
Billions in Profits, No Taxes: How the Tax Code Let 26 Companies Off the Hook - howard941
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-tax-billions-profits-no-tax-bill-822428/
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cjlars
The difference is between GAAP profits, which are what the companies report to
shareholders, and the taxable profits calculated in their IRS filings, which
is full of subsidies and incentive programs.

Roughly speaking, GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) is the
internationally accepted way of doing accounting. GAAP is a perfectly
reasonable way to calculate taxes due, but congress long ago decided that they
want to incentivize certain behavior through the tax code. It's probably worth
noting that cutting the 'red tape' on the tax code has proven to be
politically unpopular. There are a lot of incentives that are being used for
things like clean energy, business investment, hiring welfare recipients,
parental leave, etc. that won't be easy to ax. The recent tax code changes did
strengthen a few deductions and remove a few others, but this sort of behavior
is far from new.

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smn1234
Delta made $5B in Profit? Wow. I thought airlines had razor thin margins...

