First, this is narrowly about federal income tax. SpaceX presumably pays plenty of other taxes.
Second, using the projected profits in the article, SpaceX will have exhausted its NOL pool by the end of this year, and so will pay billions in federal income tax next year.
But more important: the whole point of these tax cuts and programs is to let businesses use losses today so they can create value — and tax revenue — tomorrow. Of course, if you take a snapshot after part 1 but before part 2, it will always look like “X gets Y from government and gives nothing back”.
Larrikin · 9h ago
>SpaceX presumably pays plenty of other taxes
Do you have any evidence of this?
_acco · 9h ago
You think they don’t pay payroll tax, sales tax, or property tax?
Operating a business means consuming and producing things, which involves paying taxes.
pavlov · 9h ago
Payroll tax is paid by the employees, not the company.
As for property tax, didn’t SpaceX move to its remote Texas location (“Starbase”) specifically to avoid taxes and regulations and to run its own company town.
_acco · 9h ago
False, payroll taxes are split.
And Texas is famous for its property taxes.
felix_n · 8h ago
Also false, SS and Medicare taxes are split, but federal income tax is not, with the latter typically being higher.
votepaunchy · 7h ago
Most Americans pay more in payroll taxes than income tax:
The government gets billions back in savings from SpaceX.
dlcarrier · 9h ago
NYT thinks I'm a robot, so I can't read the article, but in general startups running at a loss don't pay taxes until they've generated a return on their investment, so this isn't at all unusual and wouldn't be surprising.
hughes · 9h ago
Is the author arguing that corporations should not be able to carry forward net operating losses? Or that this one specific company shouldn't be allowed to?
I guess they forgot the time we paid $100k+/person to get to the ISS? 90% space payload goes through SpaceX and that is the biggest national security boost that frankly, NASA or the US govt could've never achieved.
First, this is narrowly about federal income tax. SpaceX presumably pays plenty of other taxes.
Second, using the projected profits in the article, SpaceX will have exhausted its NOL pool by the end of this year, and so will pay billions in federal income tax next year.
But more important: the whole point of these tax cuts and programs is to let businesses use losses today so they can create value — and tax revenue — tomorrow. Of course, if you take a snapshot after part 1 but before part 2, it will always look like “X gets Y from government and gives nothing back”.
Do you have any evidence of this?
Operating a business means consuming and producing things, which involves paying taxes.
As for property tax, didn’t SpaceX move to its remote Texas location (“Starbase”) specifically to avoid taxes and regulations and to run its own company town.
And Texas is famous for its property taxes.
https://taxfoundation.org/taxedu/glossary/payroll-tax/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecartereurope/2020/06/03/de...
Cut spending.