Berkshire Hathaway paid a staggering $26.8 billion in taxes, accounting for 5% of all U.S. corporate taxes, and even sending a million checks couldn't cover it all.

Berkshire Hathaway ( announced its full-year financial report for 2024, in which the legendary investor Warren Buffett ) mentioned in his annual letter to shareholders that Berkshire Hathaway's performance in 2024 exceeded expectations. The company paid a total of 26.8 billion U.S. dollars in taxes to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), setting a new record in U.S. history.

Berkshire Hathaway pays $26.8 billion to the national treasury throughout the year

In 2024, Berkshire Hathaway paid a total of 26.8 billion US dollars in taxes to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), setting a new record in the history of the United States. This is equivalent to 5% of the total corporate tax payments in the United States. Buffett cited an example, stating that if Berkshire Hathaway were to send a $1 million check to the Treasury every 20 minutes throughout 2024, even with uninterrupted payments every day, including the leap year in 2024, a substantial tax debt would still be owed to the Treasury at the end of the year. This does not even include the income taxes paid by Berkshire Hathaway to foreign governments and the 44 states in the United States.

Buffett also expressed in his shareholder letter that he hopes Berkshire Hathaway will pay more taxes to the treasury in the future, and he hopes the country will wisely use these funds to take care of those who are unfairly treated through no fault of their own and maintain a stable monetary system.

Berkshire Hathaway sells Apple and Bank of America

Part of the reason Berkshire Hathaway paid such a hefty tax bill is its large sales of two major stock holdings last year - Apple Inc. and Bank of America Corp. Although Buffett has repeatedly emphasized that Apple is a good company worth long-term investment, he believed at the time that tax rates might rise to fund the ever-expanding U.S. budget deficit, so he reduced some of the holdings in advance to avoid high tax rates. However, according to the fourth-quarter financial report, Berkshire Hathaway has stopped reducing its Apple stock holdings.

President Trump has vowed to further reduce corporate taxes. In his first term in 2017, Trump has already cut the corporate tax rate to 21% from 35%(.

Despite some comments that Berkshire's current cash holdings are unusually high, Buffett emphasizes that most of the funds are still in equity investments, and this preference will not change. Equity investments are mainly concentrated in US companies, but many of these companies also have significant international operations. Like Apple, American Express, Coca-Cola, and Moody's, Buffett holds a small fraction of shares in these well-known large enterprises, and does not need to participate in operations, with a very high return on investment. As of the end of the year, Berkshire's total market value of holdings in these companies is $272 billion.

Significantly increasing holdings of US Treasury bonds to raise yields

In 2024, despite a 53% decline in performance in 189 of Berkshire's operations, the overall performance exceeded expectations. The increase in U.S. Treasury bond yields significantly increased the company's investment income and substantially increased the holdings of highly liquid short-term securities.

According to its annual report, by the end of 2024, Berkshire Hathaway held $286.5 billion in short-term US Treasury securities, more than double the amount at the end of 2023.

This article Pokka Xia paid a sky-high tax of 26.8 billion, accounting for 5% of all American companies, and sent millions of checks to pay off the debt, which was first reported by Chain News ABMedia.