4 - There have been 4,428 changes to the tax code over the last decade. It is incredibly costly to change tax software, tax manuals and tax instruction booklets for all of those changes.

5 - According to the National Taxpayers Union, the IRS currently has 1,999 different publications, forms, and instruction sheets that you can download from the IRS website.

6 - Our tax system has become so complicated that it is almost impossible to file your taxes correctly. For example, back in 1998 Money Magazine had 46 different tax professionals complete a tax return for a hypothetical household. All 46 of them came up with a different result.

7 - In 2009, PC World had five of the most popular tax preparation software websites prepare a tax return for a hypothetical household. All five of them came up with a different result.

8 - The IRS spends $2.45 for every $100 that it collects in taxes.

9 - According to The Tax Foundation, the average American has to work until April 17th just to pay federal, state, and local taxes. Back in 1900, "Tax Freedom Day" came on January 22nd.

10 - When the U.S. government first implemented a personal income tax back in 1913, the vast majority of the population paid a rate of just 1 percent, and the highest marginal tax rate was just 7 percent.

11 - Residents of New Jersey pay $1.64 in taxes for every $1.00 of federal spending that they get back.

12 - The United States is the only nation on the planet that tries to tax citizens on what they earn in foreign countries.

13 - According to Forbes, the 400 highest earning Americans pay an average federal income tax rate of just 18 percent.

14 - Warren Buffet had an effective tax rate of just 17.4 percent for 2010.

15 - The top 20 percent of all income earners in the United States pay approximately 86 percent of all federal income taxes.

16 - About 45% of American taxpayers pay nothing in federal income taxes. Thus, if you have two neighbors on either side of your house, on average, one of them pays nothing in federal income tax buts gets all of the benefits of the federal government that you do, assuming that you actually pay federal income taxes.

17 - Sadly, you could take every single penny that every American earns above $250,000 and it would only fund about 38 percent of the federal budget.

18 - The United States has the highest corporate tax rate in the world (35 percent). In Ireland, the corporate tax rate is only 12.5 percent. This is causing thousands of corporations to move operations out of the United States and into other countries.

19 - Some tax havens are doing a booming business in setting up sham headquarters for U.S. corporations. For example, the city of Zug, Switzerland only has a population of 26,000 people but it is the headquarters for 30,000 companies.

20 - In 1950, corporate taxes accounted for about 30 percent of all federal revenue. In 2012, corporate taxes will account for less than 7 percent of all federal revenue.

21 - Many of our largest corporations make huge profits and yet pay less than nothing in taxes. The following figures come directly out of a report by Citizens for Tax Justice. These are combined figures for the tax years 2008, 2009 and 2010.

*Honeywell* - Profits: $4.9 billion, Taxes: -$34 million

*Fed Ex* - Profits: $3 billion, Taxes: -$23 million

*Wells Fargo* - Profits: $49.37 billion, Taxes: -$681 million

*Boeing* - Profits: $9.7 billion, Taxes: -$178 million

*Verizon* - Profits: $32.5 billion, Taxes: -$951 million

*Dupont* - Profits: $2.1 billion, Taxes -$72 million

*General Electric* - Profits: $7.7 billion, Taxes: -$4.7 billion

22 - Many wealthy Americans hide enormous amounts of money outside the country in order to avoid paying taxes. According to the IMF, a total of 18 trillion dollars is currently being hidden in offshore banks.

23 - The number of traffic accidents spikes each year right around April 15th.

24 - Most of the tax debate is focused on income taxes, but the truth is that Americans pay dozens of other taxes every single year. The following are just a few of the taxes that many Americans pay:

#1 Building Permit Taxes
#2 Capital Gains Taxes
#3 Cigarette Taxes
#4 Court Fines (indirect taxes)
#5 Dog License Taxes
#6 Federal Unemployment Taxes
#7 Fishing License Taxes
#8 Food License Taxes
#9 Gasoline Taxes
#10 Gift Taxes
#11 Hunting License Taxes
#12 Inheritance Taxes
#13 Inventory Taxes
#14 IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax)
#15 IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
#16 Liquor Taxes
#17 Luxury Taxes
#18 Marriage License Taxes
#19 Medicare Taxes
#20 Property Taxes
#21 Recreational Vehicle Taxes
#22 Toll Booth Taxes
#23 Sales Taxes
#24 Self-Employment Taxes
#25 School Taxes
#26 Septic Permit Taxes
#27 Service Charge Taxes
#28 Social Security Taxes
#29 State Unemployment Taxes (SUTA)
#30 Telephone Federal Excise Taxes
#31 Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Taxes
#32 Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Taxes
#33 Telephone State And Local Taxes
#34 Tire Taxes
#35 Toll Bridge Taxes
#36 Toll Tunnel Taxes
#37 Traffic Fines (indirect taxation)
#38 Utility Taxes
#39 Vehicle License Registration Taxes
#40 Sales Taxes
#41 Workers Compensation Taxes
#42 Hotel Taxes
#43 Real Estate Sale Taxes (courtesy of Obama Care)
#44 Known and Unknown other Obama Care Taxes
#45 Car Rental Taxes
#46 Other?

