Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Netflix Posted Biggest-Ever Profit in 2018 and Paid $0 in Income Taxes

itep.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 512 posts

Re: Netflix Posted Biggest-Ever Profit in 2018 and Paid $0 in Income Taxes

#81

Post by matthewmcg »

onion2k wrote: post #48
driverdan wrote: post #34

Rather than being outraged at the headline, what are the actual details? Why were they able to pay no taxes? Was it due to carried losses or something like that? Anyone mad at a company for not pay taxes is misdirecting their anger. Companies follow the law. If you don't like the law elect different politicians. Don't get mad at companies that follow the law.

If I spend a few million to get some lawyers to work out a legal loophole that means I can murder someone and get away with it that wouldn't make it OK to actually do it. The same applies to tax avoidance. It might be legal but it's still wrong .

I agree with you. This is also why I oppose drone strikes which is the President (current and past two) doing exactly this.

Re: Netflix Posted Biggest-Ever Profit in 2018 and Paid $0 in Income Taxes

#82

Post by refurb »

justhelpingman wrote: post #52
shanehoban wrote: post #8

Cached [1] Edit: For those unaware, in Chrome, you can type "cache:" before the URL in the address bar (not with the quotes of course) to get a cached version from Google. [1] http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttps...

TFA: Hugely profitable tech company provides first look at how corporations are faring under new tax law The popular video streaming service Netflix posted its largest-ever U.S. profit in 2018­­—$845 million—on which it didn’t pay a dime in federal or state income taxes. In fact, the company reported a $22 million federal income tax rebate. After a year of speculation and spin, the public is getting its first hard lo…

What a terrible article. The author didn't even do enough homework to figure out why Netflix paid no tax. As a reader, I'm not even sure the 2018 tax code changes had anything to do with it.

Re: Netflix Posted Biggest-Ever Profit in 2018 and Paid $0 in Income Taxes

#83

Post by rayiner »

elcomet wrote: post #72
refurb wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question - can you give an example of a tax law that was lobbied for that benefited corporations? And I mean beyond just a decrease in tax rate which businesses would be expected to lobby for.

Big companies lobby every law for their benefits. They hire full time lobyists. Big companies can pay million $ a year for lobbying. Then the question is, does it really influence laws? Well I think if it didn't, they wouldn't spend so much money.

I think your last point is precisely backwards. Total annual lobbying spending is just $3.7 billion a year, in a $19 trillion economy. It's a tiny amount of money compared to the stakes. If lobbying was so effective companies would spend way more money on it.

It's also notable that you couldn't point to a specific tax law, like OP asked for. Lower taxes in general--nobody needs to lobby for that, there is a large contingent of people who favor that just on principle.

Re: Netflix Posted Biggest-Ever Profit in 2018 and Paid $0 in Income Taxes

#84

Post by chanandler_bong »

blackguardx wrote: post #41
driverdan wrote: post #34

Rather than being outraged at the headline, what are the actual details? Why were they able to pay no taxes? Was it due to carried losses or something like that? Anyone mad at a company for not pay taxes is misdirecting their anger. Companies follow the law. If you don't like the law elect different politicians. Don't get mad at companies that follow the law.

Companies also lobby heavily for these tax laws. The laws may be directly responsible, but big companies share some blame as well.

The answer is to outlaw lobbyists, it would fix a lot of problems. That, and enact term limits for Congress. That will fix even more.

Re: Netflix Posted Biggest-Ever Profit in 2018 and Paid $0 in Income Taxes

#85

Post by humblebee »

refurb wrote: post #67
otachack wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that simple. Companies lobby to keep, even coerce, laws that benefit them and allow these sorts of things to happen. What is the common person, or collection of persons, supposed to do when they are against that kind of force? I believe one way is to actually be involved in politics and get into the seats that govern and make the laws. But it's easier said than done.

Honest question - can you give an example of a tax law that was lobbied for that benefited corporations? And I mean beyond just a decrease in tax rate which businesses would be expected to lobby for.

I don't have a source on this, but I've commonly heard that tax software companies (intuit, hrblock, etc) lobby for not having simpler taxes because it would take away from a large part of their business. Again, no sources. Just something that is commonly thrown around.

Here is a HN discussion on it though: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16841449

Re: Netflix Posted Biggest-Ever Profit in 2018 and Paid $0 in Income Taxes

#86

Post by EpicEng »

onion2k wrote: post #48
driverdan wrote: post #34

Rather than being outraged at the headline, what are the actual details? Why were they able to pay no taxes? Was it due to carried losses or something like that? Anyone mad at a company for not pay taxes is misdirecting their anger. Companies follow the law. If you don't like the law elect different politicians. Don't get mad at companies that follow the law.

If I spend a few million to get some lawyers to work out a legal loophole that means I can murder someone and get away with it that wouldn't make it OK to actually do it. The same applies to tax avoidance. It might be legal but it's still wrong .

First, comparing the legal activity of finding ways to minimize tax liability to murder is ludicrous. You may not agree with the law, but they haven't been found to have done anything illegal.

Second, what's your specific issue with the debt carryover exemption?

Re: Netflix Posted Biggest-Ever Profit in 2018 and Paid $0 in Income Taxes

#88

Post by refurb »

40acres wrote: post #32

I assume this has something to do with the massive amount of debt that fuels Netflix original programming. That being said, our entire tax system is regressive, for both businesses and individuals, when it comes to dealing with it's complexity. A small or medium size business does not have the legal or accounting capability to navigate the tax code as successfully as a company like Netflix can. Similarly, even a high…

Regressive? The top 1% of earners paid the highest tax rate of 27.1%. The bottom 50% had an average tax rate of 3.5%.[1]

[1]https://taxfoundation.org/summary-federal-income-tax-data-20...

Re: Netflix Posted Biggest-Ever Profit in 2018 and Paid $0 in Income Taxes

#89

Post by lm28469 »

driverdan wrote: post #34

Rather than being outraged at the headline, what are the actual details? Why were they able to pay no taxes? Was it due to carried losses or something like that? Anyone mad at a company for not pay taxes is misdirecting their anger. Companies follow the law. If you don't like the law elect different politicians. Don't get mad at companies that follow the law.

> Anyone mad at a company for not pay taxes is misdirecting their anger. Companies follow the law. If you don't like the law elect different politicians. Don't get mad at companies that follow the law.

Either way it's a symptom of a rotten system.

Re: Netflix Posted Biggest-Ever Profit in 2018 and Paid $0 in Income Taxes

#90

Post by EpicEng »

druddha wrote: post #64
natalyarostova wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Argument by contrived analogy is so awful.

Can you explain why you think that analogy is contrived?

Probably because tax avoidance within the constraints of the law is actually legal, and comparing murder to tax avoidance is just silly.
Post reply on HN