re: YouTuber MrBeast said he was handing out bundles of $10,000 to trick-or-treaters

quote:

---

For what little its worth, this is an incorrect idea. You can't spend or give away money to save money. It simply doesn't work that way. That logic means that taxes are great then 100%.... You save on taxes by buying "personal" items like a work vehicle or work computer for yourself through your business. But you still pay for it and its still going to cost you more then your taxes, so you would have had more money not buying it at all. ETA: Sorry for the rant, my mom says that shite all the time. "oh he just wrote it off as a business expense". Its still a fricking expense that costs money.

---

You can’t Spend Money to Save Money, but you can Spend Money to Make Money. My point was that Mr. Beast does not classify the money and items given away as a gift but as a production expense. It is essentially his overhead cost. The giveaways are what create the content therefore making them the expense paid to produce said content that is then marketed to generate income. Income less expenses equals profit. I agree that expenses that are otherwise not needed but realized for the sole purpose of a tax deduction are not always wise unless they are expenses that could generate future income to offset the difference in the tax savings and actual cost of the expense. There are few exceptions to this so you aren’t completely wrong but Mr. Beast’s business model is literally built around the expense of giving away things in order to generate views which in turn generates add revenue. The people that are getting taxed to oblivion are the people that receive the giveaways because Uncle Sam will be expecting taxes to be paid by the recipient, not the person that gives the products away.