I.H.26.Warren Buffett.Accounting
1、《1998-05-04 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》
113. Berkshire is “poorly” structured for owning securities
伯克希尔在持有证券方面的结构“不佳”
WARREN BUFFETT: Area 8.
沃伦·巴菲特： 第八区。
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yeah, hi. I’m Rachel White (PH) from Missoula, Montana.
观众： 嗨，我是来自蒙大拿州米苏拉的雷切尔·怀特（音）。
And during the lunch break, I heard some people talking about double taxation and how that impacts Berkshire’s investment philosophy. So I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about it. I’m not sure I understood it. And if you could explain whether that impacts your investments.
午餐休息时，我听到一些人讨论双重征税以及它如何影响伯克希尔的投资理念。所以我想问您能不能谈谈这个问题。我不确定自己是否理解了。如果可以的话，请解释一下这是否影响您的投资。
WARREN BUFFETT: Well, we are structured very poorly. And if you were looking — if you’re going to start all over again and do most of the things we’ve done, you would probably not do it in corporate form, or precisely like we do it.
沃伦·巴菲特： 嗯，我们的结构确实很差。如果你重新开始，并打算做我们已经做的大部分事情，你可能不会选择公司形式，或者不会完全像我们现在的方式一样运作。
I mean, what that gentleman was talking about in connection with McDonald’s applies much more to Berkshire Hathaway by far than McDonald’s, in terms of de-taxing part of the income stream.
我的意思是，那位先生提到的关于麦当劳的问题，从减少部分收入流的税负角度来看，这一点对伯克希尔的适用程度远远超过麦当劳。
If we own Coca-Cola with a cost of a billion-two or a billion-three and a market value of 15 billion, we’re not going to sell it.
比如说，我们持有可口可乐的成本为12亿或13亿美元，而其市值是150亿美元，我们不会卖掉它。
But if we did sell it, we would incur a capital gains tax on the order, almost, of $5 billion.
但是如果我们卖掉它，我们将面临大约50亿美元的资本利得税。
That means that the 15 becomes 10 billion. Now, if that 10 billion is reflected in Berkshire’s value and you bought your stock when we bought our Coke, then you pay a second tax, in turn, in reflection of the Coca-Cola appreciation that has taken place after tax. So it’s a very disadvantageous way of owning securities, to have a corporation in between you and the securities themselves.
这意味着150亿美元变成了100亿美元。如果这100亿美元反映在伯克希尔的价值中，而你在我们购买可口可乐时买入了我们的股票，那么你将再一次支付税，这反映了可口可乐税后升值的部分。因此，通过公司持有证券是一种非常不利的方式，因为公司位于你与证券之间。
If we ran as a partnership that would not be the case. I ran Berkshire Hathaway — I mean, I ran Buffett Partnership for many years and we only had one tax at the individual level.
如果我们以合伙企业的形式运作，就不会出现这种情况。我曾经营伯克希尔——我是说，我经营过巴菲特合伙公司很多年，那时我们只有个人层面的单一税。
So our stockholders are — to the extent that we own marketable securities — and we own a lot of them — and to the extent that we have a lot of profits over time in those — own those securities in a disadvantageous way.
因此，我们的股东——在我们持有大量可交易证券并长期获得大量利润的情况下——实际上以一种不利的方式持有这些证券。
Now, we also have a float, which helps us own them, which is a big plus.
当然，我们还有浮存金，这帮助我们持有这些证券，这是一大优势。
But corporate ownership of securities — if you have the option of owning them directly or through a partnership — corporate ownership is disadvantageous.
但是，公司持有证券——如果你有直接持有或通过合伙企业持有的选择——公司持有是较为不利的。
And we’re stuck with it. We’ve had it for all these years. We’ve got no plans to do anything about it. We couldn’t, probably, do anything about it if we wanted to.
我们被困在这种结构中。我们多年来一直如此。我们没有计划对此采取任何行动。如果我们想做些什么，可能也无法做到。
So that is a drag on our performance, compared to what would be the situation if we operated as a partnership.
因此，与以合伙企业形式运作的情况相比，这对我们的表现是一个拖累。
And Lloyd’s syndicates, for example, didn’t have that problem. Some insurance companies that operate in Bermuda may not have that problem to the same extent. Certainly partnerships don’t have that problem, to the extent they own securities. But it’s a fact of life with us and we’re going to pay a lot of taxes.
例如，劳合社的辛迪加就没有这个问题。一些在百慕大运营的保险公司可能没有这个问题，至少没有到同样的程度。当然，合伙企业在持有证券的情况下也没有这个问题。但对我们来说，这就是现实，我们将缴纳大量的税款。
Charlie?
