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Businesses The Almighty Buck

'How About Paying Your Taxes?': Walmart Responds To Amazon's Challenge Over Pay (nbcnews.com) 244

Posted by msmash from the war-of-words-continues dept.
Amazon and Walmart are in war over worker pay -- and now corporate taxes. After Amazon Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos on Thursday issued a challenge to other retailers, not naming which ones specifically, to match Amazon's pay and benefits, Walmart snapped right back. From a report: "Today I challenge our top retail competitors (you know who you are!) to match our employee benefits and our $15 minimum wage. Do it! Better yet, go to $16 and throw the gauntlet back at us. It's a kind of competition that will benefit everyone," Bezos wrote in his annual letter to shareholders. "Hey retail competitors out there (you know who you are) how about paying your taxes?" tweeted Walmart's Executive Vice President of Corporate Affairs Dan Bartlett on Thursday morning, sharing an article about Amazon paying $0 in federal taxes on more than $11 billion in profits last year.
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'How About Paying Your Taxes?': Walmart Responds To Amazon's Challenge Over Pay More

'How About Paying Your Taxes?': Walmart Responds To Amazon's Challenge Over Pay

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  • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday April 12, 2019 @04:56PM (#58428728)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Burn (Score:5, Funny)

      by ruddk ( 5153113 ) on Friday April 12, 2019 @05:01PM (#58428762)

      They are just mad Amazon out-evil'ed them. :D

      • They are just mad Amazon out-evil'ed them. :D

        Wow, can't believe someone marked you troll. Either funny or insightful, but not troll.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ruddk ( 5153113 )

          Thanks. I was certainly not trolling. I have travelled to small communities in the US and heard about their problems and feelings towards Walmart. (And a bit of laughter when some other tourists wasn’t exactly getting the most friendly advice when asking directions to the nearest Walmart :D)

      • It's hard to out evil a company that has HR practices on how to advise employees on application for public assistance.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      they aren't, really. they're still $11.00 an hour here with banners all over outside begging for workers at that rate. since *that* was a bump for just about everybody when it happened, long-time employees got a 'raise' to that figure, but nothing extra for their years of servitude. they have like 2 or 3 full time hourly workers in the whole fucking store, everybody else that isn't store management is sub-30 hours, not allowed to work more than that, and receives no benefits other than the in-store employee

    • Go Walmart? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by skam240 ( 789197 ) on Friday April 12, 2019 @06:46PM (#58429214)

      "Go Walmart! Can't believe they're on higher ground..."

      They are? Amazon is playing by the rules in regards to what taxes they pay just like every single other company I've ever heard of. Otherwise the IRS would be after them big time. The problem with Amazon not paying taxes isn't Amazon, it's our broken tax system.

      Meanwhile, for the type of unskilled labor both Walmart and Amazon employ a lot of people for, a $15 minimum wage and decent benefits is extremely generous in the context of what you often see in this sector of our economy. All Walmart does is give their employees a stack of pamphlets explaining how to take advantage of federal and state welfare programs because they know their employees need them.

      To put it differently, sure, you can say that Walmart is just playing by the minimum wage rules but they also probably pay as little in taxes as they possibly can as well.

      • Re:Go Walmart? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Friday April 12, 2019 @09:16PM (#58429642)

        They are? Amazon is playing by the rules in regards to what taxes they pay

        ... and Walmart is playing by the rules in regards to what wages they pay.

        This spat is about what companies SHOULD do, not what they are legally required to do.

        • Are you saying that Amazon should not deduct business expenses like other companies? Or should they only not deduct specific business expenses?

          • The world's most valuable businesses should not spend large amounts of time and money finding loopholes to exploit as this hurts everyone (including them) in the long run. Stop defending the aristocracy. They won't thank you for it.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by hawk ( 1151 )

              But in the *real world*, that's not what Amazon is accused of.

              There are companies playing games with tax havens and whathaveyou.

              What Amazon is regularly accused of is not *hiding* the profits, but *spending* them on expansion and R&D, which happens to be deductible.

              Yes, they play the game on getting reductions in local taxes for placing headquarters--in that case, there were going to get something like 10% off of $30 *billion* in taxes they would pay locally . . .

              But to complain that a company is plowin

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by jwymanm ( 627857 )
              Go start a company and you tell me you won't find every way to save and earn money. Show me your results of paying maximum cash to an endless burner of cash (gov). Show me how every year you can increase your employees wages and pay for their benefits while taxes creep up indefinitely and margins reduce because of competition. Show me all that money you would make to grow your business into other areas and employ more people who pay taxes and spread the wealth organically. Show me how you will you fund rese

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by skam240 ( 789197 )

          "... and Walmart is playing by the rules in regards to what wages they pay."

