The build-out of artificial intelligence data centers along with business-friendly provisions in President Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" are combining to make 2025 a banner tax year for Big Tech.
The build-out of artificial intelligence data centers along with business-friendly provisions in President Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" are combining to make 2025 a banner tax year for Big Tech.
Tax bills have dropped for three companies at the center of the ongoing AI build-out, thanks to new business world deductions enacted last year by Republicans for things like depreciation and research and development costs.
Some of the new provisions offer deferrals, meaning tax bills may be higher down the road, but the changes are set to add billions to these companies' bottom lines for now.
So far this year, Amazon (AMZN), Meta Platforms (META), and Alphabet (GOOG) have filed annual reports to the government — and all reported significant drops in what they expect to pay in US federal income taxes.
Amazon's tax bill dropped from about $9 billion in 2024 to $1.2 billion in 2025. Likewise, Meta reported a year-over-year drop from about $9.6 billion in 2024 to $2.8 billion in 2025.
The annual report from Alphabet, meanwhile, reported a tally that combined US federal and state tax totals and showed a drop from about $21.1 billion in 2024 to $13.8 billion in 2025.
These dropping tax bills for 2025 also came as all three companies report profits are on the rise.
Amazon's domestic profits jumped to nearly $90 billion in 2025 — an over 40% increase from 2024. Alphabet's domestic profits jumped over 32% to $143.6 billion, while Meta came in at $79.6 billion, a 20% jump.
Some appear to be preparing for criticism — dropping tax bills is an issue that has long inflamed anti-tech sentiments.
Amazon got unwelcome notice in 2018 when it paid $0 in federal taxes. This time, it has offered a lengthy statement to explain that it is simply playing by the new rules.
"Last year Congress made changes to the tax code to encourage greater investment in the American economy, its innovation, and its workers ... our tax bill this year reflects those changes," said the company.
The company said its varied 2025 investments included "Artificial Intelligence (AI) innovation" and totaled more than $340 billion in the US last year. It was also quick to note that many taxes deferred this year will eventually be paid, and reiterated that "this policy ultimately doesn't change the amount of tax we pay."
Meta CFO Susan Li added in her company's recent earnings call that Meta is seeing "substantial cash tax savings from the new US tax laws, given the significant investments that we're making in infrastructure and R&D."
A key reason for the windfalls: a series of tax deductions enacted last year and signed into law by Trump that offered credits for corporations around things like property depreciation, capital investments, new factory construction, interest expenses, and research and development costs.
A key last-minute wrinkle was allowing a 100% expensing deduction for new factories and updates to existing factories. This provision came late in the process, in part after a White House push led by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
The changes will have a notable impact on company bottom lines this year but could lead to significant tax bills down the road.
All three companies also have recently reported billions in deferred taxes for 2025. Amazon reported over $11 billion and Meta's deferred taxes topped $18 billion. The deferred federal and state taxes for 2025 reported by Alphabet were about $8 billion.
And the actual amounts these companies are set to pay this year will be a bit higher than the 2025 bill alone because of deferrals from previous years. Amazon's total payments this year, for example, total $2.75 billion.
Yet these results have already drawn criticism.
The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning think tank, charges that those three companies "avoided" almost $50 billion in taxes when comparing what they paid against the statutory rate of 21%.
The group looked at four companies and included Tesla (TSLA) — which managed to avoid federal taxes completely for 2025. They note that the CEOs of all four companies prominently attended Trump's inauguration last year.
"Tax cuts pushed through by the Trump administration last year and in 2017 have made it possible for the fastest-growing companies in the world to pay record-low federal income tax rates on their income," the group wrote. “This is likely just the tip of the iceberg with the vast majority of the nation's largest corporations yet to disclose their 2025 tax payments."
Ben Werschkul is a Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.
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Comments
By epistasis 2026-02-2219:26 What a coincidence! Good thing that after the DOGE cuts and tax increases through tariffs, the deficit has been closed. Huh, I'm seeing a deficit of $1.8T in 2025, same as the deficit of $1.8 in 2024, the gauge must be broken...
Edit: hold on, breaking news from 1776: "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the publick, or in some contrivance to raise prices" -Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations
Yes obviously this would be the case. They're taxes on income, not revenue. If they decide to invest in the future, it eats into their income.
