Subject: Re: Drug costs $25. Sells for $25k.
If you hadn't done that R&D, your pre-tax profit would be $100m higher, and you'd be paying tax on that additional profit, so your tax bill would be higher. But a $21m lower tax bill on a $100m lower pretax profit and $79m lower after-tax profit isn't exactly making you whole.

Orthogonally, I have had this conversation with people more often than I can count:

“Oh, I don’t want to pay off my house, I’ll lose the deduction”

“You realize you’re paying $1 in interest to the bank so you get a 25¢ deduction from the government, right?”

Puzzled face.