Jeff Bezos Comes Out in Support of Increased Corporate Taxes (cnn.com) 332
As the White House considers raising taxes on corporations for the first time in more than 25 years, the head of one of America's largest companies is backing such a plan. From a report: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in a statement Tuesday that the company is "supportive of a rise in the corporate tax rate." Bezos said, "We support the Biden Administration's focus on making bold investments in American infrastructure. Both Democrats and Republicans have supported infrastructure in the past, and it's the right time to work together to make this happen. We recognize this investment will require concessions from all sides -- both on the specifics of what's included as well as how it gets paid for." The White House is laying the groundwork for lifting the corporate tax rate above its current level of 21% to help pay for an ambitious infrastructure package. Bezos' statement is a notable show of approval for the move given that many others in the business community have warned that it could threaten recovery from the pandemic.
The outgoing Amazon chief executive is, in some ways, a surprising advocate for a corporate tax hike. In 2019, the then-former Vice President Joe Biden called out Amazon for its history of using tax credits and deductions to reduce its corporate income tax bill. The company fired back, saying, "we pay every penny we owe," and that it had paid $2.6 billion in corporate taxes since 2016. And again last year, then-Presidential candidate Biden said Amazon should "start paying their taxes," as part of a broader critique of large, successful businesses. Amazon has repeatedly said that it follows all applicable tax laws. The company also recently sparred with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who has advocated for raising taxes on big corporations. Last month Warren said in a tweet: "Giant corporations like Amazon report huge profits to their shareholders -- but they exploit loopholes and tax havens to pay close to nothing in taxes. That's just not right."
The outgoing Amazon chief executive is, in some ways, a surprising advocate for a corporate tax hike. In 2019, the then-former Vice President Joe Biden called out Amazon for its history of using tax credits and deductions to reduce its corporate income tax bill. The company fired back, saying, "we pay every penny we owe," and that it had paid $2.6 billion in corporate taxes since 2016. And again last year, then-Presidential candidate Biden said Amazon should "start paying their taxes," as part of a broader critique of large, successful businesses. Amazon has repeatedly said that it follows all applicable tax laws. The company also recently sparred with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who has advocated for raising taxes on big corporations. Last month Warren said in a tweet: "Giant corporations like Amazon report huge profits to their shareholders -- but they exploit loopholes and tax havens to pay close to nothing in taxes. That's just not right."
Wealth Tax (Score:5, Insightful)
...when you're Jeff Bezos, ANYTHING but a wealth tax is a great idea. "Look over here! Corporate taxes! Sin taxes! Any other taxes..."
Re:Wealth Tax (Score:4, Insightful)
...when you're Jeff Bezos, ANYTHING but a wealth tax is a great idea. "Look over here! Corporate taxes! Sin taxes! Any other taxes..."
Yeah, lets have a real "billionaires" tax on wealth in excess of 1 billion.
It wont help much since our government could spend all of Jeff's wealth in a day, but it will make me feel better.
Re:Wealth Tax (Score:5, Insightful)
...when you're Jeff Bezos, ANYTHING but a wealth tax is a great idea. "Look over here! Corporate taxes! Sin taxes! Any other taxes..."
Yeah, lets have a real "billionaires" tax on wealth in excess of 1 billion. It wont help much since our government could spend all of Jeff's wealth in a day, but it will make me feel better.
But how to define wealth? What worries me about this debate is that people seem to want to tax net worth. That means taxing them on the shares they own in their own companies and often that money is imaginary, based on the whims of the stock market. Musk is a good example: Tesla is at insane highs for stock price so if Musk would need to pay tax on that he would have to sell shares, potentially costing him control of the company.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Do you realize that most (more than 50%) of all rentals are owned, singly? I.e. a family, or person, with a single rental that they own for a bit of extra income?
And?
There's nothing in that poster's statement about all landlords being massive corporations or slumlords.
"Rent" is a transfer from those with poor credit/less income to those with more credit or income. The vast majority of the time, it would be better for the economy if the tenant could buy the house/apartment instead of paying rent.
Re:Wealth Tax (Score:4, Insightful)
That's not anywhere close to a full picture.
Rent is also for those that :
* want mobility
* don't want to worry about home repair and maintenance
* don't want a commitment to 30 year loan
Also, a large part of the economy is based on rent. Eliminating that sector of the economy doesn't help that sector including the people working in apartments and other aspects touched by that sector.
Re: Wealth Tax (Score:2)
Transaction Tax (Score:2)
Rather than taxing wealth, we should just tax financial transactions. Even a fraction of a percent would generate a shit ton of money every time the wealthy move their money around.
