Doctors make more than Warren Buffett - The advantage of owning a business

I had some doctor I know come up to me last week and go I am going to make 500k once I am done school and my specialty. The first thought going through my head was why would you work for such a little amount of money after all those years of school and time you put in and imagine the taxes you are going to have to pay on that income.

As you can see in the picture in this post, Warren Buffett is worth around 44 billion dollars (which is a million dollars, 44 thousand times over just incase you didn’t know). Take my doctor friend who says he makes 500k per year. You do the math, how long will it take him to catch up? Its going to take him at least 88,000 years and that is without paying any taxes ;)

The worst part about lots of these professions are that along with trading time for money, you have to almost fully show the government how much money you make and pay taxes on all of it. Yes there are ways you can allocate some income and write stuff off but it really isn’t that much. Most doctors in Canada even incorporate but unless you own your own practice the amount of things you can write-off is almost nothing. Even then the chances of a physician trying to write-off too much can lead to auditing pretty easily.

Now imagine this, the doctor is paying taxes on 500k and Warren Buffett declares a yearly salary of only 100k. My doctor friend is going to make 5x the amount Warren Buffett does but Warren will still be paying a lot less in personal taxes.

See the advantage now of being in business for yourself?

Only ever become a PHYSICIAN if you are truly passionate about it and LOVE helping people. If you are doing it for the money and lifestyle, you are completely in the wrong business my friend.