
Netflix Posted Biggest-Ever Profit in 2018 and Paid $0 in Income Taxes - smacktoward
https://itep.org/netflix-posted-biggest-ever-profit-in-2018-and-paid-0-in-income-taxes/
======
driverdan
Rather than being outraged at the headline, what are the actual details? Why
were they able to pay no taxes? Was it due to carried losses or something like
that?

Anyone mad at a company for not pay taxes is misdirecting their anger.
Companies follow the law. If you don't like the law elect different
politicians. Don't get mad at companies that follow the law.

~~~
otachack
It's not that simple. Companies lobby to keep, even coerce, laws that benefit
them and allow these sorts of things to happen. What is the common person, or
collection of persons, supposed to do when they are against that kind of
force? I believe one way is to actually be involved in politics and get into
the seats that govern and make the laws. But it's easier said than done.

~~~
chanandler_bong
The answer is to outlaw lobbyists, it would fix a lot of problems. That, and
enact term limits for Congress. _That_ will fix even more.

~~~
citilife
Not siding one way or the other, that will definitely limit the amount of
_expertise_ that comes with a Congressman/Congresswoman.

Think about it, it takes at least six months for us to learn our jobs, they
have to learn about hundreds of things ongoing in the government before they
can make informed decisions. You then even rely more on lobbyists (or
"experts") who at least generally know what they are talking about.

Point being, I think this issue is a hell of a lot more complex than it seems.

~~~
wolco
Lobbyist being experts is something I've never heard before. They are
salesmen, do you want to get your nutrient information from a McDonald's
commercial? It may save you time but isn't really helpful.

~~~
delecti
The EFF is at least partially a lobbying group, do you think they're salesmen?
Lobbying is just people talking to the government.

~~~
hjanssen
Though there is a distinction between corporate lobbying and e.g. the EFF:
corporations lobby for their own interests, the EFF does it for everyone.
Besides that, if company lobbying did not exist, the EFF wouldnt exist because
there would be no one to work against. The EFF was specificly founded to
defend the peoples interests against corporations.

~~~
delecti
You need to be more pedantic. The EFF is a 501(c)(3) organization, and that's
a type of corporation.

If you want to outlaw lobbying by _for-profit_ corporations, then they'll just
create subsidiary lobbying organizations. The NRA is a 501(c)(4), which is
also a tax exempt non-profit designation, and realistically it serves
primarily as a lobbying group for gun manufacturers.

~~~
trothamel
I'd say that's selling the NRA short. I have a few friends that are NRA
members, they're as focused on gun rights as the corporations are.

~~~
delecti
That's a fair point. Though while they may not be _exclusively_ a lobbying
front for gun manufacturers, I think it's still fair to say they serve that
purpose.

------
clarkmoody
Populist clickbait headline is clickbait.

I'm sure Netflix paid tons in employer contributions to employee income taxes,
social security taxes, etc. They probably paid a bunch in sales taxes where
they made purchases. Property taxes for data centers, office buildings, etc.
So there are many more taxes that everyone pays beyond the income tax.

As others have pointed out, the tax code is immensely complex, but you
probably don't need a deep explanation for a $0 income tax bill: previous
years' financial performance can carry over into the current year.

As someone once told me: with complexity comes opportunity. Simplifying the
tax code, regulations, and laws removes the opportunity for well-funded
operations to exploit the existing complexity.

~~~
skh
_I 'm sure Netflix paid tons in employer contributions to employee income
taxes, social security taxes, etc._

This situation should not be viewed as Netflix paying tax. An employee's
benefits, pay, time off, etc. are all part of the compensation of an employee.
If Netflix did not pay this on behalf of the employee then the employee would
have to pay it. For instance, for contractors they (the contractor) pay the
full FICA and not half. This is partly why contractors generally get paid more
in terms of hourly rate.

The FICA that Netflix pays on behalf of employees is an expense. Corporations
don't pay tax on expenses. They pay tax on profits. It is a bit unseemly for
some corporations to have large profits but pay no income tax.

~~~
manquer
You and companies do pay tax on expenses typically as some type of indirect
tax (global defn, not the US defn) such as VAT, GST , excise , import/export
duties etc.

