Here's a theory:

Assuming no TBL get built in 2014 / no parts or labor, wouldn't the money collected this year be completely taxable as there's no losses incurred yet against it?

As an example, let's say 1 million collected to build something a company will make a 20% margin on. That's 800k in parts, 200k profit. A company (or employees taking the profit as salary) would pay tax on the 200k. At 30%, say 60k tax liability.

But without operating expenses perhaps they would be facing taxes on total revenue? So 300k taxes instead of 60k? That's a pretty big hit!

Please chime in as I am no tax expert, but I've always heard it's a bad idea to do Kickstarters near end of year for this reason.

That makes sense. I thought TBL was a slam dunk home run, want to see it get made. Just trying to deduce WTF is going on here!