Kobayashi (c) explains it to the reporters. (c) Bertel Schmitt
I think it’s better we keep this a secret, and don’t let President Trump hear that he made a big present to an unlikely recipient: Toyota, a company that used to receive a lot of hate from The Donald.
Today in Tokyo, the Japanese automaker released its quarterly earnings, and reporters congregated at the HQ noticed an oddity: Car sales, along with net revenues were up slightly in the quarter, but net income was up a whopping 94% to 486.5 billion yen, or $4.44 billion.
Asked how this miracle came to pass, Toyota’s newly minted CFO Koji Kobayashi implicitly thanked Toyota’s erstwhile tormentor Trump for the jump:
“The corporate tax was reduced from 35 to 21% in the U.S., and that resulted in the unwinding of deferred tax liabilities of our financial subsidiary in the U.S.,” Kobayashi said. Half of Toyota’s suddenly sky-high net income was due to Trump’s tax cut, Kobayashi revealed.
Of course such huge Washington windfalls will not repeat in the next quarters, Kobayashi cautioned, “however, the lower corporate tax, and the immediate depreciation of investments, as well as tax credits on R&D expenses, will continue, and we can leverage those benefits.”
A year ago, Trump threatened Toyota with a “big border tax.” Instead …
