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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%

#31

Post by tossandthrow »

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)…

It is easy to excuse paying taxes.

The issue that that taxes fundamentally bind two moralities: and individual and social one.

Societies generally thrive better when there is a certain level of equality. Not a hundred percent, but enough for social mobility and for people to be aspirational.

No or low taxes remove that opportunity. It bears people from taking an education and forces them in poverty.

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

#32

Post by randomtoast »

shubhamjain wrote: post #14

Where is this figure coming from? According to Meta's press release, the effective tax rate is 30% [1]. > The full year 2025 provision for income taxes includes the effects of the implementation of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act during the third quarter of 2025. Absent the valuation allowance charge as of the enactment date, our full year 2025 effective tax rate would have decreased by 17 percentage points to 13%, co…

That's why I often ask for "Source?" — because sometimes people seem to make up numbers. However, whenever I do this, I receive a large number of downvotes. Maybe it's not common on HN to back up claims with sources.

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

#35

Post by palmotea »

phendrenad2 wrote: post #9

Conventional conservative/capitalist wisdom is that corporations "don't pay taxes" because they just "pass it along to consumers as higher prices". That's why the juxtaposition here, that they are spending tens of millions to influence elections, is important. If corporations were just efficient market operators that moved goods and services, why so much lobbying? It's because the rich owners of corporations realized…

> Conventional conservative/capitalist wisdom is that corporations "don't pay taxes" because they just "pass it along to consumers as higher prices".

I'm with you, but a couple things: 1) Do you mean "shouldn't pay taxes"? Because I'm pretty sure their thing is getting corporations (and the wealthy) to pay less taxes than they already do. 2) That's not wisdom, it's a propaganda-meme. It's a misleading little story (mainly through omission) meant to get people to support a policy that's bad for them.

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

#37

Post by nocoolnametom »

philipallstar wrote: post #6

> Trickle-down economics isn't just a hoax, it's corrosive to democracy. It's a hoax in that it's a straw man that no one advocates for.

Perhaps, but the entire ecosystem of associated buzzwords/ideas is pretty popular in our culture today: "job creator" C-suite executives magically "create" jobs and/or raise pay because their budget for taxes goes down and they just don't know where else to put the cash, thus everyone benefits. Is it a straw man? Sure. Is it the same pablum often delivered by the evening news and politicians? Yes. Is reality a TON more complicated and often counter-intuitive? Yep. (Raising wages doesn't seem to have a _direct_ correlation to inflation, it's correlated but often lagging and muted in response; job creation seems to be mostly a market effect not corporate decision; the modern definition of "fiduciary duty" means extra cash should go toward immediate stockholder benefit so stock buybacks are always FAR more likely than employee benefits; etc; etc).

The one area I'd push back strong on is that nobody is "advocating" for it. Many stockholding orgs/individuals are. They don't care if its a straw man, they know what the real-world systemic effects are of lower taxation rates.

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

#39

Post by abeppu »

shubhamjain wrote: post #14

Where is this figure coming from? According to Meta's press release, the effective tax rate is 30% [1]. > The full year 2025 provision for income taxes includes the effects of the implementation of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act during the third quarter of 2025. Absent the valuation allowance charge as of the enactment date, our full year 2025 effective tax rate would have decreased by 17 percentage points to 13%, co…

I think it's from this: https://itep.org/meta-tax-breaks-trump-mark-zuckerberg/

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

#40

Post by Taek »

randomtoast wrote: post #32
shubhamjain wrote: post #14

Where is this figure coming from? According to Meta's press release, the effective tax rate is 30% [1]. > The full year 2025 provision for income taxes includes the effects of the implementation of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act during the third quarter of 2025. Absent the valuation allowance charge as of the enactment date, our full year 2025 effective tax rate would have decreased by 17 percentage points to 13%, co…

That's why I often ask for "Source?" — because sometimes people seem to make up numbers. However, whenever I do this, I receive a large number of downvotes. Maybe it's not common on HN to back up claims with sources.

It's more likely your attitude rather than your quest for verification that gets you downvotes.
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