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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

#211

Post by johnnyanmac »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #184
sudosysgen wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

you're just circling back to the GP's last comment, without refuting that comment.

>Credits on profits incentivize short term profit taking, while credits in products incentivize number of units shipped. The second is much better for society.

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

#212

Post by vtashkov »

spiderfarmer wrote: post #43
_uxvx wrote: post #39

[flagged]

Or HN is also used by people from the EU who feel paying taxes is necessary for a functioning society.

Or I am from the EU and I don't see many of you coming here to live your nice life with big taxes, 2 months queues for doctor appointment, 3 bedroom appartments in the ballpark of 1 million dollars AT LEAST, while net salary around $5k per month.

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

#213

Post by johnnyanmac »

chrislongss wrote: post #97
jldugger wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 4. Journalism is in a battle with the current administration Is this controversial?

Yes, as it should be. Criticize the policies, not an administration led by a party you don't align with.

Why not both? The administration doesn't stop this, the policies suck and only transfer weath from the working class to the elite

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

#214

Post by johnnyanmac »

erulabs wrote: post #15
ssklash wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what world is a massively profitable company paying almost nothing in taxes polarizing?

You 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…

context 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).

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

#215

Post by johnnyanmac »

knubie wrote: post #58
ssklash wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what world is a massively profitable company paying almost nothing in taxes polarizing?

At 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 thos…

>In reality a corporation cannot pay taxes any more than a table can

The citizen's united ruling of 2010 disagrees with you, in the US at least.

>So who pays the corporate tax?

I don't know. the same one who pays for campaign donations. IANAL.

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

#216

Post by johnnyanmac »

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…

>it in addition to the abject failure that is PPACA which ballooned US healthcare costs (not that Republicans have any alternative solutions or the desire to fix it)

quite an understatement: they broke it whlie Obama was still in office.

regardless, the idea was good but good ideas always have bad actors. It's easy to forget that Musk of 2008 had a very different image compared to Musk of today.

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

#217

Post by johnnyanmac »

iforgot22 wrote: post #153
TheGamerUncle wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dang are we back to the years of the "Thanks Obama" I guess we truly live at the end of history and have no option but to rehash the classics, don't we ?

I'll stop "thanking" Obama for the ACA when health premiums go back to something sensible. But honestly I liked everything else about him.

Let's think a lot more widely here: how many things in your life suddently got explosively more expensive over a decade. How many of those do you think would have not surged if it wasn't for [insert single thing here]?

It's the same logic people use to suppress minimum wage. But prices keep going up. Almost like that's not as big a factor as we thought.

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

#218

Post by johnnyanmac »

kjksf wrote: post #183
downrightmike wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

how many did he lay off in 2024? How many recalls did they have? How much did he spend to buy the election?

if all you care about is raw numbers, you'll fall for the grift everytime.

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

#219

Post by johnnyanmac »

scheme271 wrote: post #44
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."

I think this is a tax avoidance strategy that may save a lot on taxes. E.g. use accelerated depreciation to avoid taxes in a really profitable year and then if you have a loss or much lower profit in a subsequent year, you have successfully avoided a bunch of taxes. Not an accountant or tax lawyer so there may be a catch here.

> use accelerated depreciation to avoid taxes in a really profitable year

Tesla's earning calls tell me he should have just paid the taxes this year, in that case. Welp, hindsight.

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

#220

Post by johnnyanmac »

m3kw9 wrote: post #38
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."

Same amount of money now is worth more than in future

I think the quiet part here is

1. Companies see downwinds of a recession, so they want to wait for good times to do anything. Actually grow, pay off debts, make lateral moves.

2. companies were banking on administration changes to help bailed them out. So far, they seem to have won that gamble.

so there's general truth and then there's speculation about used to influence decisions.

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