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Tesla Paid Zero Federal Income Tax in 2024, Despite $2.3B in Income

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Re: Tesla Paid Zero Federal Income Tax in 2024, Despite $2.3B in Income

#181

Post by kjksf »

lvl155 wrote: post #30

You know what’s ironic is that Tesla survived because of Obama era subsidies. They were desperate to get one private enterprise to succeed because so many solar and other “clean” energy private ventures failed during that period. So, in my view, Obama created Elon. Now the rest of America has to deal with it in addition to the abject failure that is PPACA which ballooned US healthcare costs (not that Republicans have…

> so many solar and other “clean” energy private ventures failed during that period

You can't even see you contradict yourself.

If all companies were supported by Obama but they all failed, but not Tesla, it wasn't Obama who made companies succeed but Musk who made Tesla succeed.

Not to mention you fail to enumerate those supposed subsidies.

The only significant think I know about is $465 million LOAN in 2010, which Tesla quickly and fully paid off.

Compare that to $13.4 billion loan to GM in 2008 from Bush and additional $50 billion in 2009 to bail them out from bankruptcy.

The Government (i.e. tax payers) lost $10 billion.

GM would surely not exist if not for the tens of billions of loans.

Musk would probably find a way to make Tesla work even without the $465 million loan.

I hope you see how biased your take is.

You harp on Tesla benefiting from gov support while ignoring that many other companies also get support and direct competitors like GM got 20x more support.

Re: Tesla Paid Zero Federal Income Tax in 2024, Despite $2.3B in Income

#182

Post by sudosysgen »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #165
sudosysgen wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely not, no. Credits on profits incentivize short term profit taking, while credits in products incentivize number of units shipped. The second is much better for society. Think about it from the perspective of a company deciding between selling low margin cheap EVs in the short term before process efficiencies kick in, or selling expensive EVs now.

It isn't a tax credit for making profits. It's a tax credit for making EVs. The reason there are credits for both consumers and manufacturers is that the manufacturer credits provide an incentive to build EV factories in the US, even if some of the cars are for export.

But we don't care about more profits, we care about more EVs. If you want to create an incentive to make EVs that are exported then you can make one, for example by subsidizing production equipment or by providing a per-unit sold refundable tax credit.

Re: Tesla Paid Zero Federal Income Tax in 2024, Despite $2.3B in Income

#183

Post by kjksf »

downrightmike wrote: post #170
lvl155 wrote: post #30

You know what’s ironic is that Tesla survived because of Obama era subsidies. They were desperate to get one private enterprise to succeed because so many solar and other “clean” energy private ventures failed during that period. So, in my view, Obama created Elon. Now the rest of America has to deal with it in addition to the abject failure that is PPACA which ballooned US healthcare costs (not that Republicans have…

Obama didn't make the Grifter, the grifter has a long history of grifting.

In 2024 Tesla sold more cars than Audi, employs 120 thousand people and accumulated $30 billion of cash from yearly cash flow.

But yeah, the guy that runs that company is a grifter.

Re: Tesla Paid Zero Federal Income Tax in 2024, Despite $2.3B in Income

#184

Post by AnthonyMouse »

sudosysgen wrote: post #182
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't a tax credit for making profits. It's a tax credit for making EVs. The reason there are credits for both consumers and manufacturers is that the manufacturer credits provide an incentive to build EV factories in the US, even if some of the cars are for export.

But we don't care about more profits, we care about more EVs. If you want to create an incentive to make EVs that are exported then you can make one, for example by subsidizing production equipment or by providing a per-unit sold refundable tax credit.

> But we don't care about more profits, we care about more EVs.

Which is why the tax credit is for making EVs.

Re: Tesla Paid Zero Federal Income Tax in 2024, Despite $2.3B in Income

#185

Post by kemotep »

kstrauser wrote: post #178
kemotep wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would only be taxed based on your land use so yes. Labor and Capital would not be taxed only Land.

That sounds like a terrible idea.

It’s a radical idea but with there being 1.4 billion acres of private property in the United States, at an average of $10,000 per acre for a Land Value Tax would raise 14 Trillion. Divided between the States and Federal Government, that would cover the 6.75 Trillion Dollar budget including the over 700 Billion Dollar deficit. With one single Tax that for many people would be a massive tax cut. We would balance the budget and could begin paying down the debt.

How is that a terrible idea?