By lotsofpulp 2026-02-233:59 In that context, income is obviously short for net income.
By SilverElfin 2026-02-2216:402 reply Sad. What we need is higher taxes on the largest and most powerful corporations and lower taxes for small business and startups so they can compete fairly. This just extends the reign of the corporate oligarchs.
By renewiltord 2026-02-2218:495 reply What we need is to cap all wealth at $200k. Any more than that and it is 100% taxed away. Inequality is the number one problem. And it should apply to unrealized gains as well. E.g. houses should not be more than $100k. And if you have a beneficial interest in something it should count as owning the whole thing. The taxes should be distributed to the poorest.
Of course if you oppose this you are wealthy and are a money hoarder. Inequality is the number one problem.
By _alternator_ 2026-02-2219:014 reply It doesn't feel like you’ve thought through the nuances and implications of this policy, and the tone makes me think you don’t really want to.
By zug_zug 2026-02-2221:50 Agree on both counts… but I do.
I’m sure there are systemic changes that are possible, and it’s a topic worthy of brainstorming
By Tanjreeve 2026-02-237:27 Personally I think we should allow billionaires to exist but there's plenty of nuances and implications to the political choice of allowing individuals to accumulate more money than countries to the point they get to put their thumb on the scales of politics and make markets less free but we aren't trained to reflexively dismiss discussion of that as absurd.
By croes 2026-02-2220:25 I guess it’s sarcasm
By renewiltord 2026-02-2221:571 reply What do you mean? We all agree that billionaires shouldn’t exist. I just think that millionaires also shouldn’t. Though now that I think of it, is it okay that hundred thousand aires should exist? This Aires is definitely not Buenos.
Billionaires are gross, millionaires are fine. You're committing the "slippery slope" fallacy in defense of excessive wealth inequality. (And if you genuinely believe what you're saying, recognize that your words are being taken as either disingenuous or foolish, and are having the opposite effect of promoting your cause).
By renewiltord 2026-02-234:161 reply Another thing I’ve thought about is having everyone wealthier than me have a 100% wealth tax. And it’s a pity that people consider caring about inequality disingenuous and foolish while people argue that some people should be millionaires while others are starving. Millionaires should not exist.
You think you're being clever in calling me out but you're just being a troll.
By renewiltord 2026-02-2322:01 Call me names but it won’t change the facts.
By thot_experiment 2026-02-2221:17 I agree with you 100% at least in spirit, I don't think any such simplistic solution would function.
That being said the current system desperately needs balance changes to nerf the stacking buffs from having money. It should be the opposite, the more money you have the harder it should be for you to get any additional money, and this difficulty curve should be asymptotic.
I agree in principle, but I think the limit should be $1 million. You get to be a millionaire but that's it. Enough money to live well, but not enough to run a pedophile island. Not enough to purchase a government. Not enough to be above the law. Certainly not enough to keep you from working and entirely alienate you from the human condition if you do want to live well.
The limit should not be a fixed dollar amount, but rather relative to what it gets you. We want to allow people to earn the luxury of retirement at a young age, including healthcare costs (not included in the US), children's higher education, etc etc. $1m is nowhere near enough for that. So let's not try to figure that, say, $3.6m is the appropriate wealth cap for 2026. Let's speak in terms of orders of magnitudes. $1m is not enough. $10m is. Let's let the minimum wealth maximum be $10m.
> We want to allow people to earn the luxury of retirement at a young age, including healthcare costs (not included in the US), children's higher education, etc etc.
Do we want that only ever be available to a privileged few? The goal should be to eliminate privilege such that the inequities of capitalism apply fairly (or unfairly) to everyone. $1m, A level of income which the vast majority of people will never see in their lifetimes, is clearly sustainable.
If you consider that an unreasonable burden then perhaps we should restructure society to be less capitalist such that everyone has an opportunity for healthcare and education regardless of income, and can retire at a more reasonable age.
By saulpw 2026-02-2320:29 Sure, everyone should have access to healthcare and education regardless of income, I agree. This is separate from the amount of wealth a person should be allowed to accumulate. We can certainly lower this amount of wealth when society has improved to this degree, but I'm merely saying that, today, we can institute wealth caps within the current system that are broadly acceptable.
