Buffet’s Estate Tax Planning

Windsor, ON. Last week, Warren Buffet a vocal critic of the repeal the U.S. estate tax, resolved his own estate tax problems by donating his Berkshire Hathaway stock to five separate foundations: one in the name of his wife; three managed by his children; and the last run by his bridge partner, says John Mill, faculty member at The Knowledge Bureau author of the self-study course Cross-Border Taxation.

Buffet has always supported the idea of an estate tax in the U.S. Twenty years ago he was quoted as saying that you should “leave the children enough to do anything, but not enough to do nothing.”

Buffet’s support of the estate tax is ironic. The irony is that he will not pay any estate tax. In fact Buffet pays very little tax at all. As with most of his business moves his income tax planning strategy is simple and straightforward: buy long term securities and do not sell them. Thus he has avoided billions in income tax without the necessity of spending money on tax planning.