Meta counted Mark Zuckerberg’s $4.1B stock payout as research pay to claim a $355M tax break — and the IRS wants it back

Getty Images When Mark Zuckerberg exercised a huge batch of Facebook stock options in 2012 and 2013, the company counted billions of dollars of that payout as wages for research. That helped Facebook, now Meta (NASDAQ:META), claim about $355 million in federal tax credits, according to U.S. Tax Court filings. The IRS disallowed those credits — and more than a decade later, the fight still isn't settled. The case is back in the spotlight after a New York Times investigation published Sept. 30 reported that Meta now applies the same tax break to its AI data centers, which it classifies as experimental "pilot models" for tax purposes. Meta's securities filings show the research credit cut its taxes by $3.