Tax Day Takeaways & Nvidia Delivered a Massive Trump Win – Top 3 Takeaways – April 15th, 2025 - Driven By Braman Motorcars

Takeaway #1: It’s Tax Day – Except Perhaps Not for You...

Today is Tax Day for most of the country but not for Floridians. The IRS has pushed back filing deadlines for residents of five states that were subjected to federal disaster declarations. The deadline to file for Floridians is Thursday, May 1st. The four other states with delayed filing deadlines include Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. All of the delayed state deadlines are due to the impact of Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Also, residents of Los Angeles County, California will be given until October 15 to file taxes following January’s apocalyptic-like wildfires. But whether you’ve already filed or will wait until May (or file for an extension to file later this year), there’s a good chance that once you’ve fully reconciled that you’ll have paid more than your share. When the dust has fully settled on this income tax season Floridians will have paid about 7.5% of the total federal income tax burden, based on IRS data, with well over $150 billion in individual income taxes paid by Floridians out of over $2.2 trillion paid nationally. Florida accounts for about 6.5% of the population nationally. What that means is that despite not having a state income tax, Floridians on average pay 15% more in federal income tax than the average other American. Now, as frustrating as it can be to pay taxes all throughout the year only to end up with a massive tax bill on Tax Day, and – if that’s you I feel your pain – in many ways this is illustrative of how demographics have helped reshape our state. Contrary to popular leftist belief, upper income earners pay almost all federal income taxes with the top 1% accounting for over 40% of the total tax burden and the bottom 47% of income earners paying nothing. So, for Florida to pay a far greater population adjusted share of federal income taxes means that we have a lot of residents of well above average means. For years, and especially since the onset of the pandemic, Florida has led the country in net wealth migration. We’re seeing that show up significantly in the share of federal income taxes that Floridians now pay. Another way of looking at this, that challenges many of the existing stereotypes around the state, is that the average tax filing Floridian has far higher income that the average American.

Takeaway #2: Nvidia Just Changed Everything (Again)

By now you probably know that the key to powering American AI, has been due to the processing power of Nvidia’s chips. Nvidia hasn’t just become the biggest semiconductor company in the world, with a market capitalization close to $3 trillion they’ve become the third most valuable company in the world (behind only Apple and Microsoft). Btw, and as an aside, here’s a depressing realization about the current size of the US debt. If you added up the total market value of the ten most valuable companies in the world Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Saudi Aramco, Tesla, Berkshire Hathaway, and Taiwan Semiconductor – you'd still come up $17.4 trillion of covering the national debt. On this Tax Day it’s a reminder that there aren’t enough rich people and companies in the world to continue to pay for the ridiculous amounts of free puppies, free candy, free Biden Bucks, free Obama phones, free school lunches, free government housing...free, free, free, free, free stuff that’s anything but free. But anyway, that’s not what this takeaway is about today. It’s about what comes next in President Trump’s quest to make U.S. manufacturing great again through his ever-evolving tariff policies and hopefully soon new trade deals. On Monday Nvidia announced a new plan to build its AI supercomputers within the US. In the announcement Nvidia said they’ve commissioned over 1 million square feet of manufacturing space in Arizona and Texas that over the next four years will provide over $500 billion of AI infrastructure. Also, of note, in the manufacturing chain is China’s Foxconn ramping up manufacturing from Houston, Texas with Taiwan Semiconductor also teaming with Nvidia on the project at its Phoenix based plants.

Takeaway #3: This could prove huge in many ways

First, from a national security standard point, to have what would be expected to be the world’s leading supercomputers completely manufactured within the US is a big deal. It’s also a big deal that Foxconn, the largest Chinese manufacturing company – which Apple and others have essentially said that wouldn’t be able to replicate, to sustain their production with a move to the United States, is part of making this happen within the United States. Team Trump seized on the announcement calling it the Trump Effect in action. The note from the White House said this: President Donald J. Trump has made U.S.-based chips manufacturing a priority as part of his relentless pursuit of an American manufacturing renaissance, and it’s paying off — with trillions of dollars in new investments secured in the tech sector alone. So, here’s what we know for all who’d said as recently as last week that mass tech production in the United States effectively couldn’t be done. The world’s two largest semiconductor companies are doing it. And they’re doing it with the company that manufactures Apple’s iPhones and most of their other things...and in Texas. Where, by the way, Apple also has a manufacturing plant. That’s more than just a little interesting. Many are quick to say that President Trump’s ambitions to bring back American manufacturing aren’t rooted in reality. Nvidia just put $500 billion over the next four years behind that reality. People are quick to say things can’t be done until they’re done. Donald Trump has never been that guy. Nvidia has never been that company. That’s probably why they’re two of the most successful entities the world has ever seen.

The Brian Mudd Show