COSTELLO: You can learn a lot, thanks to Facebook including how to legally avoid paying state or federal taxes. Facebook is not the only company to save money this way. Alison Kosik joins us now to tell us if it's possible for us not to pay federal taxes.</s>ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: I don't know about that. But if you're thinking about this as Facebook's gotcha moment, it isn't because, Carol, this is all legal. Now what Facebook is doing is they're taking a $1 billion tax deduction for last year for what's known as excess benefits from stock options. I know you're thinking, what the heck is that? So let me give you -- give you the rundown on this, in the early days, what happened was Facebook wound up paying many of its employees with are known as stock options. Now what these are, are promises to buy shares of the company stock at a set price. Let's say $1 to make it easy. What Facebook did when it went public last year, it went public, which meant employees could exercise these options, which means they could buy a share of Facebook for $1. Now even though the shares were worth as much as $38. So the difference between the price paid and the actual market value, that is tax deductible for Facebook. Now as you said, Facebook is not the only company that does this. The Center for Tax Justice found that 185 companies in the Fortune 500 took similar deductions in 2010. Some of the biggest, look at this, Apple 742 million, Goldman Sachs, HP $294 million, Exxon Mobile $280 million. Now the Center for Tax Justice says a total of $7.5 billion, Carol, could still be eligible for Facebook to deduct in taxes over the next several years. It just keeps on giving.</s>COSTELLO: It's just unbelievable. Alison Kosik, thanks so much. It's been almost four months since Superstorm Sandy hit. And guess what, some property owners are still fighting every day with their insurance companies.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have to run to the bank two Fridays ago and beg them to give me a loan so I can pay my contractor.
Facebook Avoids Taxes, Gets $429M