By renewiltord 2026-02-235:431 reply Oh yeah, of course you want early retirement so others can slave away to create the world you live in without doing anything. No. This is why equality is important. $200k is enough.
Yes, it is reasonable for some people not to have to work for survival. A person can earn non-work through age (retirement), vulnerability (disabled, children), lottery, or contribution. We want neither pure communism nor pure capitalism.
(I've seen other comments from you on here, you know you're being an unreasonable edgelord.)
By renewiltord 2026-02-2318:061 reply I think it’s quite clear you want to place the limit at the the limit of your own achievable targets. Which sure, I’m on board with no taxes on people with the name Rene. Very self serving but not too different from yours.
I think you're wrong, it's quite clear that there are objective levels of wealth that are positive for people to aspire to, and levels of wealth that are beyond what any one person should be able to control. You can strawman all you like but it's just bad faith arguing at this point.
By renewiltord 2026-02-241:31 Yes, it just so happens that all these levels happen to be perfectly calibrated to one's own life. The Blub Paradox reigns supreme.
By fennecbutt 2026-02-231:14 Ehehe look how downvoted you are - which literally proves the point.
Humans are a bunch of greedy selfish tribal bastards, aren't we?
Don't worry, I've had similar down voting whenever I've suggested that owning more than one home in a broken housing market shouldn't be allowed.
People make noises about being all in this together but will work against it actually happening, especially Americans (see: your tragic healthcare system).
Actually laughable that in 2026 we could automate most if not all basic human needs to the point that they're free. But you know, we don't.
By twolegs 2026-02-2219:16 Why 200k? Why not 100k? Or just $10. Let's just burn all the money, that way our problems will be solved for sure.
The top companies (and the wealthiest for that matter) already pay the majority in taxes. This doesn't include the jobs created to support everything (and the taxes paid from these jobs).
We should be allowing businesses to write off research and development. This promotes forward-thinking and almost always adds new jobs during the investment phase and after.
More tax money just gets wasted at the top. California is a good example of this. They pay more in taxes than any other state and have almost nothing to show for it but a failing education system, crumbling infrastructure, and high crime.
The main issue is that those companies should be require to hire US citizens and not outsourcing, for these jobs.
The tariffs Trump had in place were a good start.
That's incorrect information, roughly half of US tax revenue is from income taxes, roughly a third is payroll taxes (not sure whether to attribute that to employees or corporations paying), and then corporate taxes and excise taxes are only about a tenth of US tax.
By tonyedgecombe 2026-02-2218:412 reply I didn’t think payroll taxes were hypothecated in the US?
By nickff 2026-02-2219:11 There was a time when that was the intent, but it doesn’t really matter anymore, as there are not enough payroll taxes to cover the programs anymore.
By legitronics 2026-02-2219:11 In general, no they aren’t. But there is the social security tax, which is individually tracked and collectively allocated for that office. And the Medicare tax which goes off directly to that program. These two constitute a major component of money going into the system.
>We should be allowing businesses to write off research and development.
The US tax code does allow business to write off R & D.
By SilverElfin 2026-02-2217:371 reply > The top companies (and the wealthiest for that matter) already pay the majority in taxes.
When you hoard far more than just a slim majority, paying a majority isn’t unexpected and it can still be unfair. But I think you are talking about federal personal income tax not corporate tax.
> We should be allowing businesses to write off research and development.
They already do in various ways.
> More tax money just gets wasted at the top. California is a good example of this.
I agree California is wasteful. But we can tax and just give the money directly to people.
> The main issue is that those companies should be require to hire US citizens and not outsourcing, for these jobs.
Not even close to the main issue. Why not just redistribute the gains instead of playing games with these other schemes?
Do you live in California?
I mean sure it might be wasteful (name one entity private or public that doesn’t suffer from assholes and corruption), but the quality of life here is far better than in Texas or any other state.
We have labor rights, environmental protection, hell even the ethical farming practices like how eggs are produced. Life here is objectively better for the people.
It’s obviously more expensive. There’s demand for people to live here. Even if some people leave more want to move here or wish they could. Shitting on California is 90% of the time some form of cope for many people. They know they could never make it here so the best they can do is complain about it from whatever **hole they’re in.
The major reason California is expensive isn't because of the things that make it nice to live here, it's because a faux-environmentalist love of sprawl and protection of single family zoning from denser, more sensible housing options for those that want them.
