Americans find Palantir repellent for any number of ways in which it has helped advance the Trump's anti-democratic objectives. They'd likely be doubly grossed out to learn that we're all subsidizing those activities twice over: directly thru gov't contracts and indirectly thru tax avoidance.

Two ships passing in the night: Devon Energy's 10-k is pretty rare in quantifying the effect of last years's Trump tax cut *and* Biden's Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax (CAMT) on the company's federal tax bill. OBBBA= $215 M tax cut. Biden CAMT= $179M tax hike. www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Arch...

It is art that always has - and always will - save us

Alex Karp, CEO of Trump-enabling tech firm Palantir, proudly says it's "the first company to be completely anti-woke." They also seem pretty anti-paying-their-damn-taxes. Palantir's annual report shows it paid zero federal income taxes in 2025 on $1.5 billion of US income. itep.org/palantir-pay...

This isn't why I look at corporate earnings calls, but it's still fun to know that one of the main strategic priorities for KraftHeinz this past year was developing a regional mayonnaise strategy. It's still the devil's condiment tho. seekingalpha.com/article/4870...

Halliburton's not alone: Arrow Electronics is the 2nd company I've seen disclosing the income tax benefit they got last year from booking income in the Cayman Islands. $12 million income tax reduction implies (at 21% rate differential) Arrow "earned" $58 M on the beach. www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Arch...

US Senate could vote as soon as today on SJR 95, a Ron Wyden joint that would repeal aggressive tax-cutting regulations promulgated by Trump's Treasury Department last year, using the Congressional Review Act. The regs in question would hamstring the corporate AMT. www.congress.gov/bill/119th-c...

If Everton are the eighth best men's team in England, they need to come up with a better way of ordering the table. www.espn.com/soccer/repor...

The newly-required-by-FASB corporate income tax disclosure for "states that collectively make up 50% of state tax expense" is intriguing but prompts more questions than answers. Elevance Health lists New York City but not NY State. (a few that I've seen list both.) www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Arch...

For those who remember Halliburton from a time when our Vice President was evil in a comparatively pedestrian "Austin Powers" sort of way, the oil company's new annual report gives a window into some not-at-all-pedestrian offshored income: looks like $138 M of income in the Cayman Islands in '25.

Not entirely obvious how to interpret this. American Express is saying that the "statutory rate differential" between Jersey and the US saved them $423 million last year. Jersey has a multi-rate tax: 0% on most companies and 10% on regulated financial companies. Guessing Amex is the latter. (1/x)

With the release of Amazon's 10-K, we now have a snapshot of the tax-cut payoff for four tech companies whose execs lined up obediently at Trump's inauguration a year ago. Instead of the 21% income tax rate the law prescribes, these 4 paid a measly 4.9% tax rate in 2025. itep.org/trump-meta-t...

The tax avoidance data point are coming in fast and furious. American Express discloses cutting their income taxes by $423 million last year alone by shifting their income from the places they really earned it, into Jersey. www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/view...

The House of Representatives yesterday passed a bill undoing DC's OBBBA "decoupling" legislation. No Republicans opposed it, no Democrats supported it. The bill next goes to the Senate floor. www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/202...

Meta's federal tax avoidance reached a new high last year. The company recorded its lowest-ever effective federal income tax rate at 3.5% in '25, even as it enjoyed its biggest US profit haul ever at $79 billion. Trump's 2025 tax cuts are supercharging tech tax avoidance. itep.org/meta-tax-bre...

OK this is wild: Pepsico's annual report, released this morning, discloses that the company reduced its income taxes by $310 million last year by artificially moving its profits to Bermuda. Newly mandated income tax disclosures already yielding some fun headlines! www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Arch...

Congress is considering preventing DC from decoupling from OBBBA provisions, an utterly unprincipled & antifederalist move. The joint resolution that would undo DC's decision to uncouple doesn't say a word about why this is at all sensible, because it's not. (1/2) www.congress.gov/bill/119th-c...

For the 2nd straight year, Tesla reports making billions of dollars in the US and not paying one cent of federal income tax. This is a feature, not a bug, of the federal corporate tax laws now in place. R&D credits, bonus depreciation, executive stock options made it happen. itep.org/tesla-report...

Amazon reported $61.9 billion in US income and had $82.3 billion in cash on hand at the end of 2024.

Didn't know: there's a website devoted to tracking the progress of snowplowing within DC. citizeninsights.geotab.com#/dcsnowgov

So amazing that #washingtonspirit fans get to watch Trinity Rodman at Audi again in '26. Her new contract, announced last night, includes a $1 million salary, which is a new record for professional women's soccer. But it is *so* ludicrous that this is a record. (1/2) www.youtube.com/watch?v=0alz...

Intel's annual report, released today, is the first I've seen to incorporate new requirements for better income tax disclosures. Required for anyone whose 2025 fiscal year begins after 12/15/24. This'll make it easier to understand who's not paying corp taxes and why. www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Arch...

Riveting. Nina knew covering Dylan generally worked better if you omitted a few verses and this is just perfect. youtu.be/XCLgd_R6xR0

Trump's new SEC chair is worried that the disclosure requirements his agency is imposing on big corporations will result in "information overload" for investors. He is especially concerned about disclosing the ratio of executive compensation to media worker pay. www.sec.gov/newsroom/spe...

Extended thoughts on the federal tax code's $1 million cap on deductible CEO pay here: jakethesnak3.substack.com/p/curbing-ta...

