from Hacker News

Zoom will pay zero federal taxes due to tax credits from previous years

by Moody_10001 on 3/29/21, 10:24 AM with 51 comments

• by ephextom on 3/29/21, 10:55 AM

  Or, told another way:

  For several years, Zoom has spent much more than it has earned ($300M more in fact), on expenses like staff, rent, services and supplies from other companies - which will have generated large amounts of income taxes, payroll taxes, sales taxes, franchise taxes, municipal taxes, etc.

  This past year they have grown dramatically, and will have generated even more income taxes, franchise taxes, municipal taxes, etc than ever before, and also some present or future capital gains taxes due to the huge increase in the company's valuation.

  They just don't have to pay federal income tax yet, until the net income they make exceeds the net losses they recorded over previous years.

• by incrudible on 3/29/21, 10:42 AM

  Fact check: True, but misleading. I'll cite:

  "The biggest reason for Zoom's de minimis tax bill is outsized executive compensation. Zoom paid $580 million in stock compensation alone in 2020, much of it likely to a handful of top executives, according to a calculation by CBS MoneyWatch based on the company's latest financial filings."

  At some point, somebody will have to pay taxes on selling that stock. Or if they never sell it, at least they will prop up the stock market, so the Fed has to do less of that with everyone else's money.

• by datavirtue on 3/29/21, 12:58 PM

  The real travesty is the excessive regulation preventing innovation and generally slowing the speed of business. If it were not for all the unnessesary ham-fisted regulation that currently exists small businesses and entrepreneurs would be better positioned to enter various markets. But no, in addition to governmental testing of baby cribs you have a government that also tests the amount of force required to light a match or the noise level of a child's cap gun.

  We have an epic event based around automobile safety that turbo charged government regulation and created a new bureaucracy that found that there was no safety concern regarding the very car that was used for establishing that very bureaucracy.

  By all means, keep complaining about taxes and regulation. They sure could use another round of debate.

• by MrPowers on 3/29/21, 12:18 PM

  Federal income taxes are highly economically inefficient. They create a huge deadweight loss of taxation (productive employees wasting their time helping corporations comply with tax law).

  Land and gas are economically efficient to tax. They don't have a big deadweight loss of taxation and create positive incentives.

  The Federal government creates tax laws that corporations need to follow. The government added the concept of net operating loss carryforwards to the tax law. Not looks like government officials are complaining about the rules they added to the tax code.

  I used to work with the Section 482 tax laws for pricing among multinational enterprises. I found the laws to be complicated and ridiculously impractical, particularly the residual profit split method for valuing intellectual property. Many companies used these laws to shift IP offshore. Politicians are made about the tax structures that were created following their laws.

  This isn't a democrats / republicans thing. Both political parties are adding tons of rules to an already bloated US tax code. And congress is constantly upset about the rules they have created.

• by refurb on 3/29/21, 10:42 AM

  * In fact, Zoom's 2020 tax bill will likely be less than zero. That's because Zoom, according to its financial statements, booked a $300 million tax credit last year to use against future earnings.*

  So basically tax credit for prior year losses.

  Not sure this is an issue?

• by addicted on 3/29/21, 12:15 PM

  This sounds extremely reasonable?

• by jokethrowaway on 3/29/21, 11:08 AM

  Really rich people will always find some way to get loopholes enshrined in law or find a foreign country willing to do it.

  There is no way around. The only people paying disproportionately more in taxes are middle class people. Incidentally that also helps rich people by having less competition at the top.

  If you want fairness, no-one should be forced to pay taxes, everyone should pay for the services they use and there should be no corruptible centralised entity who can decide for everyone.