NEWS FLASH

Facebook Will Avoid Paying $16 Billion In Taxes After Going Public | As ThinkProgress has noted, Facebook’s initial public offering will help both CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the company itself avoid billions of dollars in taxes. With Facebook’s offering now in the books, as Bloomberg’s Paula Dwyer wrote, the company is set to officially save $16 billion in taxes by deducting the cost of stock options granted to owners and employees. “The tax windfall will be the largest ever claimed by a company for stock option awards,” Dwyer wrote. “Facebook is an American success story. Its ability to use a stock option loophole to zero out its U.S. tax bill, despite ample profits, makes no sense. It also isn’t fair to the rest of American taxpayers who will have to pay more because Facebook pays nothing,” said Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI).