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In what world is a massively profitable company paying almost nothing in taxes polarizing?
by ssklash 2y ago
In what world is a massively profitable company paying almost nothing in taxes polarizing?
- 9283409232 2y agoMany people on this very website support large companies not paying taxes.
- erulabs 2y agoYou have to come into the article believing a ton of things: 1. Tax credits are illegitimate 2. Accelerated depreciation is illegitimate 3. Ownership of productive companies is "hoarding wealth" 4. Journalism is in a battle with the current administration 5. Paying taxes is a good thing If you _don't_ buy into these premises, for which there is no argument given for or against, you'll be tilted against the author. If you do, you'll be tilted against Tesla. This is polarizing. There is no nuance, there is no learning, there is no insight.
- jldugger 2y ago> 4. Journalism is in a battle with the current administration Is this controversial?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- chrislongss 2y agoYes, as it should be. Criticize the policies, not an administration led by a party you don't align with.
- hobs 2y agoOne of the policies is that if you are at all a journalist you are an enemy of the state. During his rallies he'd literally have the entire crowd riled up against the very concept of journalists, because they might not suck up to him every single second of every single day. Seriously, where do comments like this keep coming from?
- iforgot22 2y agoMaybe it's better to say the current administration is battling journalism, in a one-sided way. There's a real difference, but it looks too much like splitting hairs.
- kccoder 2y agoWhat about criticizing a lawless administration, filled to the gills with unqualified sycophants, bereft of empathy, kindness, and all human decency?
- johnnyanmac 2y agoWhy not both? The administration doesn't stop this, the policies suck and only transfer weath from the working class to the elite
- tzs 2y agoIt's more the administration is attacking journalism than the other way around. For example, the FCC regularly receives complaints against pretty much every broadcaster that they are biased and the FCC regularly dismisses those because broadcasters are supposed to be allowed to take positions that politicians may disagree with. Until now. The new FCC chairman reinstated complaints against all the major network stations that were alleged to have a liberal bias and is now subpoenaing them, and did not reinstate any complaints against major network stations (e.g., FOX) that allege conservative bias.
- etchalon 2y ago[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ryandrake 2y agoHow about simply the principle: 1. I should be able to deduct the same sorts of things from my individual income that corporations routinely deduct from their income. If a corporation can legally shield all of their income from taxes, why can't I shield all of my income from taxes? Corporations can deduct the costs of all the things they have to do to make money and do weird depreciation tricks, but I cannot deduct the costs of all the things I must pay for in order to make my own income.
- SideQuark 2y agoYou do. The biggest of all tax giveaways is the home mortgage deduction and tax deduction on employer paid healthcare. The tax sheltered things like retirement accounts, HSAs, Roths, college savings plans, energy credits, home improvement credits, car breaks, annd do on, are also huge tax giveaways to citizens. Those are the biggest tax breaks in all US law, far larger than all of corporate breaks combined. Then, as a citizen, you have tax cuts for kids, for school, for various small enterprises, for local this and that by jurisdiction, you do get depreciation on lots of goods. I could go on for the thousands and thousands of pages of personal income tax law. Being ignorantly of a thing to arrive at outrage is still ignorance.
- ryandrake 2y agoNone of these things, or even the combination of all of these things, allows an individual to shield 100% of their income from taxes, the way corporations shield their income from taxes.
- freeone3000 2y agoThey absolutely do! Earned Income is a refundable tax credit - 47% of all Americans pay no net income tax, and some receive a refund in excess of any taxes paid.
- kccoder 2y ago* excluding payroll tax deductions, both personal and employer paid (which is effectively still a tax you're paying). They also pay sales tax, which isn't an income tax per se, but when you have to spend every dollar you make to survive, it might as well be. Everyone contributes.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- iforgot22 2y agoI don't believe those things and still don't disagree with the author. Because the article is too devoid of real information for me to have an opinion on this.
- johnnyanmac 2y agocontext matters a lot, that's your nuance: 1. tax credits are legitimate. But who is using it and on what matters. getting hundreds of millions of tax credit to make horribly constructed cybertrucks does not inspire confidence. But I did want more EV benefits (those are gone now. Alas. "Drill, baby, drill" 2. I don't really know enough about accelerated Depreciation to comment 3. Ownership of productive companies is good. Keyword: "productive". Tesla has been cutting staff, closing dealerships, and again with the cybertruck. "profitable" does not equate to "productive" in my eyes. 4. Yes, Journalism for the most part is in a battle with the current administration 5. Always the fun topic to talk about. As a concept, paying taxes is good. Any more deliberation into reality may as well be its own separate topic. I do personally think corporate needs to provide more taxes, but Trump clearly disagrees this year (corporate tax cut from 21% to 15%, I believe).
