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Anecdotally this is not true. At $JOB I'm responsible for running the accounting function of a small US public company. With tools like OMP and shortcut my team has been able to significantly reduce the time it takes to prepare internal and public reporting documents. Not only are we getting more done within tighter deadlines, I have also observed a dramatic increase in the quality of the work product (not least in the form of fewer audit findings).

Maybe it takes a while to show up on the S&P 493's bottom line, but our token spend has had one of the best ROI as far as I'm concerned.

The table says book value. So might not be the market value of gold.

I have wireguard set up so that all traffic is routed through my home network

From the point of view of financial reporting (i.e. accounting income that you see on the financial statements), holding the liability indefinitely is not a good thing as it negatively affects the leverage ratios and implies a future obligation. The new accounting requirement that allows companies to estimate the so called 'breakage' (i.e. anticipated unused balanced) and recognize that as income over time rather than keep it as an indefinitely liability.

Legally, there's also the concept of escheatment, which depends on the country/state that tells a company what to do with the unused balance. In some cases, the government may claim this balance.

To your question about paying income tax on income, most tax codes would require the companies to pay tax on the amounts when they receive the cash rather than when they satisfy the obligations. So it's likely that they've already paid tax on this amount.