          You clearly didn't read my second paragraph.

          "To put it differently, sure, you can say that Walmart is just playing by the minimum wage rules but they also probably pay as little in taxes as they possibly can as well"

          If Walmart pays as little in taxes as it can just like every single company I've ever heard of and also pays as little as it can to its employees how is it better than Amazon who only does one of those things? It's not A

    • The Waltons saying "Pay Your Taxes!" after they bought and paid for the Tax Heist of '17 is hardly "higher ground"...

      mnem
      Can you hear me rolling my eyes all the way over there?

    • From this article [businessinsider.com]:

      It said Amazon was able to pay so little tax because its finances were structured in a way that avoided liability. The institute highlighted Amazon's efforts to maximize tax credits and tax breaks for executive stock options as two examples of this.

      "Amazon pays all the taxes we are required to pay in the US and every country where we operate, including paying $2.6 billion in corporate tax and reporting $3.4 billion in tax expense over the last three years," Amazon said in a statement issued Thursday.

      "Corporate tax is based on profits, not revenues, and our profits remain modest given retail is a highly competitive, low-margin business and our continued heavy investment."

      Wal-Mart isn't on higher ground, they're just not able to take as much advantage of the tax law (or not as good at it) as Amazon. In case you haven't heard, Trump isn't a big fan of Bezos and/or Amazon and wouldn't have gone out of his way to benefit them in the new Republican tax bill last year... so Amazon is only paying the taxes they're required to -- and they're not alone. As noted in this article [yahoo.com]:

      Big businesses are faring better than ever under the Trump era tax law, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). ... about 60 Fortune 500 companies avoided paying all federal income tax in 2018 (with their total average effective tax rate being roughly -5%).

      That’s more than three times the number of companies that avoided paying corporate taxes on average from 2008 to 2015. During that period, 18 companies managed to pay 0% or less (with their total average effective tax rate over 8 years being roughly -4%).

      Even Trump boasts about paying very little federal taxes because he "takes advantag

  • Screw You! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 12, 2019 @05:01PM (#58428766)

    Isn't it funny how corporate America is joking with each other about how they screw the American people. What a great country that they feel free to do this publicly!

    • In many respects (healthcare, rule of law, oligarchical rule) America is a 3rd world country, run and operated by corporations.

      Governments in the EU have no problem with retroactively assessing corporations that who try to pay no taxes (Google), and telling them: "give us the money."

  • When it comes to the benefit of the economy ( local and federal ), isn't worker wage a better way to spend that money?

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      There is one rule for Industrialists and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible.

      Highest. Wages. Possible.

      That's not a typo or a misquote. Ford understood that long-term, you gotta pay your workers for them to be able to afford the goods being produced. Anything else isn't sustainable.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      Wages engender loyalty to the corporation paying them. Taxes do so for the state. If you were the state, wouldn't you rather buy the fealty of your vassals with other people's efforts?

    • Aren't wages better than taxes?

      If you want your employees to live at the office, I guess so. But if you want to hire people that have their own house elsewhere, then you'll need a road from their house to the office.

      If you want electricity and water/sewer to your office, then you'll need pipes under ground delivering such.

      Sure, you could build a huge water-tower and generators at the office, but then you just changed your business model pretty drastically, and now you have all sorts of internal issues that were previously dealt with ext

  • How about a meaningful tax? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RyanFenton ( 230700 ) on Friday April 12, 2019 @05:08PM (#58428788)

    You know how companies declare their profit in their investor meetings? That's a public declaration.

    Tax based on that. Or whatever they fill in their tax forms - whichever is greater. No having your cake and eating it too - no more Hollywood accounting and still claiming record income.

    Ryan Fenton

    • EBITDA (Score:2)

      by JBMcB ( 73720 )

      Usually the only number investors care about is EBITDA, which is earnings before taxes, adjustments, amortizations, etc... It's, basically, how much the company made minus operating expenses, because all the other stuff can be used to fudge the numbers.

    • You know how companies declare their profit in their investor meetings? That's a public declaration.

      Tax based on that. Or whatever they fill in their tax forms - whichever is greater. No having your cake and eating it too - no more Hollywood accounting and still claiming record income.