~~~
skh
A company takes in money from products and services it sells. From this amount
of money the company pays employees and equipment, services, etc. for the
running of the company. These are called expenses in business accounting. The
company does not pay tax on the money it took in that it then spent
buying/paying for things. This is what is meant by the phrase, "companies
don't pay tax on expenses".

~~~
manquer
You pay the tax on your expenses even if you have zero income .

I am not talking about the tax you charge on your product and collect on
behalf of the government. I am talking about the tax you pay for stuff you
consume as a company.

While you may be able to offset some of the taxes you have paid already
against what you collect from the customer like in Value Added Tax, you still
pay those taxes on your consumption even if there are no customers.

~~~
skh
I defined the meaning of the phrase "businesses don't pay tax on expenses". My
posts have only to do with the meaning I defined. My posts have nothing to do
with what you are talking about.

------
jjallen
There can be a huge difference between "income tax expense", which will be the
numerator for any headline income tax rate and "income taxes paid".

For Netflix this is true for 2018. In fact they paid $131 million for income
taxes, which, as a percent of their income is way higher than "$0" which the
original article claims in its.

Also, the article makes no mention of R&D tax credits, which saved NFLX $141
million in state and federal income tax credits (the second biggest
component).

It would not have been difficult to find this in NFLX's 10-K.

Netflix says the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 _cost_ them an additional $79
million

[0] "In accordance with the Act, we recorded $79 million as additional income
tax expense in the fourth quarter of 2017";
[https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1065280/000106528019...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1065280/000106528019000043/form10k_q418.htm#s207D2AE00AD558F2B1F131B519593779)

~~~
gammateam
From the article

> "In fact, the company reported a $22 million federal income tax rebate."

So if they paid 131 in income taxes, and received 141 in tax credits, then
that accounts for $10 million of the $22 million the article mentions.

That's pretty cool, I was assuming their earnings were just debt fueled.
Therefore spending more money than they made, which is always a fun way of not
sending that money to the government but on something you feel is more
productive.

~~~
briandear
It is more productive. Taxes always result in some amount of deadweight loss.
$10 million spent in the private sector is mathematically more productive than
$10 million paid to the government.

[https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/deadweight-loss-of-
taxa...](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/deadweight-loss-of-taxation.asp)

~~~
clairity
in theory (mathematically) it's more productive (in operating businesses that
can put the capital to good use quickly), but in practice, that's not
necessarily true. markets are not perfectly efficient, and have hidden losses
as well (e.g., productive asssets being sidelined due to competition).
governments are capable of putting capital to good use (hoover dam -->
california expansion, at the expense of the environment, a hidden cost).

neither markets nor governments are perfect, and such superficial arguments
are at best misleading. you can't just compare idealized markets to practicing
governments to reach substantive understanding.

------
shanehoban
Cached [1]

Edit: For those unaware, in Chrome, you can type "cache:" before the URL in
the address bar (not with the quotes of course) to get a cached version from
Google.

[1]
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttps...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fitep.org%2Fnetflix-
posted-biggest-ever-profit-in-2018-and-paid-0-in-income-
taxes%2F&oq=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fitep.org%2Fnetflix-posted-biggest-ever-
profit-in-2018-and-paid-0-in-income-
taxes%2F&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.6018j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)

~~~
kachnuv_ocasek
Nitpick: You can do this in Firefox or any other browser, as well. It's the
Google search engine that provides this functionality, not the browser.

~~~
shanehoban
Wasn't aware, thanks friend!

------
40acres
I assume this has something to do with the massive amount of debt that fuels
Netflix original programming. That being said, our entire tax system is
regressive, for both businesses and individuals, when it comes to dealing with
it's complexity.

A small or medium size business does not have the legal or accounting
capability to navigate the tax code as successfully as a company like Netflix
can. Similarly, even a high income individual can't stretch the tax code like
billionaires can. On net it seems like the lower and middle income players
subsidize the high income players both in business and personal taxes.

~~~
refurb
Regressive? The top 1% of earners paid the highest tax rate of 27.1%. The
bottom 50% had an average tax rate of 3.5%.[1]

[1][https://taxfoundation.org/summary-federal-income-tax-
data-20...](https://taxfoundation.org/summary-federal-income-tax-data-2017/)

~~~
saberience
It is absolutely regressive when the top earners, presumably earning millions
more than I do, end up paying less tax than I do.

