> on the bonuses of its employees from the last 13 years.

It feels like this is misrepresenting the situation quite a bit. This is not a tax bill on bonuses. This is a tax bill on equity, which is a part of the regular compensation package, and an awkward situation due to that equity being illiquid as Stripe has not gone public.

> In no year has Stripe ever made a profit.

This doesn't mean that a bonus structure isn't appropriate. Bonus are supposed to be an incentive. Achieve bold goals -> get bonus.

If anything this is more important in growing companies than in stable, profitable companies, which have achieved a sustaining business model. Why pay a bonus to people just following the algorithm.

No judgement on Stripe's specifics.

People in glass houses should not throw stones.

Stripe is not guaranteed by the taxpayer and not holding on to other people's (deposit) money.

Banks are different.

One of the greatest coups of lobbying was when the finance industry convinced politicians all over the world that banking ist just like any other industry and thus should not be regulated more than other industries.

Stripe do hold money on account of other people. When a customer pay, it does hold the money sent by the customer until your forward it to your account.

Are these deposits?

They aren't as far as I can tell.

On one hand, it's safer they only hold money for a day or two.

On the other hand, no FDIC insurance. If Stripe (or Visa or Mastercard) were to poof, what would actually happen to in-flight money? Seems like you could pretty easily lose a day or two where the client got charged, and it never got paid out.

It's not Stripe or Visa "going poof" that would be an issue it would the underlying banks they use that add risk. Stripe/Visa are not FTX. Payment processors don't use in-flight transactions to pay liabilities (salaries, rent, etc.). They also don't (as far as I'm aware) convert that cash into other assets like bonds.

However, the money may be stored in a money market account i.e short term bonds or even if it's a more normal savings account the bank itself depends on fractional lending and bonds.

I'm be very surprised if any major payment processor hasn't vetted the institutions that hold transaction funds. That said some payroll companies were hit by SVB's collapse but more so on not being able to accept checks than loosing already received funds.

The payment processor I worked for ran routine capitalization audits on the partner banks they used.

It’s a mix. Payment processors holds user funds in fbo accounts at partner banks.

Fbo accounts are technically the banks, the processor keeps the records of whose funds are whose within the account and the fdic limit applies to the beneficiary (the person the processor is holding the funds for).

Source: I worked for the treasury group at a payment processor.

That's between them, their employees, and their investors. They aren't pilfering from taxpayers.

> Stripe is raising $3.5 billion to help pay the tax (tax rate 22%?) on (some of) the bonuses of its employees from the last 13 years.

Other than the word "raising" that statement is completely incorrect.

> $3.5 billion

Recent article mentioned this was north of 5B

> tax rate 22%

That's not accurate even for US and they have employees worldwide.

> In no year has Stripe ever made a profit

Source?

> (some of)

Almost all employees get stock based compensation at big tech companies

> bonuses

These are salaries or stock based comp, not bonuses

> comparision in 2019 Stripe had 4,000 employees

Source?

Is it worth showing profit on a C-corp?