      Ryan Fenton

      That's pretty much what they do. There is gross revenue, minus expenses. That's called EBITDA - Earnings Before Income Tax, Depreciation, Amortization (basically taxes and legal deductions). Then you subtract your taxes, depreciation, amortization - and you end up with net profit. So it's all declared right there. And it's how taxes are paid.

      I don't think there's ever been a charge that Amazon is not paying their legally required taxes; you may not agree with the deductions they get, but they are defin

    • You know how companies declare their profit in their investor meetings? That's a public declaration. Tax based on that.

      They do tax based on that. It's not like they are able to give the IRS and SEC two different numbers. Tax evaders are very open about how they invade taxes which is exactly why we know things like that Google use Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich rules when declaring their numbers to the IRS. They declare the same numbers to their investors.

  • ... or more specifically, they are paying what the law states that they owe.

    The fact that they apparently properly owe $0 in taxes despite $11b in profits might be a failing in the taxation system, but it doesn't mean they aren't paying what they are legally required to. They are clearly using loopholes and the like to dodge what would otherwise be a considerable tax bill, but just because they are doing that does not mean it is actually illegal.

    Instead of appealing to Amazon to pay their taxes, they should instead be appealing to Washington to get the taxation laws changed so that this sort of thing can't continue happen.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by DCFusor ( 1763438 )
      The real issue in all this is that the multinationals can choose to report those profits anywhere they want, and there's always that one or two countries that consider that collecting a tiny percentage of that is better than nothing, which is how all those fancy "tax sandwiches" come to pass - and lobbying is around a 100:1 payoff to get those "loopholes" made into law - this is well known and not limited to these guys by any means; how'd we get to a point where Medicare can't negotiate drug prices in the U

      • Not that this isn't a reasonable concern, but it has nothing to do with Amazon. Most of their revenue is in the US and Germany and they're following the corresponding laws.

      • Not if you're a US entity (corporation or individual)... You may be able keep offshore profits offshore, and not pay taxes on them, but it's not possible to shift domestic revenue to offshore. You're going to pay tax on that.

        Companies that are strictly "cloud" based can move their revenues (datacenters, etc.) overseas without concern, but if you have hard sales and locations and distribution in the US? You're paying here.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Junta ( 36770 )

          I thought there was still a way to offset your earnings... For example:
          Company X is a US operation that makes $100 million dollars
          Company X2 is a company in a Tax Haven that isn't X, but coincidentaly owns a lot of intellectual property or whatnot that X is based upon.
          X2 charges X coincidentally $100 million dollars in licensing fees for use of the intellectual property, and Company X gets to write off a $100 million dollar business expense.. in reality to themselves.

          Note I'd be very interested to be update

          • Hard to take IP discounts if you're selling tangible goods... VERY few companies can do this. And still, even if you can - when you bring those profits back into the US - you pay taxes on them. So Company X2 returns profits back to parent company? Taxed right there. Want that money to pay for more employees/space/toys in the US? It's brought in - and taxed right there.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by dryeo ( 100693 )

              Wouldn't they just bring it in when there is an expense that it is needed for.
              Example, they're building a new headquarters that costs $100 million, they onshore $100 million and use it to build the building and that $100 million is a write off and the company has a $100 million headquarters to show off.
              Another example, reccesion happens and company loses $100 million, they bring home that $100 million and break even.

              There's also the question of if these tax write offs are actually legal. It takes an audit a

              • Not directly. You repatriate the funds, you have to pay 21% right then. You spend it on buildings/capex, and you can amortize that spending over 5 to 7 years - so you pay all the taxes now, and "get them back" over a 5 to 7 year spread. There's a break-even only if you ignore the time value of money over those years.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by pnutjam ( 523990 )
                  Doesn't the Trump tax plan allow you to skip those 5 to 7 years and get the write-off now?
          • This absolutely happens in other segments. Can't speak specifically for giants with IP like amazon, but I know a certain building management company in Seattle that operate datacenters at massive losses (under wholly owned subsidiaries), due to obscene rents they charge those datacenters (operating in their buildings)

    • Don't know why the parent is modded Funny, it's just correct. And it's not even loopholes, they are using the tax system exactly as it was intended to work. There's no Cayman islands or Irish double shit here.

      I don't know nearly enough about the mess that is the US tax system to be able to investigate and explain it myself but it's basically down to R&D and equipment deductions and stock-based compensation. So they are spending in areas the government encourages them to spend and making the correspondin

      • The government is in the pockets of large corporations and fail to think about what is best for all citizens. It's that simple.