查理？
CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah, we have no cure for the corporate income tax, and it is a big disadvantage for the indirect owner of securities.
查理·芒格： 是的，我们对公司所得税无能为力，而这对证券的间接持有者来说是一个很大的劣势。
So far we’ve surmounted it well enough but we’re carrying a load there.
到目前为止，我们应对得还不错，但我们确实背负着这个负担。
WARREN BUFFETT: It’s become a bigger disadvantage since the individual rate went to 20 percent with our corporate rate being 35 percent. If we make a dollar on a stock, it becomes 65 cents, and to the extent that you’ve owned Berkshire, that 65 cents, now 20 percent off that, becomes 52 cents. Whereas if you’d owned the stock directly, you’d have had 80 cents.
沃伦·巴菲特： 自从个人税率降到20%，而我们的公司税率是35%以来，这个劣势变得更大了。如果我们在股票上赚了一美元，这一美元变成了65美分。而如果你拥有伯克希尔的股份，这65美分再被扣掉20%的税，就变成了52美分。而如果你直接持有该股票，你将拥有80美分。
Now, when we owned GEICO and it wasn’t consolidated with us, you carried that one more extreme. I mean, GEICO had capital gains and we had a capital gain proportionately in GEICO, and so on.
而当我们持有GEICO但未将其合并入我们时，这种情况变得更极端。比如，GEICO有资本增益，而我们按比例在GEICO中也有资本增益，依此类推。
I mean, how you’re structured does make a real difference. But usually once you get into a given structure, you’re kind of stuck with it, as I indicated in the answer to the gentleman on McDonald’s.
我的意思是，你的结构确实会产生实质性的影响。但通常一旦进入某种结构，你就很难改变，就像我在回答那位关于麦当劳问题的先生时提到的那样。
CHARLIE MUNGER: Now, to the extent we have very long holding periods at the corporate level, the real mathematical disadvantage shrinks.
查理·芒格： 不过，从我们在公司层面非常长期持有的角度看，这种数学上的劣势会缩小。
WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, and we might not have been able to get the float that we have, if we hadn’t been operating it in a corporate structure, so that is a mitigating factor, too.
沃伦·巴菲特： 是的，如果我们不是以公司结构运作，我们可能就无法获得我们目前的浮存金，所以这也是一个缓解因素。
But we like to have the mitigating factors without anything to mitigate, if we get our choice. (Laughter)
不过，如果可以选择的话，我们更喜欢有缓解因素但不需要缓解任何问题。（笑）
2、《2002-05-04 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》
Now, you’ll notice there’s a note down at the bottom that’s slightly technical, but it’s an important enough item in Berkshire, and in understanding our cost of float, that I thought I’d just devote a minute to it.
现在，你们会注意到下面有一个稍微技术性的注释，但它是伯克希尔中一个足够重要的项目，并且在理解我们的浮存金成本时，我认为我应该花一分钟时间来解释它。
If you find this uninteresting, you can live a happy life without understanding what I’m about to explain next. You may even lead a happier life if you don’t understand it. (Laughter)
如果你觉得这不有趣，你可以过得很快乐而不理解我接下来要解释的内容。如果你不理解它，甚至可能过得更开心。（笑声）
As I look at the people that understand it and don’t understand it, I’m not sure which group is happier. (Laughter)
当我看到理解它和不理解它的人时，我不确定哪个群体更快乐。（笑声）
When we write — we write a good bit — and have written a good bit, I should say — of retroactive insurance.
当我们签订——我们签订了相当多——应该说，我们签订了相当多的追溯保险。
Now, in retroactive insurance, a company may come to us that’s merging with another company, and they want to put a cap on their liabilities, or define them better, from past incidents.
在追溯保险中，一家公司可能会来找我们，它与另一家公司合并，他们希望将过去的某些责任进行上限设定，或者更好地界定这些责任。
So they may come to us and say, we want you to pick up all the losses that are going to be paid from things that happened prior to, say, 1990.
他们可能会来找我们，说，我们希望你承接所有在1990年之前发生的事情所产生的损失。
And we think that we owe $1 billion — have yet to be paid in losses from that period — but we want to protect ourselves up to, say, $2 billion, or some number like that.
我们认为我们有10亿美元的未支付损失，但我们希望将自身的责任保护到20亿美元，或者类似的数字。
So they write us a check and we take over — this is called retroactive insurance — we take over their losses from the past for a specific period and for a specific amount.
