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Comment by metaphor | Hacker News Reader

> Not sure what Visa's operating costs for their network are, and I'm no big fan of them (or any other credit card company) but that's far cheaper than I would have expected given the convenience provided by almost never needing cash or checks.

Of the $32.653 billon in revenue Visa pulled in last year, 2.3% was network and processing opex, while 53% was pure bottom line profit[1].

Furthermore, squaring 17.9% tax provision line item: if your household had simple married-filing-jointly tax return with an AGI greater than ~$139.5k, you paid more in 2023 taxes than Visa...and that assumes you live in a state without income taxes.

Think about that for a hot minute while recalibrating expectations.

[1] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1403161/000140316123...

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>Think about that for a hot minute while recalibrating expectations.

My hot minute is that corporations don't pay taxes, consumers do via higher product\services prices, investors do via lower investment returns, or the employees do via lower wages.

And the bonus, the government gets less taxes from those lower investment returns and lower wages.

What are we supposed to take away from a high the high profit?

How much did visa pay in taxes? Less than a single 140k family? Why are we comparing corporate taxes and individual taxes? They are completely different.

Why do families pay less taxes than corporations? I'm not a money guy or a lawyer but that seems extremely *off*.

Because corporations pass profits on to individuals who also pay income taxes.

It is a bogus comparison. Visa might "only" pay 17%, but if you are an owner, you are paying 17% and then another 20% on what's left.

Ahh, thanks for the clarification! The more I learn about how things actually work, the more irritated I get of the media for playing us.

For well capitalized and advised players, here's an idea of how things actually work[1][2].

[1] https://www.nber.org/papers/w28542

[2] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3089423

NBER finds 1% of fiscal income is unreported from pass through tax evasion. If anything, this highlights that Individuals should be the relevant level of income tax assessment.

Your arguments come off as incrementally disingenuous and intentionally misleading.

That's +1% share of a pie on the order of $TRILLIONS between 2006-2013 to which the top-1% directly benefited from by under-reporting and playing pass-through games...and this was retrospective analysis long before the TCJA corporate tailwind went into effect.

How is it disingenuous and misleading. It is a clear and accurate summary. The bottom line is 1% of income.

Im not saying it is zero dollars. Just pointing out that it is 1% for context. 50% of income would be a very different context.

> What are we supposed to take away from a high the high profit?

If you’re the sort to buy into conventional economic theory, that VISA faces no effective competition.

I would agree with that, but that does not make it a monopoly. That depends largely on the reasons for lack of competition. e.g Is Visa using its position to freeze out others, or is it government regulation, or customer preference, ect.

> How much did visa pay in taxes? Less than a single 140k family?

No...the proportional equivalent impact of ~150,300 $140k families.

seems remarkable given that visa doesnt send 150,000X children to send to school or collect 150,000X Medicare benefits.

I guess this is a way of highlighting the idea that individuals should be fundamental unit of tax assessment, collection, and evaluation. It is humans that receive government benefits, and it is humans that should pay for it.

Other methods of analysis run the risk of double counting benefits or payments.

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