@itep.org has spilled a lot of ink reminding lawmakers that the corporate/individual tax cuts in last summer's Trump tax law could hurt state budgets too. And they're right to do so. But there *are* provisions in the OBBBA that are worth piggybacking on. Case in point: section 162(m). (1/x)

TIL that the only US state that has a (partially) circular border is Delaware, which has a semi-circular northern border section that was made by drawing a 12-mile-radius circle around New Castle. Done in 1682, refined in 1750. www.nps.gov/places/delaw...

California-based Synopsys reports, in its latest annual report, a $111 million tax cut, in the form of a reduction in valuation allowance related to CA R&D credits. Likely due to California SB 711, this year's conformity bill, which makes R&D credits more generous. www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Arch...

So “the largest economic win in Kansas history” is moving a football stadium 20 miles away from its current location, with both new and old stadia in the greater KC area? www.nytimes.com/athletic/691...

He was a tight-fisted hand at the grind-stone, Romney! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner. ...And then he saw three totally non-copyrighted ghosts. (1/x) itep.org/tax-the-rich...

Break up the Dodgers: LA's luxury tax payment this season exceeds the entire payroll of the Nats (and a bunch of other teams). www.nytimes.com/athletic/690...

Still having trouble getting my head around the magnitude of this reversal. In 2012 Romney ran for president on estate tax repeal. Now he wants to end stepped up basis, and is concerned about "billionaires avoid[ing] capital gains tax." Dude must be scared as hell. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/o...

Romney's current views on tax reform also appear to dovetail pretty nicely with what @itep.org 's been pushing. Here's an annotated guide to the specifics we can glean from his @nytimes.com piece, with links to helpful ITEP pieces where available: (1/x)

New "please tax me more" op-ed from Mitt Romney is only about 13 years too late to be helpful. As a presidential candidate in 2012, he gave off *slightly* different vibes. 1) at a time when candidates still routinely released their tax returns. he refused. (1/x) www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/o...

Broadcom's latest annual report says it just "CAMT" quit the alternative minimum tax. The company's taking a $1.3 billion tax hit reflecting a writedown of the company's minimum tax carryforwards. This is an admission that they're likely to be CAMT taxpayers indefinitely. www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Arch...

England's top soccer league is set to ban teams from having "front of shirt" gambling sponsors starting next season. This is a laudable move given the visual saturation of gambling cues not just in sports but... everywhere. But teams' reactions are pretty gross. www.theguardian.com/football/202...

"We are sending every soldier $1,776. Think of that, and the checks are already on the way. Nobody understood that one until about 30 minutes ago." www.wral.com/president-tr...

Who says Pillar Two is dead? Keysight Technology reports a $13 million tax hit from the new OECD minimum tax in its new 10-K, out today. Text explains only that there are "a limited number of jurisdictions" in which they're seeing an effect. www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Arch...

Thinking about which good-gov't orgs to support financially is a little overwhelming rn. Environmental, human rights, arts, democracy itself are all under siege. But the corporate takeover of our economy seems like the hub to this wheel, which is why the work of @ilsr.bsky.social is so vital.

The Corporate Transparency Act is, duh, not illegal. So says 11th Circuit. @factcoalition.bsky.social has the details. The Court's finding that the CTA is totally legal (my words not the Court's, obv, since lawyers never say "totally") means that Trump failing to enforce CTA is totally *illegal*.

Applied Materials is the latest company to make a 10-K disclosure testifying to the usefulness of Biden's corporate minimum tax. Applied has, at year-end, $407 million of CAMT credit carryforwards. They just wrote off the full amount as unusable, a $407 million tax hit. www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Arch...

Reading a biography of a former US president who said "if it hadn't been for Gregg Allman, I never would have been president." Asked a roomful of Gen-Xer Dems last night to name the president and no one got it. (I wouldn't have guessed either.)

Good stuff from @zorkamilin.bsky.social on the potentially disastrous Treasury regs that will likely drop next week on the CAMT/R&D interaction. This Treasury Dept's regulatory agenda appears to have just 2 action items: implementing OBBBA and shredding the tax system. www.bgov.com/news/T75H3KK...

On one level it just feels like a dream that state conformity to federal tax cuts is breaking into mass media coverage. But the way Fox is reporting it- and, to a lesser extent, the way Bessent is discussing it- is just repellent and wrong. www.foxnews.com/politics/bes...

As a child of the '70s, the font move I'd want to make is to Bauhaus, which is as freaky a disco font as you'll ever see. Altho: my old Mac Classic computer had a font that mimicked the look of a ransom note, which seems more fitting for this administration. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/09/u...

Today I learned that FIFA has an ethics committee. www.espn.com/soccer/story...

Why does "we can replace the federal income tax with tariffs" have to be fact checked, you might ask. It's so deliriously wrong that it's more a fever dream than a proposal. But the thing does need to be explained, so snaps to @melissagoldin.bsky.social of AP for doing it. apnews.com/article/fact...

Really enjoying the thing in corporate quarterly earnings calls where analysts ask "how are you dealing with the tariffs" and the CEO guys use whatever code they can to avoid directly saying "we hiked retail prices." The most common phrasing is "we took pricing." seekingalpha.com/article/4849...

Starting to see corporate disclosures of the effect of OBBBA interest deduction limitation changes. UGI's annual report for the year ended 9/30/25 discloses a $31 million tax benefit related to this new tax cut. Mechanism is reducing their valuation allowance. www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Arch...

John Deere's latest earnings call shows the firm continuing to take huge hits from Trump tariffs and passing them on to consumers. FY25 estimate is $600 million, doubling to $1.2B in 2026. Sensible Q from analyst: "how are you thinking about offsetting that?" (1/2) seekingalpha.com/article/4848...