~~~
refurb
What if they are applying a carry loss forward that year? To account for all
the money lost in an investment last year? Should we stop doing that?

~~~
jessaustin
Say we do take this option away from rich people. What are they going to do
with their money? They aren't going to shove it under the mattress. Instead,
they will consume more and invest less. Consumption is good, right? More
dollars chasing goods and services will drive profits and wages up. That will
encourage investment, not just from rich people who are subject to USA tax but
from all over the globe. What's not to like?

------
res0nat0r
It's because they're still carrying forward the massive amounts of debt
they're spending in upping the count of their original programming.

------
burp3141
I can't access the article or the cache but here is Netflix's latest annual
filing at the SEC [https://www.sec.gov/cgi-
bin/viewer?action=view&cik=1065280&a...](https://www.sec.gov/cgi-
bin/viewer?action=view&cik=1065280&accession_number=0001065280-19-000043&xbrl_type=v#)

They made 1.2 billion in 2018 income before taxes compared to 485 million last
year.

The corporate tax rate was brought down from 35% to 21% in 2018. So they
should have paid 257 million in Federal, 33.6 in State and 63 million in
foreign taxes

With the Federal and California R&D tax credits (140.7 million) and tax
benefits on stock based compensation (191 million) and other odds and ends
they brought it down to 15 million for an effective 1% tax rate. "In 2018, the
difference between our 1% effective tax rate and the Federal statutory rate of
21% was primarily due to the recognition of excess tax benefits of stock-based
compensation, Federal and California research and development credits (“R&D”),
and updated adjustments related to U.S. tax reform as a result of the U.S.
federal tax return filing, partially offset by state taxes, foreign taxes,
non-deductible expenses and the international provisions from the U.S. tax
reform enacted in December 2017."

Netflix has also deferred tax assets - easiest to think of as tax prepaid but
could also include taxes paid to foreign countries, losses from previous
years, etc.) of 689 million. So they counted the taxes against it.

In the cash flow stateemnt the supplemental disclosure is 131,069 for Income
taxes paid. So there was actual cash tax payments made.

------
patio11
Netflix has, in fact, paid $100 million in income taxes in 4 of the last 5
years and $80 million in the 5th. They just paid most of last year’s outside
the US, to the tune of $130 million. For more details, see annual report.

------
beat
This seems to be a good place for my own take on taxes...

1\. Abolish corporate income tax.

2\. Tax capital gains (and dividends) as ordinary income.

The corporate income tax is absurd. It doesn't generate a lot of revenue, but
it has a bazillion highly specific loopholes, supporting a whole cottage
industry of lobbyists and accountants. It's an unfair advantage to large
corporations that can afford the tax-cutting power (like Netflix).

The capital gains rate is the source of our most gruesome wealth inequality.
It's absurd that Mitt Romney pays half my effective tax rate on 200 times my
income. The justification for low capital gains rates is "double taxation" due
to corporate income tax. Abolishing corporate income tax eliminates that.

If the rich don't want to pay taxes, then they need to not liquify their
investments. If corporations don't want to pay taxes, they need to reinvest
their profits in growth.

~~~
CharlesColeman
I agree with you on #2, but not on #1.

I think the correct reform of the corporate income tax is to abolish the
"bazillion highly specific loopholes." If it was abolished entirely, I think
you'd very quickly see corporations being set up and used purely to evade
individual income tax, especially among the extremely wealthy.

That said, I do think it makes sense to not tax money at the corporate level
that's remitted as dividends that would be taxed individually.

~~~
beat
No one pays dividends these days anyway. It's all shifted to capital gains, to
pumping the stock price rather than delivering profits.

~~~
CharlesColeman
If the tax treatment of dividends and capital gains changed, corporate
practices would change to follow suit.

------
andrew_
(read the cached version) I'd like to see figures on how much of that $22
million was re-invested in the workforce and economies which surrounded
Netflix's productions. Those figures would be key in any personal judgement
call I'd make on the report.

------
27182818284
Googling that domain name there are a bunch of headlines like "Acme
corportation paid 0 tax". It seems to be part of their usual shtick.

The site loads, but really slowly. I feel like it has been slashdotted maybe.

------
brink
Site appears to be down.

Here's a similar article:
[https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/02/05/whatever-you-
pa...](https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/02/05/whatever-you-paid-watch-
netflix-last-month-was-more-it-paid-income-taxes-all-last)

------
p33p
The article also is not true. Netflix paid 15 million in taxes in 2018. It
says so right in the 10K:
[https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1065280/000106528019...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1065280/000106528019000043/form10k_q418.htm#s6B83C108310859E180A5F42564D76A74)

------
frebord
Can someone explain to me why businesses pay any tax at all. It makes no sense
to me that we want to restrict the flow of money through a business. Maybe we
could tax cash holdings of a company, but why would you tax any income that
ultimately goes to expansion, shareholders, employees?