    • Re:Actually, they probably *ARE* paying taxes... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by tungstencoil ( 1016227 ) on Friday April 12, 2019 @05:56PM (#58429012)
      ...And Walmart is paying what the law states that they owe (or better).

      The point here is if either is ethical.
    • they actively lobby for those State laws using bribery in the form of campaign contributions. When you say State Law makes it legal it's a bit like saying what Stalin did was legal since, well, he was doing it in the name of the state.

      This isn't just a matter of "If you don't like it, change the law". This is a complete subversion of the mechanism of Democracy. We've got Voter Suppression, consolidation of media into propaganda arms (e.g. Sinclair Media), outright voter fraud (e.g. North Carolina's vote
  • "But Walmart has said its average worker earns $17.55 an hour with wages and benefits."

    From the people I know that work at Walmart, I suspect their "average worker" statement has to include management and executives because the people on the floor and running the cashier, and stocking, and cart collectors, etc, definitely do not reach $17.55, much less have that as an "average" pay.

    • Re:LoL (Score:5, Informative)

      by Immerman ( 2627577 ) on Friday April 12, 2019 @06:38PM (#58429178)

      Of course it does - when talking numbers, "the average" almost always means the arithmetic average, otherwise known as "the mean" - add everyone up, and divide by their count. 1 guy makes $100M, while 100,000 guys make $1, the average pay is $1,001

      That's very different than how the term is used in common conversation, where it typically means "the median" - line everyone up from smallest to largest (by whatever measure is being used), and pick the guy in the middle. He's probably fairly typical - "the average guy". In my above example, he'd be making $1.

      The mean almost always skews higher than the median, simply because the large values tend to be very much larger than the mid-range values, looking at the difference between mean and median gives you a rough idea of just how uneven the distribution is. For a linear distribution, where someone making more than 80% of the population is making twice as much as someone at the 40% mark, and 4x as much as someone at the 20% mark, the mean and median will be the same.

      By contrast, in the U.S. the median household income is $56k - half of all households make more than that, half make less. But the mean (average) income is $79k, 41% higher, thanks to the very few at the top who make massively more money than most. And because the US income is fairly linearly distributed until you get to the top ~10%, that means that (very) roughly 41% of the entire income in the country is being redirected to those at the very top, above and beyond what a you would expect from looking at the income distribution of the rest of the population.

      https://wallethacks.com/averag... [wallethacks.com]

    • ... definitely do not reach $17.55, much less have that as an "average" pay.

      The answer is in the first line of your post:

      But Walmart has said its average worker earns $17.55 an hour with wages and benefits.

      This is misdirection by Wal-Mart (or whoever said it). Benefits are part of compensation, but are not "earnings" -- you can't pay your electric bill with your medical insurance. Many (most?) of their employees (in-store anyway) earn less *and* some get benefits. They've got apples and oranges in their grocery bag.

  • Amazon shareholders pay taxes on their investment gains when they cash out. What is the problem?

    • Amazon shareholders pay taxes on their investment gains when they cash out. What is the problem?

      None, as far as I can see, but remember that long-term gains (usually held longer than a year) are taxed at a lower rate than short-term gains and ordinary income -- which I also don't have a problem with.

  • Snarky Bezos (Score:3)

    by Sebby ( 238625 ) on Friday April 12, 2019 @05:55PM (#58429006)

    Regardless of who has 'the high ground' in this pissing match, it's clear Bezos is being snarky, probably without realizing his own hypocrisy here.

    Like how he threaten to move jobs out of Seattle [theguardian.com] because the local council wanted to add a head tax to fund housing, etc. and then made himself look noble by promising to donate several $million, if not more, to charities to help out with poverty and housing.... which, oh by the way, would net him a nice charitable tax deduction too - double win for him: no new head tax, and gets to claim a charitable deduction!

  • or is the bloom coming off the rose for Amazon? Remember when they were this cute little outfit that just sold books? Now they are just another huge money grubbing multi-national. Bezos, if it is not completely obvious by now, is a complete and utter prick. Sometimes Amazon makes Microsoft look like choir boys in comparison.

  • I wish some of you, once you put down your pitchforks, would realize the government is basically taking 100% by taxing companies and what they pay employees and then turns around and taxes everything employees pay other people for their services. When is enough enough? People are crazy. I am glad Amazon can function and pay less. Heck I wouldn't be sad if they got paid by the government for creating jobs. Why are you all so backwards and hating companies? Is it because it's the in thing to do? They put the
  • Two dirty pieces of shit throwing mud at each other. Both companies behave abysmally towards workers and there obligations.

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