Grade Your Own Homework

Tommy: Meta's auditor approved the tax break it helped invent. Dougie: I'll grade my own homework too, A-plus. Scarf: auditors are supposed to check, not pitch. Town hall: let the auditors write the taxes! Abe: did anyone independent check it? Mayor: ...yes. Tommy: I learned something today; EY now pitches that trick to other firms. Meta says it uses incentives Congress created. Dougie: hire me, EY, I invent deductions.

Meta's data-centre tax break needed its auditor's blessing and got it: EY, one of the firms Meta had consulted on the idea, signed off on claiming the research credit for AI chips and has since pitched the same move to other companies; the credit saved Meta $700 million in 2023, $2 billion in 2024 and $3.9 billion in 2025, a University of Southern California study found some companies simply relabel existing spending as research, and Meta says it uses incentives Congress created decades ago.

Starring

TommyDougieScarfTownsmanAbeMayor Dithers