Re: (Score:2)
Rather than taxing wealth, we should just tax financial transactions. Even a fraction of a percent would generate a shit ton of money every time the wealthy move their money around.
. . .or when people move jobs, and consolidate their 401k's.
Because dealing with multiple providers rapidly becomes a pain. . .
Re: (Score:3)
I think the definition of billionaire is already well established. If you are worth $1,000,000,000 or more you are a billionaire.
billionaire noun
billionaire | \ bi(l)-y-ner
, bi(l)-y-ner \
Definition of billionaire
: one whose wealth is estimated at a billion or more dollars, pounds, or other monetary units
https://www.merriam-webster.co... [merriam-webster.com]
Pension funds probably generate more taxes than billionaires do. The money in a pension fund eventually is dispersed to the contributors who then must pay taxes on that money. The taxes paid are charged at the rate of the person that the money goes to. These people probably pay a higher effective tax rate than billionaires since they don't have th
Re: Wealth Tax (Score:2)
He'd have to get (very) low interest rate loans against shares.
Also, some shares could be structured in a way that they were non transferable (therefore not valuable) but with outsized voting.
I'm not a huge fan of a wealth tax (it disadvantages public companies since private ones can fake valuations), but there are ways to prevent founders from losing control of their company. Ones that wouldn't be that hard.
Re: (Score:2)
A measurement of one's ability to buy without incurring debt.
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is these billionaires don't have a Scrooge McDuck money bin. Their money is tied in less liquid assets, which is much easier to not claim as income, while increasing your personal wealth.
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is these billionaires don't have a Scrooge McDuck money bin. Their money is tied in less liquid assets, which is much easier to not claim as income, while increasing your personal wealth.
Money already stored in a "Scrooge McDuck money bin" would not be counted as income because it is not income. It is simply wealth.
Their money is tied in less liquid assets, which is much easier to not claim as income, while increasing your personal wealth.
Money in "less liquid assets" such as stocks, bonds, and real estate, are not income they are wealth. If the "less liquid assets" pay interest or dividends, the payments constitute income but the assets are still simply wealth. If one sells said "less liquid assets", the income is difference between the purchase price and the sale price, meaning the profit.
You seem to be conf
Re: (Score:2)
"...but it will make me feel better."
While at the same time making important capital-intensive projects like Starship impossible.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
wow, are you a sock puppet or a whore?
Re:Wealth Tax (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't be both?
Seriously though -- wealth worshipping assholes that buy into the myth of "trickle down" and "meritocracy" are clueless idiots. We should tax billionaires at 90%, just like we taxed the wealthy after WWII. The wealthy are the ones that gain the most from what our nation offers, and yet they are the ones that pay the least )if any) taxes that are used to maintain our infrastructure and markets while driving the working class into poverty, presently giving us an entire nation of downward mobility and soon generations born into debt slavery with no hope of prosperity -- and even then assholes like magzteel will defend that inequality as they lie starving in the gutter with other bits of willful ignorance and bootlicking slavishness
It is no bit of hyperbole to cast wealth inequality as every bit an existential threat to civilization and our way of life as climate change is, and yet we have millions of willfully ignorant morons that would fight to the death to ensure that we are driven over the edge and that hundreds of millions even billions are killed, reduced to poverty and even slavery just so that the wealthy elite can make short term profits today. At what point do we rise up and fight in the streets over our right to survive? We've already seen that they are willing to fight in the streets and burn our capital over blatant lies, when will we put them down as the very real threat they are?
Re: Wealth Tax (Score:5, Insightful)
I know this might be an unpopular opinion, but isnt that because they created the most value our nation has to offer? Bill Gates didnt rob people to become a billionaire. He didnt bribe government officials to become an oligarch like the Russians do. He created value in other peoples lives by selling software they were willing to pay him for. A lot. His software enhanced their lives. Same thing goes for Bezos, Musk, etc etc. Their wealth is derived from trading with others. Why should they pay more than their fair share?
Re: Wealth Tax (Score:5, Interesting)
The thing is that the rather extreme extent to which the dollar numbers go to relatively few people is a bit of a bug in how the economy works.
For one, a lot of these billionaires have grossly overestimated net worths. Jeff Bezos has a net worth of 188.6 billion, but if he went to make that spendable, it would collapse (most of it is extrapolation from Amazon stock, and any large offload of Amazon stock, and *particularly* from Bezos himself would crash the value on the way out. However those numbers can be used as leverage to borrow without actually selling the stock. In short, the 'true' wealth is complicated. Further you couldn't divert the resources required to make one Ferrari and make 10 Honda Civics, despite the 'price' suggesting the resources are equivalent..