Re: Tesla Paid Zero Federal Income Tax in 2024, Despite $2.3B in Income

#186

Post by oskarkk »

icameron wrote: post #156

I’m still shocked that Tesla income is just 2.3B, compared to like, Meta who reports 62.3B net income. I didn’t realize how tiny Tesla is for the amount of media attention and stock valuation they have. Even amongst automakers they are tiny. Toyota had like 32B net income.

Where did you get that Meta number from? Meta's revenue for the last quarter was 48.38B, and net income is 20.84B (and it was less in previous quarters). Tesla revenue was 25.71B. Revenue is better in comparing how "big" a company is, but it's kinda apples to oranges comparison when one company is making physical products, while the other operates websites and other services (Tesla has nearly two times more employees, for example). For Toyota I see $12.5B net income and $152.2B revenue for Q3 2024 (dwarfing Tesla). I agree that Tesla valuation is completely disconnected from its revenue and income.

EDIT: I guess that your Meta income number is yearly and it checks out. The article says that Tesla "reported $2.3 billion in income" but I think they got that number for the last quarter, because even in the SEC document linked in the article[0], page 49, I see $7B net income, the same number as in their earnings release[1]. But the SEC document also lists $1.8B taxes for the year 2024, so that seems to contradict the headline of the article, but they're talking only about US federal taxes, I guess most of these taxes is non-US or state.

EDIT2: Yes, on page 81 it's listed that they paid 0 federal taxes, $45M state taxes, and $1.3B foreign taxes. $2.3B in income for whole 2024 is US only, $7B is global.

[0] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1318605/000162828025...

[1] https://digitalassets.tesla.com/tesla-contents/image/upload/...

Re: Tesla Paid Zero Federal Income Tax in 2024, Despite $2.3B in Income

#187

Post by kjksf »

jmward01 wrote: post #108
fishtoaster wrote: post #6

Sounds like this is the result of "accelerated depreciation." As far as I can tell, that's a strategy that ultimately allows you to pay less tax one year and more tax in a later year. I don't have a strong feeling on the value of that particular tax law, but it seems somewhat less nefarious than the implied "not paying taxes at all."

Others have pointed out the strategy allows for picking the best year to pay taxes and therefore avoiding a lot of taxes. I'd add to that argument that the current administration is likely to create exceptionally favorable policies for Tesla specifically so they really should burn every trick now since they are about to get a whole new bag of them. I can just see it now, legislation built for Tesla. Of course it will…

That only works if you have a time machine or a crystal ball.

When those decisions were made, Tesla's CFO didn't know who'll win the election.

Trump will likely cancel the $7.5k EV credit so I don't see the "policies favorable to Tesla".

Trump was campaigning on renewing his previous corporate tax cuts and making more tax cuts. It's not a secret and not specific to Tesla.

Re: Tesla Paid Zero Federal Income Tax in 2024, Despite $2.3B in Income

#188

Post by kjksf »

ribosometronome wrote: post #148
linksnapzz wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gambling isn't considered an investment. It's consumption.

You asked: >How much in taxes should you pay on a loss?

It was implied that the loss here was defined as difference between corporate revenues and expenses.

This concept doesn't apply to personal income taxes and gambling losses.

Re: Tesla Paid Zero Federal Income Tax in 2024, Despite $2.3B in Income

#189

Post by kjksf »

wnevets wrote: post #33

Why pay taxes when you can just buy the Whitehouse? It's so much cheaper.

The tax rules used by Tesla in 2024 were applicable to all companies and if Democrats wanted different rules, they could have changed in 2020-2023.

But why make sense when you can opine. It's so much easier.

Re: Tesla Paid Zero Federal Income Tax in 2024, Despite $2.3B in Income

#190

Post by blake1 »

dhc02 wrote: post #69
gonzobonzo wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tax credits seem to make sense for an EV company? That's one of the things that I've found odd. A lot of people that very strongly support things like tax credits for EV cars, in order to fight climate change, will then turn around and talk about how terrible they are when they're actually used, such as in the article here. A lot of times people don't seem to have a consistent view of what they actually want, and w…

I may be the only one, but I was under the impression this whole time that all EV tax credits were for consumers who buy EVs, not companies who sell them.

There were vehicle sourcing credits in the Inflation Reduction Act, which are granted per kWh of battery with sufficient domestic mineral content. Was $4,000/vehicle if I recall.
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