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Episode 329 · 2025-05-07 · 33:40 · Original in Finnish

Warren Buffett and taxes | Sami Miettinen | Negotiator 329

Originally published as “Warren Buffett Verot | Sami Miettinen | Neuvottelija 329”

A short solo update episode with two subjects. Sami Miettinen was in the room at Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting in Omaha on 3 May 2025, where the 94-year-old Warren Buffett said he would hand the chief executive's job to Greg Abel, and reports from there with clips recorded on the trip. He then goes through which of the Finnish government's mid-term tax decisions were actually recorded and which were not — including the one he calls the clear disappointment, the inheritance tax reform that was left undone. He states in the episode that the owner-friendly changes that did go through are exactly the ones he promotes professionally.

Host: Sami Miettinen

Core theses

  1. The best lesson from the Buffett half is the timing of mistakes: expensive lessons are cheapest taken with small money, early.
  2. A listed shell that looked like a mistake in itself is what made the later large acquisitions possible.
  3. The mid-term review delivered a set of owner-friendly tax changes — the share exchange cash cap, foundations as fund investors, the LP tax treaty easing — that got very little coverage.
  4. The inheritance and gift tax reform along Swedish and Norwegian lines was not done; what changed was cosmetic by comparison.

Watch and listen

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Key moments

  1. 00:00 — The Berkshire Hathaway AGM and a visit to Warren Buffett's house
  2. 01:17 — Camera trouble and the new Osmo Pocket 3
  3. 02:11 — On Berkshire shares, with Heikki Keskiväli as guide
  4. 03:10 — Buffett's house as one of his best investments
  5. 04:04 — Berkshire Hathaway the textile company
  6. 04:49 — Wisdom learned from mistakes
  7. 05:06 — Local Omaha businesses and their managers
  8. 05:34 — Harry Bottle was Buffett's Mr Wolf
  9. 06:00 — Charlie Munger's role and legacy
  10. 06:23 — Theories about the choice of successor
  11. 06:41 — Valuation levels and purchases
  12. 06:56 — The division of responsibility and the trio
  13. 07:25 — Greg Abel and the earlier candidates
  14. 07:53 — Governance and a Churchill comparison
  15. 08:43 — Questions at the AGM, and Jesse Viljanen
  16. 09:03 — Jesse's reaction to the Greg Abel news and the mood at AGM 2025
  17. 10:05 — Stock picks and news from the trip
  18. 11:12 — Neuvottelija merch and a listener competition?
  19. 13:00 — The government's mid-term review and a visit to Martin Paasi in Parliament
  20. 13:48 — The Castrén & Snellman tax seminar, in line with major owners
  21. 14:44 — Inheritance tax reform left undone; corporate tax and investment incentives
  22. 15:25 — The 10 per cent cash cap in share exchanges is to be raised
  23. 16:13 — ELTIF and fund structures
  24. 17:24 — Limited partnership versus limited company versus SICAV
  25. 18:21 — LP investors in private equity funds and tax treaties
  26. 18:48 — Foundations as LP investors in future
  27. 19:13 — Pension reform and criticism of YEL
  28. 20:09 — The clean transition investment credit is being revised
  29. 20:46 — Inheritance tax reform falls again
  30. 21:44 — Gift tax and the position of minors in generational transfers
  31. 22:14 — Still a poor outlook for the family company model?
  32. 22:42 — Why Finnish ownership matters
  33. 23:07 — Episodes with Heikki Keskiväli and Jesse Viljanen to come
  34. 23:33 — Wealth gaps — an American is €370,000 richer than a Finn
  35. 24:00 — Heikki Keskiväli at Omaha airport before the flight home
  36. 32:09 — Subscribe to the Neuvottelija channel

Summary

A short solo update episode with two subjects: Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting in Omaha, where the host was in the room when Warren Buffett announced his succession, and a list of clarifications on what the Finnish government’s mid-term tax decisions actually produced.

Omaha

At the meeting on 3 May 2025 the 94-year-old Buffett said he would recommend Greg Abel as chief executive from the end of the year; the board confirmed it effective 1 January 2026, with Buffett continuing as chair. The applause ran so long that Buffett stopped it himself, joking about whether the audience was too pleased.

The most transferable observation is not about succession. Buffett has called buying the textile company Berkshire Hathaway a mistake, and the counter-argument made here is that the listed shell is what made the later large acquisitions possible — and that the mistakes were made with small money early rather than large money late.

The tax list

What went through: corporate tax from 20 to 18 per cent in 2027; a lower top marginal rate; a higher cash consideration cap in share exchanges, which currently has to stay at ten per cent for the exchange to be tax-neutral; foundations gaining access as limited partners in private equity funds; an easing of the tax treaty requirement for LP investors; and the removal of YEL’s automatic estimated earned income for newly founded companies.

What did not: inheritance and gift tax reform along Swedish and Norwegian lines, a broader change to the generational transfer structure, and a funded pension component.

Declared interest

The host says in the episode that the owner-friendly changes that went through are exactly those he promotes for a living as an investment banker. That is the most honest moment in it, and the reason to read the assessments as a lobbying perspective rather than a neutral one.

Watch

The recording lives on the Neuvottelija channel: Warren Buffett Verot | Sami Miettinen | Neuvottelija 329. A Finnish edition of this episode is published at www.neuvottelija.fi.

In depth

The Neuvottelija AI editions carry a long-form write-up of this episode, with the Omaha details checked against CNN, CBS and Berkshire’s own release, the inheritance and gift tax changes checked against the government’s proposal, and two figures corrected: English · suomeksi.

Go deeper

People and topics

Topics: Investing & Markets Ownership, Capital & Tax Finnish Economy & Policy

AI and agent resources

Source and content status

Provenance: Finnish source: Owner page assembled from YouTube metadata, the neuvottelija.fi episode record and the publisher's own chapter marks, translated one for one; their spacing is irregular and matches the recording. This is a solo episode, so the guest field carries the host. The only Finnish subtitle track is YouTube's automatic one, so no transcript is published here and no English cues were produced. The host states in the episode that the owner-friendly tax changes he welcomes are the ones he promotes professionally as an investment banker, and the long-form write-up in the Neuvottelija AI editions carries that declaration and notes that no cost estimate is given for any of them.. English subtitles: not available on this page; this is an episode summary, not a curated transcript. QA coverage 0% (metadata only). Original episode: neuvottelija.fi. Imported 2026-09-20 · last reviewed 2026-09-20. Passages the source audio left genuinely ambiguous are marked [unclear] rather than guessed.