Warren Buffet condemns Trump’s tax plan, it could be a "terrible mistake"

Warren Buffett has attacked US President Donald Trump’s plan to slash taxes for companies as well America’s richest individuals.

“We have a lot of businesses… I don’t think any of them are non-competitive in the world because of the corporate tax rate,” billionaire investor Mr Buffett told CNBC, on Tuesday.

He also laid into Mr Trump’s proposal to repeal the estate tax, a move that would spare Mr Buffett’s own family a multi-billion dollar bill upon his death. Buffett, who leads multinational Berkshire Hathaway, said a proposal to repeal the ‘death duty’ estate tax would be “a terrible mistake” that would benefit the wealthiest Americans unnecessarily. The estate tax affects only the richest 0.2 per cent of families.

Many multinationals already avoid paying the top rate by taking advantage of abundant tax loopholes.

Buffett used his own situation to illustrate the impact of scrapping the estate tax. It would mean, he said, that he could leave his $75 billion fortune to 35 of his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and they would each have $2 billion.

The Republican tax plan unveiled last month calls for slashing the corporate income tax rate to 20 percent from the current level of 35 percent, which many multinationals already avoid paying by taking advantage of abundant tax loopholes.

The plan contains up to $6 trillion in tax cuts, according to independent analysts, which Trump and top Republicans say they would offset by eliminating loopholes, deductions and tax breaks and boosting annual economic growth.

Hungry for legislative victory after repeated failures in their push to overturn Obamacare, many Republicans are now willing to accept a tax plan that raises the federal deficit, a fact that bothers some deficit hawks.

In a separate interview with CNBC, BlackRock Chief Executive Larry Fink suggested that the corporate rate may not have to be cut as deeply as proposed. 

Fink said a corporate rate as high as 27 percent could satisfy U.S. businesses' need for tax relief, while avoiding an increase in the federal deficit.

"What is being proposed is a pretty large expansion of our deficits," Fink told Bloomberg TV.