People see these "tax evading" corporations as so evil, but why? Do they
really even remotely understand what is going on? I suspect they don't. Or
maybe I don't get it.

Edit: Maybe what I fail to realize is that income for a company is essentially
what I'm thinking of as cash holdings, anything else would be an expense that
would be deductible?

~~~
MagnumOpus
Income that goes towards expansion (read op-ex like salaries, or cap-ex like
infrastructure) is not taxed, it is "tax deductible".

Income that doesn't go towards economic activity (salaries, expansion) but
goes back to profit does get taxed - mostly because dividends and capital
gains are so much harder to tax for the ultra-rich due to loopholes on
offshore tax residence, inheritance tax uplifts, trusts/foundations. The
alternative would be to tax dividends and capital gains worldwide at income
tax rates -- a great idea but impossible to implement against the resistance
of every US millionaire and billionaire (also operationally quite difficult).

Tax evasion is evil morally because every dollar they don't pay, others have
to pay so they are stealing money from millions of other people. The legal
kind of tax evasion is called "tax avoidance" instead, it is still morally
wrong if loopholes are created and exploited in a very obvious fashion for the
sole reason of avoiding to give back to the society that enabled the profit.
For some reason the US and many other countries don't have General Anti-
Avoidance Rules where bad-faith tax avoidance structures can be outlawed.

~~~
x220
>Tax evasion is evil morally because every dollar they don't pay, others have
to pay

You mean the government makes others pay (unless the government just wants to
go into debt, as it usually does).

>give back to the society that enabled the profit

Most government expenditure (see: military spending unnecessary for national
defense) does jack shit for your economic productivity.

------
tvanantwerp
I wish the post went into detail about how it is Netflix paid no taxes in
2018. It's not like a company that size just decides to not pay any tax--they
are following a specific strategy to accomplish that, and not discussing that
strategy in favor of the "big bad corporation" trope makes for an
insubstantial blog post.

------
mortdeus
Just because a corporation doesnt pay any corporate tax, that doesnt mean the
Government doesnt get paid their fair share when their employees pay an income
tax on the salary thats paid to them by the corporation.

Having a 35% corporate tax AND a 35% income tax on all earners who make more
than 120k/year, means the Government would essentially recieve %70 of all of
Netflix's revenues, assuming inbound revenue and outbound expenditures are
maintained at a 1:1 rate of growth.

Netflix doesn't pay (nor should they be paying any) taxes right now because
they invest heavily in producing original content using borrowed money. When
that original content flops they still have to pay back all that money they
lost plus interest.

Netflix might have made a ton of profit this year but im pretty sure they are
still heavily in debted (in the billions last i checked). To tax netflix at
35% now that they are finally starting to see a return on their investment
would only cripple the corporation from maintaining their upwards momentum of
growth.

You only want to start taxing a corporation when they are completely self
reliant on their own revenue when funding their day to day operations and
investments towards R&D.

~~~
m463
And the customers pay for Netflix with post-tax currency.

I wonder where all this falls on the laffer curve:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve)

------
mattferderer
There is a lot of talk about increasing taxes on wealthy companies &
individuals in the US as of late again. Whether that's a good or bad strategy
I'm unsure.

Either way it seems that well paid accountants are easily winning the arms
race on how to avoid taxes. I'm curious if a government can actually win that
race.

~~~
kadendogthing
There's no race. The tools and methods used to avoid taxes are apart of the
well understood rules that were written for these companies. It's not a
secret, there's no cleverness to what they're doing (except to the lay
person). Everyone who needs to be, was and is well aware about how the tax
code is written and how it works and why it's setup that way.

The effects of the current tax laws were well known before they could even be
observed.

The government can easily put a stop to this. It's just about electing the
right people, in the right party that aren't going to invoke visions of
political and economic astrology. I think it goes without saying which party
to NOT choose.

------
zaroth
The “profit” Netflix is reporting on the one hand is an entirely different
number than the taxable net income that Netflix reports to the IRS.

Take a look at Netflix’s free cash flow for a better understanding of what a
SaaS-type business experiencing hyper-growth looks like.

Their customer acquisition cost in this case is spending on _content_. That
content will be consumed (and hence “paid for”) by subscribers primarily over
the next 1-3 years.

