The Race to Reveal Buffett's Overtaxed Secretary

Reuters
Uri Friedman 1,552 Views Sep 20, 2011

President Obama may be repeating Warren Buffett's claim that he pays taxes at a lower rate than his secretary to sell his jobs plan, but the strategy has had a perhaps unforeseen side effect: media scrutiny on Buffett's now-famous secretary. Well, actually, secretaries. It turns out, not surprisingly, that the billionaire investor has more than one administrative assistant. And, also not surprisingly, none of them want to talk about their tax rates. 

This afternoon, The Atlantic's Garance Franke-Ruta spoke with Berkshire Hathaway executive assistant Carrie Kizer, who said she is not Buffett's secretary but has nevertheless been bombarded by calls from journalists. Kizer "is not amused," Franke-Ruta writes. Slate's Annie Lowrey, meanwhile, speaks with another administrative assistant named Debbie Bosanek, who sighs, declines an interview, and hangs up the phone. Still, Lowrey manages to dig up some information on Bosanek from good old Internet research:

According to public records and press reports, she is 55 years old, lives outside of Omaha, and has short-cropped red hair. Mentioning her name at Gorat's, an Omaha steakhouse, will get you an extra boat of gravy when ordering the hot roast beef sandwich.

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