- Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett wrote in his annual shareholder letter that his company paid $26.8 billion in taxes for 2024, marking the highest-ever payment made to the U.S. government. Buffett made it clear he didn’t mind paying such a large tax bill, but urged the government to use it to take care of burdened Americans.
In his annual letter to shareholders, Warren Buffett highlighted Berkshire Hathaway paying the biggest corporate tax bill in history last year, and he said he hopes the government will use it to help burdened Americans.
Berkshire Hathaway’s $26.8 billion tax bill for 2024 marked the largest-ever tax payment made to the U.S. government—surpassing even tech giants “that commanded market values in the trillions,” Buffett wrote. The company’s 2024 tax payment reportedly amounted to 5% of the total corporate taxes collected last year. Since Buffett took over, the company has paid $101 billion in taxes, according to the letter.
Still, Buffett said he hoped the government used the money for important causes and maintained the stability of the financial system.
“Spend it wisely. Take care of the many who, for no fault of their own, get the short straws in life. They deserve better,” Buffett wrote. “And never forget that we need you to maintain a stable currency, and that result requires both wisdom and vigilance on your part.”
Earlier in the letter, Buffett explained that just after he took control of the company in 1965, Berkshire “did not pay a dime of income tax,” a fact that Buffett called “an embarrassment.”
“That sort of economic behavior may be understandable for glamorous startups, but it’s a blinking yellow light when it happens at a venerable pillar of American industry,” Buffett wrote.
The Berkshire CEO also credited the company’s investors for making its tax payment possible. Since 1965, the company paid only one cash dividend, and looking back, that one payment “seems like a bad dream,” Buffett wrote. Because the company continually reinvested its earnings in the company, its taxable base grew so much as to warrant 2024’s record-breaking tax bill.
It’s unlikely Berkshire will pay as much in taxes in the future, because the high tax bill was triggered mostly by the sale of highly appreciated Apple stock, Barron’s reported. The company sold about two-thirds of its Apple stock in 2024, and gained an estimated $90 billion from the sale, Barron’s noted.
Apart from the unusual stock selloff, President Donald Trump said he would like to see the corporate tax rate reduced to 15% from 21%, which would mean a smaller future tax bill for Berkshire.
Still, the 94-year-old CEO seemingly wouldn’t mind paying a larger tax bill in the future, and he reiterated his oft-repeated assertion that Berkshire’s success couldn’t have happened in any other country.
“Thank you, Uncle Sam,” Buffett wrote. “Someday your nieces and nephews at Berkshire hope to send you even larger payments than we did in 2024.”