So as they ramp up their subscriber count, and likewise ramp up their
production spending, they are constantly outspending “Year 0” (today) to
create content which will earn back that money, and then some, over the next
1-3 years.

Netflix is able to report financial metrics which show “Net Income” I think
(and I haven’t dug into their statements to confirm this) because they
spread/amortize the cost of licensing the content over the timeframes they
expect it to be used.

Whereas for tax purposes, the money they are spending on content can be
deducted fully in the year it is spent against income for that year.

As long as Netflix grows the amount they spend on content each year, they will
have negative free cash flow and pay little to no taxes.

If they grow their subscribe base at 20-30% YoY it means they can spend 20-30%
more on content this year than they would typically be able to spend based on
their current subscription revenue. E.g. if they spend 60% of revenue on
content, and content is consumed over 3 years, they can spend closer to 80% of
this year’s subscription revenue on content, and in theory over the next 3
years they earn it back. By doing this, as far as the IRS is concerned their
cash flow and net income is truly negative.

Eventually a company will flatten out its growth curve and the weight of
servicing all that debt will require spending on content to fall below the
subscriber revenue, and in the long run cash flow must be positive for a
company to survive.

Keep in mind income taxes are just one for of tax revenue that is generated by
a company like Netflix. There is a tremendous amount of tax revenue generated
overall by Netflix, everything from taxes on the internet connectivity people
are buying to use Netflix, to sales taxes and employment taxes.

------
mikece
So they found/caught/exploited an opportunity to pay no taxes this year. Is it
a permanent thing thanks to new tax laws? It's pretty easy to see that they
have paid millions in income tax in previous years:
[https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/nflx/financials](https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/nflx/financials)

------
war1025
Paid $0 in taxes always seems a bit disingenuous to me, since they pay labor
and equipment costs that are all indirectly taxed. These companies may not pay
taxes in the ways we would like them to, or naively expect them to, but the
government still ends up with a lot of money in their coffers on account of
them.

~~~
conanbatt
Companies are not people: they never pay taxes. Either shareholders, employees
or consumers pay taxes.

~~~
war1025
Exactly.

------
rayvd
Why is it desirable to transfer money from job-producing companies and
investors to the government?

In any case, Netflix is still cash flow negative and probably carrying forward
previous losses. If that's undesirable, change the tax code, but still would
rather Netflix have the money than Uncle Sam.

------
acd
When Corporations pay zero in tax there is no schools being built, no
healthcare being paid, no roads being paved. Yet these companies reap the
benefit of other tax payers through educated labor and paying subscribers.
They do not pay for the fire department, the police department and hospitals.

One word to describe it is Leeching.

Just because you could do something does not mean you have the right to do so.

Here is the Golden rule
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule)
"One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself (positive
or directive form)."

------
ashray5
Putting aside the accounting/tax rules, why should a corporation be taxed
heavily? So the government can decide to squander the tax money? I'd rather
have the money go in the pocket of shareholders (pension funds, individuals,
index fund holders, etc.) and give people a choice on how to spend those
corporate tax savings. Wait, these individuals get taxed at a reasonable rate
when they sell the stock or when they pay sales tax on purchases made from the
stock winnings.. Hmmm, maybe government is not losing on taxes after all?

------
equalunique
If everyone who is an employee of the company must pay taxes on their income
anyways, then what's the point of taxing companies themselves - so they can be
taxed for the company income on top of the taxes already paid on operating
costs on top of more taxes for employee salary? What rationale is there
besides wanting to give the government more revenue? Shareholders might have
gained a lot, but whatever they make on their investment gets taxed anyway, so
what's the big deal?

~~~
mbar84
The point is to get as much money as possible duh.

The fact is, a company is a fiction and the idea that you can tax a fiction is
just...fiction. But if the state didn't do it, then one or all of the
following might notice that in reality they are paying quite more taxes than
is actually leaving their account: employees, investors/owners/shareholders,
suppliers.

------
smileysteve
Contrary to the reflex; this is more reason to eliminate corporate income tax;
and at the same time, eliminate the extreme dividend and capital gains tax
discounts.

------
anonymous5133
The headline is flat out false. You can see Netflix financials here:

[https://s22.q4cdn.com/959853165/files/doc_financials/quarter...](https://s22.q4cdn.com/959853165/files/doc_financials/quarterly_reports/2018/q4/Q418-Website-
Financials.xlsx)

They paid 15 million in tax for 2018.

------
dmode
Is this due to loss carry over ? The original link is timing out. Can someone
explain the rational behind carrying over your loss ? I understand you had a
loss in one year and you didn't pay taxes. But why is the business allowed to
spread that loss across multiple years and lower their taxes ? That seems a
little questionable to me.

------
dawhizkid
The $10k cap on SALT (state and local tax) deductions starting with the 2018
tax year will be shocking to many people on here living in high tax blue
states like CA or NY/NJ. If you have a very average wage and modest property
in these states you'll almost definitely pay more this year than in previous
years.

------
mattsfrey
It's called historical net operating loss, they can avoid taxes until all
their past losses are accounted for.

------
cpursley
Meh, corporations don't pay income taxes anyways even when they do; their
consumers pay the tax (it's just another expense). A national sales tax is a
better way to collect.

