# Warren Buffett's First Tax Bill Was $7. Berkshire Hathaway's Is Now $27 Billion > A newly surfaced 1944 tax return shows a 14 year old Buffett paid a few dollars in taxes on newspaper delivery earnings, a striking contrast to the tens of billions his company now sends to the IRS each year. - Source: Standard - Canonical URL: https://standard.de.com/article/warren-buffett-s-first-tax-bill-was-7-berkshire-hathaway-s-is-now-27-billion - Author: Camille Dubois - Section: Wealth - Published: 2026-10-04T22:24:46.050Z - Updated: 2026-10-04T22:24:46.050Z - Tags: Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway, Taxes, Wealth --- Long before he became one of the most famous investors in history, Warren Buffett was a 14 year old paperboy in Washington, D.C., filing his very first federal tax return in 1944. That document, which has resurfaced publicly, shows Buffett owed just 7 dollars in taxes that year. According to the filing, Buffett earned 592.50 dollars delivering newspapers and reported an additional 228 dollars in interest and dividend income, modest sums by any measure but notable for a young teenager already tracking his finances with the discipline that would come to define his career. The return also shows Buffett deducting small business related expenses, including the cost of repairing a watch and money spent on his bicycle, lowering his taxable income the same way a seasoned entrepreneur might. ## From a Teenage Paperboy to a Tax Bill in the Billions The contrast with where Buffett and his company stand today is dramatic. Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate Buffett built from a struggling textile company into one of the largest businesses in the world, paid roughly 26.8 billion dollars in federal taxes in 2024, according to Buffett's own annual letter to shareholders. At the time, that figure represented the largest single tax payment ever made to the US government by one company. Buffett himself is now worth an estimated 143 billion dollars, a fortune built over more than eight decades since that first modest tax filing. Despite that wealth, Buffett has remained one of the most prominent voices arguing that the wealthy and large corporations do not pay enough in taxes relative to their means, a position that stands in sharp contrast to his own company's enormous tax bill. ## A Reminder of How Far a Fortune Can Travel The resurfaced tax return has drawn attention largely because of how ordinary it looks, a handwritten, modestly sized filing from a teenager with a paper route rather than any hint of the business empire Buffett would eventually build. Taken together with Berkshire Hathaway's current tax obligations, the documents offer a vivid illustration of just how dramatically a single career, and a single fortune, can grow over time. --- Originally published by Standard. Free to cite with attribution and a link to https://standard.de.com/article/warren-buffett-s-first-tax-bill-was-7-berkshire-hathaway-s-is-now-27-billion.