Talk about insanity? We pay all levels of government trillions and trillions of dollars over the years through at least 46 different tax methods and they still cannot balance a budget or solve any problem.

Let's get back to Warren Buffet and how Obama uses him as a prop for this administration to get more taxes out of Americans. Buffet comes off at least a little hypocritical with his statements that the rich should pay more when his company, Berkshire Hathaway, has been vehemently fighting the Federal government for years over a $1,000,000,000 tax bill that is due to the IRS. If paying more taxes is so noble, why doesn't Buffet the prop just pay up the billion dollars he earns first as a shining example of paying more taxes?

We have discussed the blatant waste of money by Federal employees at the General Services Administration (GSA) and their apparent joy in purposely wasting taxpayer money. The head of the GSA has resigned, top managers of the GSA have been fired, other GSA employees have been suspended, and Congressional hearings are underway.

Hopefully you're thinking of the following findings about the GSA waste when you sent the Obama administration your tax check:

• We already know about the wild and unproductive conference that GSA threw for itself in Las Vegas which cost about $832,000 for no taxpayer benefit at all.
• A GSA executive took a trip to Hawaii for a one hour ribbon cutting ceremony and then stayed there on the taxpayer dime for a ten day vacation.
• New findings from Congressional hearings report that taxpayer money was used to fund GSA employee trips to the South Pacific, to Palm Springs, and Napa Valley wine country and that on many of these useless trips, the taxpayers paid for family members to go along.
• Recently discovered GSA emails found that a high ranking GSA executive, Jeff Neely, had exchanged emails with his wife to discuss their trip together to the South Pacific, where they visited Hawaii, Guam, and Saipan, as birthday gifts to each other, courtesy of the American taxpayer.
• The GSA inspector general who uncovered all of this wasteful spending, testified to Congress that: "Every time we turned over a stone, we found 50 more with all kinds of things crawling out."
• 115 high end electronics devices that were supposed to be used as employee performance incentive prizes have gone missing, with one of the devices possibly having been tracked to Neely's daughter. 
• According to an AP article, "Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Calif., who chaired the Transportation subcommittee hearing, summed up his frustration and that of others by telling GSA witnesses the agency suffered from "this culture of fraud, waste, corruption" and possibly cover-ups and inside deals with vendors."
• It appears that not only wasteful spending occurred but laws were broken, crimes were committed, and criminal charges might be forthcoming.

How does that missing chunk of tax money from your checking account feel now? And this was only one Federal government organization, imagine how many more billions are wasted in similar abuses in other organizations. And Obama is worried about taxing more Americans more money while this type of disgraceful behavior goes on. Pathetic, if he did his job he would not have to tax anyone any more.

Did I mention that Warren Buffet, Obama's poster child and prop for higher taxes, heads up a company that owes the IRS and the American taxpayer $1,000,000,000?

Oh, we are just getting warmed up. An AP article on April 17, 2012 reported that a Michigan resident, Amanda Clayton, who had won $735,000 on a game show, had continued to defraud the government by collecting food stamps and public health insurance after receiving her winnings. Fortunately, she has been arrested and will face criminal charges.

But there is more. Clayton wasn't the first Michigan lump sum winner to keep claiming public benefits. Michigan resident Leroy Fick continued using the food program despite winning an $850,000 lump sum prize in 2010. He actually told government officials about his winnings but was allowed to temporarily keep his card "because one-time windfalls at that time were not counted as regular income under the program." 

Let's see, you win $850,000 in a lottery but the Federal government says you are still allowed to get taxpayer relief and support! Unbelievable. And Obama still wants to tax Americans more in spite of this insanity.

Did I mention that Warren Buffet, Obama's poster child and prop for higher taxes, heads up a company that owes the IRS and the American taxpayer $1,000,000,000?

But garbage like this should not surprise us. Previously, we reported on a Miami area doctor that had been arrested after defrauding Medicare of $6,000,000 a year for four years. He worked at two hospitals and also ran his own clinic which is where all of the fraud took place. This $6,000,000 a year comes out to Medicare charges of just over $23,000 a day! And the good doctor did not work there full time in order to run up $23,000 worth of Medicare business every day.

