How can I get rid of a bounty and keep my stolen items?

In Whiterun, I had a small bounty (5). Once I was bestowed a title by the Jarl for killing a dragon, I was able to flaunt my title to a guard to get him to waive my bounty.

You can get a perk in speech that allows you to bribe guards so you don't have your goods taken from you.

You can also go to the guard barracks of whatever town you're in and in the basement is a chest with your stolen stuff in it.

You can also buy a house and stash it there or give all your stolen stuff to a follower then go to jail.

If you are playing on the PC, you can use console commands to "pay" your bounty while keeping your stolen items.

Make a save game first, and then in the game, open up the console by pressing ~, then click on one of the arresting/assaulting guard(s). The guard's RefID should show up in the screen. After that, type in paycrimegold in the console. That should put you just outside the nearest jail of the hold you're in, with no more bounty on you while still keeping your stolen items.

More info on the paycrimegold console command at the UESP wiki's "Console" article.

paycrimegold - Pay the bounty for the faction targeted NPC belongs to (the bounty gold will be removed from your inventory). The first 0-1 choice refers to being sent to jail: entering 1 will let you be teleported to the respective faction's jail, entering 0 won't. The second 0-1 choice refers to keeping your stolen items: entering 0 means you do not lose your stolen items, entering 1 means you do. If you don't add any choice you will be sent to jail without losing your stolen items. The faction ID is needed if you can't target an NPC. May also help in case guards attack you on sight.

If you don't have enough gold, you can also use the console to add gold to your character. The console command to do that is player.additem f x where x is the amound of gold you would like to add. With these commands, you could essentially "pay" your bounty without losing any gold.

You can kill all the guards. I do it all the time.

Just put every item you stole in a chest you own and keep it there. Remember not to put it in a chest you dont own. The owners most likely will steal your stuff.

I just dropped my stuff on the ground behind a house and then paid my bounty after approaching a guard