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In 2025, Meta paid an effective federal tax rate of 3.5%

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Re: In 2025, Meta paid an effective federal tax rate of 3.5%

#111

Post by varispeed »

youknownothing wrote: post #25

As someone who ran his own business for over eight years paying close to 30% tax (and is soon going to do it again), I have very mixed feelings about companies using tricks to reduce their tax burden. I mean, I like it when I do it, and I feel justified because there isn't that much that I can claim tax relief from, but seeing a big company paying such low tax rate feels wrong (even though it may be completely legal)…

Big corporations don't pay taxes the same way as regular folks' businesses. Here in the UK the tax rates are _negotiated_ for the big guys. The system is entirely opaque and invites corruption.

Re: In 2025, Meta paid an effective federal tax rate of 3.5%

#112

Post by latexr »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #90
gojomo wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're Robert Reich, you can! You can make up anything, and someone will submit it to HN to waste everyone's time!

I thought there were systems designed to effectively negate users that submit too many misleading posts.

Your parent post isn’t suggesting it’s always the same user submitting, just that users submit a lot of posts from this person.

Can’t say I agree, though. I don’t recall ever having seen one of his posts on HN, and a cursory search suggests they’re not even upvoted that much. Highest I found was under 30 points. But my methodology is flawed, as I basically searched for the name.

Re: In 2025, Meta paid an effective federal tax rate of 3.5%

#113

Post by overrun11 »

To the extent that this is even true it appears to be caused by three things: stock option compensation accounting, R&D deductions and bonus depreciation.

Stock option compensation rules have been a boon because Meta stock has risen 6x in three years. It's unlikely to do that again. My understanding is that this is symmetrical so if the stock trends down we will see an inflated effective tax rate for Meta.

Recent R&D rule changes allowing software engineering salaries for R&D to be written off seem reasonable and were quite popular on Hacker News. Previously these expenses were amortized over five years so this just pulls it forward. Subsequents years will see depressed expenses.

Bonus depreciation is once again just pulling forward legitimate expenses earlier than before. At worst they are just delaying giving the government its taxes and the corporations gain a few points of interest in between.

All of the tax rules used here are open to debate but none seem obviously wrong or nefarious. This is why people like Reich choose to keep things vague. Corporations brazenly stealing from your pocket is much more interesting than the mundane reality.

Re: In 2025, Meta paid an effective federal tax rate of 3.5%

#114

Post by akramachamarei »

mrgoldenbrown wrote: post #103
terminalshort wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxes are a subject of frequent liberal conspiracy theories. You will see all sorts of blatantly false claims like this because left wing misinformation spreaders like Robert Reich make up their own tax calculations that have no relation whatsoever to actual tax law.

No need to limit this to "liberal" conspiracy theories. Trump and his admin's statements on how tariffs and other taxes work and who pays them have been full of blatantly false claims.

"X does A" does not mean "only X does A."

Re: In 2025, Meta paid an effective federal tax rate of 3.5%

#115

Post by latexr »

youknownothing wrote: post #25

As someone who ran his own business for over eight years paying close to 30% tax (and is soon going to do it again), I have very mixed feelings about companies using tricks to reduce their tax burden. I mean, I like it when I do it, and I feel justified because there isn't that much that I can claim tax relief from, but seeing a big company paying such low tax rate feels wrong (even though it may be completely legal)…

> Having said that, there is something to be said of all the tax that is indirectly being generated by Meta: they pay high salaries, and the people receiving those high salaries will pay a significant amount of income tax.

So a few people at the top who have more money than Lucifer himself keep getting richer until they are richer than God, and the people at the bottom take on the burden. How is that a fair or good system?

Here’s a better one: Raise taxes on large corporations and obscenely rich individuals and lower them for the people on the bottom. Then Meta can pay lower salaries, but the people getting them will still be able to keep as much or more as before. Meanwhile Meta gets less money to spend around destroying democracy, and tax revenue increases for the government who can spend them to better the lives of every citizen.

Wouldn’t that be preferable?

Let’s ignore for a moment the current bonkers situation in the US, where more tax revenue would only mean more money to be stolen from the people to enrich one guy and his circle of close friends. Hey, like Meta is doing!

Re: In 2025, Meta paid an effective federal tax rate of 3.5%

#116

Post by datsci_est_2015 »

loeg wrote: post #57
datsci_est_2015 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Wouldn’t surprise me if there are different ways to report the same numbers to make the situation seem more or less favorable. Statisticians and accountants are both professional liars (speaking as a statistician married to an accountant).

> Wouldn’t surprise me if there are different ways to report the same numbers to make the situation seem more or less favorable. Yeah -- accurately, and inaccurately.

Are you implying that there are four quadrants:

  - Accurate / favorable
  - Inaccurate / favorable
  - Accurate / unfavorable
  - Inaccurate / unfavorable
Or are you implying that Meta spoke the God’s honest truth out of a sense of societal duty and honor.

Re: In 2025, Meta paid an effective federal tax rate of 3.5%

#117

Post by datsci_est_2015 »

akramachamarei wrote: post #114
mrgoldenbrown wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need to limit this to "liberal" conspiracy theories. Trump and his admin's statements on how tariffs and other taxes work and who pays them have been full of blatantly false claims.

"X does A" does not mean "only X does A."

It’s a fair retort here, though, where the grandparent comment was clearly trying to grandstand in opposition to his perceived enemy tribe, mostly unprovoked.

Edit: in other words, it’s a fair interpretation of the comment to be saying “We wouldn’t have to deal with all this misinformation about taxes if there wasn’t some giant liberal conspiracy”, given that they weren’t replying to any specific part of the parent post.

Re: In 2025, Meta paid an effective federal tax rate of 3.5%

#118

Post by loeg »

Refreeze5224 wrote: post #107
gojomo wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're Robert Reich, you can! You can make up anything, and someone will submit it to HN to waste everyone's time!

Yeah, screw Robert Reich! Always looking out for the workers who make up the majority of this country. Why won't he look out for the poor multi-national corporations, who have no one to advocate for them or their tax rates?

Hey, he can advocate for whatever causes he likes. I just think honesty makes a more compelling argument than lies.

Re: In 2025, Meta paid an effective federal tax rate of 3.5%

#119

Post by loeg »

datsci_est_2015 wrote: post #116
loeg wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wouldn’t surprise me if there are different ways to report the same numbers to make the situation seem more or less favorable. Yeah -- accurately, and inaccurately.

Are you implying that there are four quadrants: - Accurate / favorable - Inaccurate / favorable - Accurate / unfavorable - Inaccurate / unfavorable Or are you implying that Meta spoke the God’s honest truth out of a sense of societal duty and honor.

In this instance, only two combinations -- accurate and favorable vs inaccurate and unfavorable.

Meta and Meta's accountants spoke the truth in their audited financial statements. I cannot speak to the motivation in their hearts, but I am aware that there are significant financial and criminal consequences to publishing incorrect financial statements.

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