Instead, Californians with high incomes, but not enough to pay the outrageous price for ownership, pay outrageous rents to landlords that repackage unupdated 1970s starter homes at extreme luxury prices.
Once we stop letting landlords exploit productive labor by removing the regulatory capture, the quality of life will increase, merely through allowing more people to experience the higher quality of life. However, reversing that trend is proving extremely difficult, despite fairly widespread support among the voting population.
By gamblor956 2026-02-231:291 reply Single family zoning was implemented back in the days when California was a red state. California is still a very red state; there are more Republicans in California than most of the U.S. South combined.
By epistasis 2026-02-2318:29 Perhaps, but also it was Berkeley that invented single family zoning. There are some skeletons in the Progressive movement from a century ago, whether its eugenics or an idea of eliminating tenements, which enabled things like the destruction of the Urban Renewal movement in the following decades!
And for fixing the current housing problems, there are still a good chunk of Republican representatives in the state legislature and they are even more strident in defending zoning and keeping out apartments than the Democratic representatives. At the local level, though, I think that housing issues are an axis that is pretty non-partisan, with only small amounts of partisan influence on the beliefs of people. I think the YIMBY groups have tried really really hard to keep it from becoming partisan, because even if it does become a partisan issue and move some deeply Democratic places, it would then cement Republican places against the issue and it would be nearly impossible to make overall progress on the issue.
By SilverElfin 2026-02-2220:361 reply I don’t disagree with what you are saying. But the rise in spending per capita, even if you adjust for inflation or population growth or other factors, doesn’t make sense.
I agree the demand drives up certain costs like housing. But those are in the private markets. But I don’t understand is what the state government and local governments are spending all of the money on. And there are certainly some prominent wasteful programs such as the high-speed rail project or various programs for homelessness. I expect there’s more of those kinds of waste.
In the end, I think simply giving people money is an effective way to make society better. I’m not against the taxation as much as the low return for the additional spending that has happened in the last few decades.
By epistasis 2026-02-2221:32 It looks like the increase in spending has come from expansion of Medicaid, K-12 education, housing programs and homelessness programs.
I can't speak to the Medicaid expansion or K-12 funding that much, but I do know that the spending on housing programs have been a boondoggle, mostly to fund more first-time purchasers chasing after the same fixed supply of housing, driving up prices even more. And the homelessness problem is created by the refusal to allow housing to be built. Even the supposed successes, like SB 79, have been minor, and not allowed much more building at all. And in more conservative places like Southern LA, state laws attempting to force cities to permit more housing have been met with extreme resistance, even for the small gains that the state laws make.
For K-12 spending, that's been a disaster ever since Prop 13 gutted property tax systems and forced the state to step in to make up the difference. And Prop 13 is at the core of the housing problem as well, incentivizing underuse of land by giving such massive tax breaks to those who stay in a massive house after they have an empty nest (mostly fixed very recently), and inducing severe tax penalties to those who would like to stay in the same location but build a bunch more housing (like Greece's polykatoikias, which solved Athen's severe housing crunch...).
And high housing costs means that all labor is far more expensive than it would be otherwise, which makes building the housing expensive, which makes it difficult to expand the workforce to build housing, etc. etc. etc. Lack of housing is at the core of all rising costs in California, and the bad policies such as Libertarian Prop 13 and NIMBYs are most of it.
By gwbrooks 2026-02-2223:31 Lived in California for 30 years -- it's an amazing place. But it's hubris to assume your definition of quality of life is objective or universal.
California has seen negative net domestic migration for over 20 years. So multiple things can be true:
* It's a desirable place to live and work, for some. * For others, the net quality of life is higher elsewhere.
Triumphalism ("They know they could never make it here...") isn't a good look whether you live in Silicon Valley or Dallas.
> The top companies (and the wealthiest for that matter) already pay the majority in taxes.
First, not true.
Second, even if true it wouldn’t be surprising, if you have most of the wealth you pay most of the tax money. It’s surprising that that’s not even the case.
Third, it explains California. Of course the state with the highest GDP has also the highest tax income
By mulmen 2026-02-2222:48 We don’t tax wealth though so wouldn’t we expect the highest income to pay the most tax?