- greenavocado 2y ago[flagged]
- erulabs 2y agoThere were no value judgements in either of my posts. Like the article, you’ve not presented any reasons for your opinion or attitude or derision. I value reinvestment, but now you’ve insulted a potential ally. What good does this do your cause?
- greenavocado 2y agoFixed
- moogly 2y ago> Do you think they are sitting on a big pile of cash? NO No, that would be a big pile of Bitcoin[1], actually [1]: https://fortune.com/2025/01/30/tesla-profits-bitcoin-crypto-accounting/ https://fortune.com/2025/01/30/tesla-profits-bitcoin-crypto-...
- Dylan16807 2y agoThat pile is worth 1% of their yearly revenue, so I wouldn't really say it counts.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Dylan16807 2y agoIf they depreciated some assets faster, that only delays the taxes by a year or two. They'll still pay. $300M in tax credits is basically the same as them paying $300M in tax and then getting a big check from the government for meeting some goal. I don't think it should be treated as any kind of avoidance on behalf of the company. Instead, check if the government paid that money for something useful, and if they didn't then blame the government.
- wongarsu 2y agoMaybe they assume tax rates will be better for them in 2026. Under that assumption, deprecating things now to shift the tax burden to the future is kind of avoiding tax (or more accurately: the 2024 tax rates). Given the level of corruption in the US government in general and the role of Musk in the current administration in particular that doesn't seem unlikely to me
- knubie 2y agoAt least among economists it is not that polarizing. Most agree we should get rid of corporate tax. [0] In reality a corporation cannot pay taxes any more than a table can. Only people can pay taxes. So who pays the corporate tax? It must come from the corporation's consumers, employees, or shareholders (or some combination thereof). Raising the corporate tax is just a sneaky way of raising tax on one or more of those three groups. [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/10/18/163106924/a-tax-plan-that-economists-love-and-politicians-hate https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/10/18/163106924/a-ta...
- whymauri 2y ago>Only people can pay taxes. But corporations are people..? Can't have it both ways right :/ Unless I'm missing something here.
- roenxi 2y agoYou could probably get most economists to agree people shouldn't pay income tax either; they are a distorting influence. Land/economic rent taxes really are the way to go.
- dark_glass 2y agoYes. Corporations are made of people, and they produce goods and services for other people. The people that compose that corporation pay the tax, or the people they sell to.
- emaro 2y agoBut companies are legal entities, they can buy, sell and own stuff. They aren't just a collection of people. They can make profit, some huge amounts, and they should pay taxes for that.
- machomaster 2y agoYou don't understand that in the US's capitalism corporations are people. That's why they are able to use infinite money to influence elections (because in American CAPITALism, corporations' usage of money equals free speech and you can't limit people' speech). Yes, I agree, it's absolutely insane. Google "Citizens United v. FEC" Supreme Court decision. Conveniently, they are people only when it comes to corruption and influence. But not when it comes to rules or punishment (like if a corporation killed people, it should be possible to give it a death sentence).
- Aurornis 2y ago> In what world is a massively profitable company paying almost nothing in taxes polarizing? I mean they didn't just decide not to pay taxes. They followed the tax law. They accelerated some depreciation to take it now at the expense of a higher tax bill later. They took advantage of some government credits. Corporate taxation is only one point of taxation. They pay payroll taxes, they pay sales tax on equipment they purchase at their factories, their employees pay taxes when they get paid. Low corporate tax rates are unpopular because the optics are bad, but it doesn't actually mean that money is flowing through the company and into their employees without taxation anywhere. As soon as they do nearly anything with that money other than buy more parts to sell, taxes are being paid.
- iforgot22 2y agoSomething is wrong with the tax law if this is an accounting trick that only a few companies can use this effectively, which I suspect it is. I also suspect that the CEO of Tesla supposedly being placed in charge of federal agencies will somehow reduce that future tax bill. Corporate tax doesn't have to be a thing, but if it is, it needs to be applied fairly.
- kjksf 2y agoDepreciation schedule is arbitrary to begin with. Say a company spends $1 billion in 2024 to build a factory. What is the "right" number of years (depreciation schedule)? 10? 5? 3? 1? Whatever number N you pick, tell me why it's more "right" than N+1 or N-1.
- Dylan16807 2y ago> Something is wrong with the tax law if this is an accounting trick that only a few companies can use effectively, which I suspect it is. Yes only a few companies could use this, but the main factor here is not really a trick. Any other company that sells electric cars and has 0-3% profit could do the same thing. If you get a small tax credit per sale, and your taxes are 21% of 3% of your sales revenue, and that makes your taxes smaller than the credit, then you don't have to pay taxes.
- aidenn0 2y agoTesla pays lots of taxes. They pay payroll taxes om their employees, they pay state sales taxes when they sell cars, &c. This is specifically corporate income taxes.
- tzs 2y agoSales taxes are collected by the seller for the state but are paid by the buyer.