~~~
EpicEng
A consumption tax would all of a suddenly increase prices by a large margin
for the poorest among us.

------
glglwty
Even if you do a good job closing the 'loopholes' they can just operate with
bitcoin. Stop charging taxes on profit/income and the problem will be solved.

------
blumenko
Just to be clear, Netflix has been profitable every year since 2008, so it is
not using deferred losses. I also would like to know how it did it.

------
pankajkumar229
Why not just increase sales tax? Or make sales tax sector by sector. Since
they are almost a monopoly, it will come out of their own pocket mostly.

~~~
dawnerd
Sales tax is a tax to the consumer. I fail to see how that would affect
Netflix at all.

~~~
bencoder
Is there any difference?

They would have to lower their prices in order to keep the same price to the
end user (to keep the same number of users) and therefore get less profit.

Is it because in the states you show the same price and local (state) sales
taxes are added on top that makes it a tax to the consumer?

~~~
dawnerd
Companies here won’t lower prices, they’ll just hide the fact that there’s a
tax until checkout. At least with income tax it directly comes from their
books and forces them to either take the hit or be the ‘bad guys’ and raise
prices.

------
m0zg
The outrage at Netflix is misplaced. If you don't throw in an extra $20K with
your taxes yourself (which you can do, btw), then you'd be a hypocrite if
you're mad at Netflix for not doing the same.

Rather, you should be mad at your elected representatives at the federal level
and in the state of California in particular that they passed the laws that
make this possible. Stop electing the same idiots for decades, force them to
pass term limits, and _maybe_ something will change. Until then, enjoy
Netflix's free ride.

------
d--b
Now here's a problem whose fixing would truly make the world a better place!

Why is there no YC/SV initiative to help make tech companies freaking pay
their goddamn taxes?

Sounds easier than basic income experiments, robocars and going to Mars.

~~~
ghouse
They do pay their taxes. This is a problem with the tax code, not the company.

------
exabrial
> is precisely the sort of company that should be paying its fair share of
> income taxes

This greatly annoys me. We have a massive federal budget already. Personally
30 cents of every 100 cents I own is taken from me forcibly.

------
calkuta
How much taxes did Netflix employees and executives pay?

------
simplecomplex
This disingenuous rage bait doesn’t belong here.

Carryover is a pretty basic aspect of corporate taxes, and it makes sense.
Previous years' financial performance (losses, debt) can carry over into the
current year.

------
objektif
People I know pay their taxes how is NFLX people?

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djschnei
Drastically simplify the tax code. Boom. Done.

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stuaxo
Right, I'm going to unsubscribe at end of this years sub, I'm not subsidising
this business through tax.

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devy
Right, I'd follow suit except how do you watch your favorite Netflix original
content though? :(

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atmosx
Torrents? I mean, by them not paying taxes, you're already "paying" for
content indirectly.

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swarnie_
Since this post has 37 points i presume the link is loading for some people?
Any hints on how i get it to work?

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namuol
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttps...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fitep.org%2Fnetflix-
posted-biggest-ever-profit-in-2018-and-paid-0-in-income-
taxes%2F&oq=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fitep.org%2Fnetflix-posted-biggest-ever-
profit-in-2018-and-paid-0-in-income-
taxes%2F&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.6018j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)

~~~
SilasX
Getting a 404 for that too.

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jakelarkin
tl;dr we are upset GAAP net income does not equal taxable income.

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fredgrott
we use to have an amt alternative minimum tax in the United States...sounds
like we need to bring it back asap

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decebalus1
[https://imgur.com/gallery/tMpZo](https://imgur.com/gallery/tMpZo) <\- this
comment section

