Activision Blizzard pays $0 in taxes for 2018

On April 16 2019 06:22 Jathin wrote:
So before this thread gets out of hand, there are a few things worth mentioning. First, the article is inaccurate. Activision Blizzard (ATVI) paid $64M in taxes in 2018, $878M in 2017, and $140M in 2016. Still, the $64M they paid in the last year is an effective tax rate of 3%.

Here's how it works: you start with the federal tax rate of 21% and you make adjustments off of it based on tax deductions. For example, research and development allowed them to shave 2% off that rate. I won't make an ethical judgment on which adjustments are unfair and which are fair (there's a little bit of both), but in the end they're all legal. After all adjustments, the effective rate is what you wind up with.

The thing to keep in mind is that the effective tax rate for any given year doesn't tell you the whole story. Sometimes tax adjustments get pulled forward/back to different years. For example, Blizzard's tax rates were:

2018: 3%
2017: 76%
2016: 13%
Average: 30.67%

So it's a bit sensationalist to look at any one year and cry foul. The other thing to keep in mind is that there's a difference between cash tax rate and paper-tax rate. Sometimes the tax adjustment is simply an adjustment to their balance sheet but no money exchanges hands. When the U.S. Tax Reform Act passed, there were huge adjustments on companies' balance sheets that caused huge swings in effective tax rates. So it's a bit disingenuous for reporters to use these numbers and act like corporate America is screwing Uncle Sam (there are other ways you're getting screwed, but this isn't one of them).

Long story short, taxes are complicated and while almost certainly this thread is going to be full of people screaming, "bloody murder," there's more to it than meets the eye.

Tax info is on footnote page F-53 in their 10-K: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/718877/000104746919000788/a2237840z10-k.htm

On April 16 2019 05:43 myRZeth wrote:
That's plain disgusting. A company with no values.

On April 16 2019 07:09 fishjie wrote:
dont worry the government is getting their hands on tax dollars one way or another

On April 16 2019 06:22 Jathin wrote:
So before this thread gets out of hand, there are a few things worth mentioning. First, the article is inaccurate. Activision Blizzard (ATVI) paid $64M in taxes in 2018, $878M in 2017, and $140M in 2016. Still, the $64M they paid in the last year is an effective tax rate of 3%.

Here's how it works: you start with the federal tax rate of 21% and you make adjustments off of it based on tax deductions. For example, research and development allowed them to shave 2% off that rate. I won't make an ethical judgment on which adjustments are unfair and which are fair (there's a little bit of both), but in the end they're all legal. After all adjustments, the effective rate is what you wind up with.

The thing to keep in mind is that the effective tax rate for any given year doesn't tell you the whole story. Sometimes tax adjustments get pulled forward/back to different years. For example, Blizzard's tax rates were:

2018: 3%
2017: 76%
2016: 13%
Average: 30.67%

So it's a bit sensationalist to look at any one year and cry foul. The other thing to keep in mind is that there's a difference between cash tax rate and paper-tax rate. Sometimes the tax adjustment is simply an adjustment to their balance sheet but no money exchanges hands. When the U.S. Tax Reform Act passed, there were huge adjustments on companies' balance sheets that caused huge swings in effective tax rates. So it's a bit disingenuous for reporters to use these numbers and act like corporate America is screwing Uncle Sam (there are other ways you're getting screwed, but this isn't one of them).

Long story short, taxes are complicated and while almost certainly this thread is going to be full of people screaming, "bloody murder," there's more to it than meets the eye.

Tax info is on footnote page F-53 in their 10-K: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/718877/000104746919000788/a2237840z10-k.htm

On April 16 2019 05:51 Geo.Rion wrote:
Fairly standard, not even an outstanding example of this trend

On April 16 2019 17:21 Archeon wrote:

Bloody murder!
Thanks for providing the info though 76% is as insane as 3%, wtf America. Why does it swing so much?

Also @people saying that they are paying income taxes/taxes on dividents already: Smaller companies pay corporate taxes too. Whether corporate income tax is meaningful or not is a different discussion, but as a law it should apply to all companies more or less equally, right? And if anything global players like Atvi should pay more and not less?