Warren Buffett, currently valued at $142 billion and previously the wealthiest person globally, began his journey earning just a few cents as a paperboy during his teenage years.
The Oracle of Omaha submitted his first tax return in 1944 at the age of 14, reporting income from newspaper deliveries in Washington, D.C. According to the two-page filing, he owed only $7 in federal taxes, a detail he revealed to PBS News Hour in 2017.
That year, he made $592.50, slightly above the threshold requiring a tax return for anyone earning $500 or more. Adjusted for inflation, his income would now be equivalent to about $11,406.65, with taxes amounting to $134.76 based on CPI inflation data.
This is a stark contrast to the $26.8 billion that Buffett reported his company, Berkshire Hathaway, paid in taxes for 2024—an all-time high for contributions to the U.S. government, according to his annual shareholder letter.
Buffett has never resented paying taxes; rather, he’s frequently expressed that he feels he pays too little. He noted that before he took the helm of Berkshire in 1965, the company had “not paid a dime of income tax,” a situation he found “embarrassing.”
He commented in the shareholder letter that while such behavior might be acceptable for trendy startups, it raises serious concerns when it occurs at a respected American institution.
Warren Buffett’s Beginnings as a Paperboy
Buffett was born on August 30, 1930, in Omaha, as the only son of Howard and Leila Buffett, with two sisters. His father, a stockbroker and later a four-term U.S. congressman, influenced Buffett’s interest in business and finance. After Howard’s election, the family moved to Washington, D.C., where young Warren took a job delivering newspapers.
During this time, he distributed both morning and afternoon editions of the Washington Post and the now-defunct Washington Times-Herald, working a route that passed by the homes of several senators and a Supreme Court justice, as he recounted to PBS.
In 1944, from this route alone, he made $364. Additionally, having begun investing at the age of 11, he earned another $228 from interest and dividends after purchasing shares of Cities Service Preferred stock. This brought his total income that year to $592.50.
With the IRS rules then, any U.S. citizen, including minors, earning $500 or more had to file a federal return, which resulted in his payment of just $7 in taxes.
Tax Deductions at 14
Buffett behaved like any adult taxpayer would; he carefully itemized his business expenses on his tax return that year. He even included a handwritten note detailing expenses: $10 for watch repair and $35 for bicycle-related costs, both necessary for his paper route.
By claiming these deductions, he managed to reduce his taxable income—an approach any savvy entrepreneur would recognize, though he was only 14 at the time.
“I’ve paid federal income taxes every year since 1944,” Buffett stated in a 2016 response to statements regarding his tax history. “But, since I was a slow starter, I only owed $7 that year.”
The Journey from Paperboy to Billionaire
That newspaper route was merely the beginning for Buffett.
By age 15, he had accrued $2,000 from his deliveries, investing $1,200 of that to buy farmland in Nebraska, according to his 2008 biography, The Snowball, by Alice Schroeder. He even entered into a profit-sharing agreement with the farmer.
Buffett, along with a friend, also purchased a used pinball machine for $25, placed it in a barbershop, and quickly expanded to three locations in Washington, D.C., eventually selling the operation for $1,200.
“I built a small empire out of it,” he shared with Bill Gates during a visit to a candy store in Omaha, close to the site of Berkshire Hathaway’s shareholder meeting in 2018.
By the time he finished college, Buffett had saved $9,800. He later studied under the legendary value investor Benjamin Graham at Columbia Business School, launched his own investment partnership in 1956, and took over a failing textile company, Berkshire Hathaway, in the mid-1960s—transforming it into a global powerhouse. Buffett stepped down as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway in late 2025, yet maintains a fortune of $142 billion.
The Boy Who Thought He Didn’t Pay Enough
Buffett’s relationship with the IRS is, by his own description, quite peculiar. The same individual who carefully tracked his bicycle repairs at 14 has become a leading advocate for higher taxation for wealthy individuals like himself.
He notably remarked that he pays a lower effective tax rate than his longtime secretary, Debbie Bosanek.
“She works just as hard as I do, yet pays double the rate I do,” he told ABC News in 2012. “That seems unjust.”
This disparity became so well recognized that then-President Barack Obama proposed the “Buffett Rule,” aiming to ensure individuals earning over $1 million annually would pay at least 30% in taxes. However, the legislation faced a Republican filibuster and did not pass in 2012.
Buffett has continued to advocate for this issue, stating at Berkshire Hathaway’s 2024 shareholder meeting that increased taxes were “quite likely” due to fiscal policy and criticized companies that meticulously seek out tax code loopholes.
“The government might eventually decide they don’t want to maintain such a significant fiscal deficit, as it carries important consequences,” Buffett remarked in 2024. “They may choose not to cut spending drastically, but instead, take a larger share of our earnings as tax.”