所以他们给我们开支票，我们接管——这叫做追溯保险——我们接管他们过去特定时期和金额的损失。
And, when we do that, the accounting — it’s not accounting you run into every day — we’ve explained it in the past — but it creates a charge which will occur over time in the future.
当我们这么做时，会计处理——这不是你每天都会遇到的会计问题——我们之前已经解释过——但它会产生一个费用，这个费用会随着时间推移逐渐出现。
And, as you can see, in the first quarter, the 20 million of underwriting profit we made was after a total of 112 million for the amortization of this charge that is set up.
如你所见，在第一季度，我们获得的2000万美元承保利润，是在为这一费用摊销1.12亿美元之后的结果。
So, if a company comes in and says, for example, we want you to protect us up to a billion-and-a-half for losses that occurred in the past, and we’ll give you a billion dollars for it, we will debit cash for a billion dollars and we’ll debit this deferred charge for half a billion and we’ll set up a liability for a billion-and-a-half.
因此，如果有公司来说，例如，我们希望您为过去发生的损失提供15亿美元的保护，并为此支付10亿美元，我们会将10亿美元记入现金账户，同时将5亿美元记入递延费用账户，并设立15亿美元的负债。
只有极少数能把问题解释的足够简单，反过来，真正理解问题的是极少数，指所有问题。
And that 500 million we set up as a deferred charge, we amortize over a period of time as we expect to pay the claims.
我们将这5亿设为递延费用，并根据预计支付的赔付时间进行摊销。
Now, there would be a lot of room for judgement — there is a lot of room for judgement — in terms of how fast we amortize that.
现在，在我们如何摊销这笔费用上，会有很大的判断空间——这有很大的判断空间。
We try to be conservative. We make an estimate of when we will pay those claims and how much we will pay, and we try to amortize it over a reasonable period.
我们力求保守。我们估算什么时候支付这些赔偿金，支付多少，并努力在合理的期限内摊销它。
I’ve got another slide that shows how those amortization charges will work over time.
我有另一张幻灯片，展示这些摊销费用如何随时间变化。
And we’re going to put these slides on the internet, because we feel that our shareholders should understand the impact of these charges that will come against underwriting profits.
我们会将这些幻灯片放到网上，因为我们认为我们的股东应该理解这些费用对承保利润的影响。
In the year 2002, we will have a 400 million-plus charge for this. It’s built into the figures now.
在2002年，我们将为此产生超过4亿美元的费用。这些费用已经计入当前的数字中。
And if we do 20 billion of premium volume, that’s about a 2 percent charge.
如果我们完成200亿美元的保费量，那大约是2%的费用。
So, to have our float be cost free, we have to make 400-plus million on underwriting elsewhere, in order to offset that.
因此，为了使我们的浮动资金无成本，我们需要在其他地方通过承保赚取超过4亿美元来抵消这一费用。
And as you can see, we did that the first quarter and we’ll find out whether we do it for the full year.
如你所见，我们在第一季度做到了这一点，我们将看看是否能做到全年。
It’s a — not many companies do this kind of business and it’s a big item with us, so I really want all the shareholders to understand it, and for that reason, we’ll put it on the internet.
这是一项——很少有公司做这种业务，而且对我们来说是一项大事，所以我真的希望所有股东理解它，为此我们将把它放到网上。
I should emphasize that in all of these contracts, we cap our liability. So a lot of these contracts apply to liabilities that primarily — or not primarily — but in a significant way, and often primarily, arise from asbestos.
我还要强调，在所有这些合同中，我们都对我们的责任设置了上限。所以这些合同中的许多适用于那些主要——或者说不是主要——但在很大程度上，通常是主要，来源于石棉的责任。
But when you read about asbestos claims accelerating and all of that, the numbers are capped in our case, in all of these contracts. So really don’t care whether we pay it on an asbestos claim or whether we pay it on an old auto liability claim, or whatever.
但是，当你看到石棉索赔加速等新闻时，我们的情况是这些数字在所有这些合同中都有限制。因此，我们不太在意是支付石棉索赔，还是支付旧汽车责任索赔，或者其他什么。
The question is whether we’ve been correct in estimating the speed at which we will pay. And in some cases, we may pay even less than our maximum amount.
问题是我们在估算支付速度时是否准确。在某些情况下，我们支付的金额甚至可能低于我们的最大额度。
So, anyway, that’s available for those of you who have previously were unhappy not understanding this and now are thrilled to know how it all works. (Laughter)
无论如何，对于那些之前不理解这一点而感到不满的股东，现在你们一定会兴奋地知道这一切是如何运作的。（笑声）
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