From the Omaha World-Herald:
“If class warfare is being waged in America, my class is clearly winning,” Buffett said in Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s annual report.
Corporate income taxes in fiscal 2003 accounted for 7.4 percent of all federal tax receipts, down from a post-war peak of 32 percent in 1952, Buffett said.
With the exception of 1983, last year’s percentage was the lowest recorded since data was first published in 1934.
“Even so, tax breaks for corporations (and their investors, particularly large ones) were a major part of the administration’s 2002 and 2003 initiatives,” Buffett said. Many large corporations now pay nothing close to the stated federal tax rate of 35 percent, he said.
Berkshire does not hesitate to pay its taxes, Buffett said. It almost certainly is among the country’s top 10 taxpayers and it will pay $3.3 billion in 2003 corporate income tax, about 2 1/2 percent of the total income tax to be paid by all U.S. corporations, he said.
Finally, a billionaire that I can get behind.