Given this simple math calculation, it makes you scratch your head on why it took four years to catch this thief. Also makes you wonder how many other doctors and clinics are involved in ripping off Medicare and Medicaid to the tune of about $100 billion a year.

Even if Obama cleaned up half of this fraud and waste, $50 billion a year, that would be more than ten times the amount of money he would get from the Buffet tax rule. Again, no American, rich or poor, should pay one more cent until Obama and the political class clean up these disgraces.

Did I mention that Warren Buffet, Obama's poster child for higher taxes, heads up a company that owes the IRS and the American taxpayer $1,000,000,000?

We are on a roll. I always get a kick out of Hollywood and sports celebrities telling me how much I should pay in taxes or how I should behave. They seem to think just because they are good in a very narrow field, acting, athletics, etc., that this somehow endows them with special knowledge on taxes and politics.

So I love it when so many of them end up on the wrong side of a tax bill and become big time tax evaders (the following information comes from the www.businesspundit.com website but the same or similar information exists on dozens of other websites):

1. Actor Wesley Snipes was sentenced to three years in prison for failing to file his taxes for five years, from 1999 to 2004. Snipes tried to make the IRS believe he’s a resident alien but being been born in Florida, that’s hard to do. Snipes appealed and is free on bail for the time being but still needs to pay $17 million in taxes, plus interest and penalties. 
2. Singer Willie Nelson was slapped with a charge of $16.7 million in back taxes in 1990. The IRS ended up seizing most of  his assets to cover the amount due.
3. As of 2009, actor Nicolas Cage owed more than $6.6 million in back taxes from 2007. The IRS and the state of Nevada foreclosed on Cage’s multimillion-dollar home in Las Vegas in November, 2011.
4. Compared to those stately sums, photographer Annie Leibovitz’s outstanding Federal tax amount of $2.1 million doesn’t seem that much, given that she probably makes that much taking just a few pictures of the rich and famous. She also owes $250,000 in New York state taxes. 
5. Comedian Sinbad owes the state of California $2.5 million in personal income tax. 
6. Singer Marc Anthony got hit with a $2.5 delinquent tax bill for failing to pay taxes from 2000 to 2004, a time period when his earnings were $15.5 million. Anthony paid up promptly and no intention to cheat could be proven. 
7. Adding further to California’s budget deficit is singer Dionne Warwick, who owes the state $2.2 million in personal income tax.  
8. Singer Snoop Dogg, can add another title to his resume: tax evader for the second year in a row. In 2011, the rapper owed the state of California $284,000; now the amount has grown to $598,000.
9. Pamela Anderson recently got busted for not paying her personal income tax in California, $493,000.
10. The singer formerly known as Prince is now also known as a tax evader. His management company supposedly owes the state of Minnesota around $450,000 in state taxes.

So please, all you celebrities, no more lectures until you clean up your industry's own tax evasion problem.

Did I mention that Warren Buffet, Obama's poster child for higher taxes, heads up a company that owes the IRS and the American taxpayer $1,000,000,000?

Many times we have pointed out that the Washington political class annually doles out at least $16 billion of taxpayer money in the form of "earmarks," almost always to campaign donors, past and future. If Obama had stomped out this abuse of taxpayer wealth like he claimed he would do in his 2008 campaign, he would already have at least $48 billion at his disposal, more than three times what the Buffet tax rule of the rich would have gotten him.

Speaking of Buffet, did I mention that Warren Buffet, Obama's poster child for higher taxes, heads up a company that owes the IRS and the American taxpayer $1,000,000,000?

You get the idea. We have a government overspending problem and and government wasteful spending problem and a government criminal fraud problem in this country, we do have an under taxation problem in this country. No American should have to pay another cent in taxes until Obama and the rest of Washington clean up the above abuses and the following abuses that we have discussed many times in this blog:

• Dollars lost to waste and criminal fraud in Medicare and Medicaid every year - at least $100 billion
• Dollars lost to waste and criminal fraud in Social Security every year - over $100 billion
• Dollars lost to the IRS's inability to collect legally due taxes from American tax evaders every year - over $380 billion a year.
• Dollars lost to criminal fraud in just one Federal government unemployment program every year - $19 billion
• Dollars lost to criminal fraud in Federal food stamp programs every year - Unknown billions
• Waste from just these government programs would provide every American household an annual rebate in taxes of just over $5,200.

And none of these hundreds of billions of dollars include the $1,000,000,000 that Warren Buffet's company owes the IRS and the American taxpayer. Have a happy tax day, 2012!


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