There is nothing weird or tricky about buybacks, and the mechanism is pretty obvious and intuitive.

A company can issue new shares and raise money when they need it.

A company can buyback shares when they have extra money they can't efficiently use (see: AAPL, MSFT, GOOG).

There is absolutely nothing nefarious about this mechanism, and if tax treatments vary blame the government (don't hate the playa, etc).

Buybacks are only a problem when cash-poor companies do buybacks. Either they're depleting a small contingency reserve, or they're even utilizing debt to do it.