Adding up the three subtotals, we get a grand total for being a Santa Claus as $642 billion per year. This is even more than the federal government spends, which shows how impractical it is to become a Santa Claus.
Still, there might be some potential income for Santa. Huge sums of money could be extorted from people by the bad information that Santa’s detectives get. Santa might also get to claim his 600,000 elves as dependents on his tax forms. His detectives could claim to be unemployed, and thus collect welfare and unemployment checks from the government. Santa could incorporate and collect royalties on the use of his image from corporations. Best of all, Santa’s free gifts might drive corporations into bankruptcy, and he could take over all economic activity in the United States, with all of its potential for profit. Santa could then proceed to take over the economies of many extremely rich nations, like Saudi Arabia and Iran, and thus assure himself of enough money to run his operations.