I am an investor in Berkshire Hathaway as a hedge against quite a concentrated portfolio that is focused on tech. It is an amazing business. It has the ability to buy and hold both private and public businesses for the long term.
If you take a look at the website (https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/) you would think it was generated in 1995 and has barely been updated visually since the time I used to use Yahoo for search!
The most interesting section is Warren Buffet’s annual letter to shareholders. Like Jeff Bezos, he writes about his investment thesis. He also discusses the state of his large bet on American business.
There are some amazing facts in this letter to shareholders, the fact that Berkshire pays a massive amount of tax to the US government
To be precise, Berkshire last year made four payments to the IRS that totaled $26.8 billion. That’s about 5% of what all of corporate America paid. (In addition, we paid sizable amounts for income taxes to foreign governments and to 44 states.)
Note one crucial factor allowing this record-shattering payment: Berkshire shareholders during the same 1965-2024 period received only one cash dividend. On January 3, 1967, we disbursed our sole payment – $101,755 or 10¢ per A share. (I can’t remember why I suggested this action to Berkshire’s board of directors. Now it seems like a bad dream.)
For sixty years, Berkshire shareholders endorsed continuous reinvestment and that enabled the company to build its taxable income. Cash income-tax payments to the U.S. Treasury, minuscule in the first decade, now aggregate more than $101 billion . . . and counting.
It is quite amazing to think of their success. Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger have been outstanding as investment managers for the long term!
The overall compounded annual gain between 1965-2024 in Berkshire is 19.9% against a 10.4% gain in the S&P 500. The overall gain is 5,502,284% in Berkshire and 39,054% in the S&P500.
Kevin Dorren 
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