However the fact remains that by *any* measure, there are people who are set for life many times over, and/or made wealthy by just playing the meta game of manipulating the money in the finance industry, to an extent that can't possibly be 'really' in line with what the numbers say.
So we have some unknown 'actual' imbalance that is almost certainly not inline with proportional contribution, and a *super* distorted dollar figure that is even more demoralizing.
Re: (Score:2)
And what is their fair share? They use far more publicly funded resources than you or I do, so should pay more. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have been loudly declaring for three decades that they should have to pay more taxes, and there are quite a number of other socially responsible millionaires and billionaires who feel the same way but don't have the the public profiles they do. I'd be surprised if Bezos doesn't share their opinion.
Re: Wealth Tax (Score:5, Funny)
And what is their fair share? They use far more publicly funded resources than you or I do, so should pay more. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have been loudly declaring for three decades that they should have to pay more taxes,
Nobody is stopping them. There's a difference between "loudly declaring" and actually doing it.
and there are quite a number of other socially responsible millionaires and billionaires who feel the same way but don't have the the public profiles they do. I'd be surprised if Bezos doesn't share their opinion.
If they were socially responsible they'd do it. Instead, they yell about it so that low-IQ people on the left will think they're virtuous. It's why we call it "virtue signaling".
Re: Wealth Tax (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh, gods, another Libertardian who has no concept of how societies or for that matter civilization works.
So how do you figure out how much extra to pay to keep homeless camps out of Medina (that's where Bezos and Gates both live)? What is the value of keeping the poor from starving so they don't show up on the doorstep with torches and pitchforks? What's the value to you to educate your neighbors' kids so that your community has a higher general standard of living? How much are you going to pay to install sewage processing in the town upstream from your community's potable water intake? What portion of the road maintenance for the entire US interstate system which brings you food and goods is your share? How do you calculate your share of enforcement of the Clean Air Act regulations that keeps arsenic from the copper smelter upwind from poisoning your garden?
“I need to pay higher taxes. I’ve paid more taxes, over $10 billion, than anyone else, but the government should require people in my position to pay significantly higher taxes.” - Bill Gates
Re: (Score:2)
I know this might be an unpopular opinion, but isnt that because they created the most value our nation has to offer?
Don't be silly, Gates didn't create that value, people working for Gates did.
Re: Wealth Tax (Score:2)
Re: Wealth Tax (Score:5, Insightful)
Bill Gates didnt rob people to become a billionaire. He didnt bribe government officials to become an oligarch like the Russians do. He created value in other peoples lives by selling software they were willing to pay him for.
He didn't rob people, but he did use underhanded tactics and a monopoly position to ruthlessly destroy competitors. On the whole, it's reasonable to suppose that more value might have been created in people's lives if there was sufficient regulatory inhibition and punitive damages to prevent this kind of harmful consolidation of power in the hands of a single company.
FWIW, I agree with your general sentiment that capitalism is good and beneficial on the whole, but I think we need to be realistic about the fact that the system incentivizes anti-competitive, exploitative behavior and so needs a powerful outside force (trust busting, regulation) to keep bad actors in check and make sure that the free market isn't taken over (and made non-free) by the exceedingly powerful mega corps.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Well let's look at your myth about trickle down. I as well as all my friends and family work for people who have more money than us. They pay our paychecks so money does flow from them to us which allows us to have better lives. And darn near all of us have moved jobs to make more money so I think that the trickle down does work. Now if you are wanting a deluge to come your way, then, well, you are just being greedy then in my humble opinion.
Now the whole wealth inequality scare really fascinates me. Person
Re: (Score:2)
"The wealthy are the ones that gain the most from what our nation offers, and yet they are the ones that pay the least"
And, this is why we call you the "looney left".
Here's what reality looks like for those wondering:
https://taxfoundation.org/summ... [taxfoundation.org]
"The top 1 percent paid a greater share of individual income taxes (38.5 percent) than the bottom 90 percent combined (29.9 percent)"
Re:Wealth Tax (Score:4, Informative)
That does a great job of papering over the problems and making it look like the rich are unfairly taxed!
The first clue is that they are lumping half the population in the "under 50%" bin, while spreading the top 50% over 5 categories. The share of tax paid is the percent in dollars for each group. So what this is really showing is taxable income.
When their scary graph heading says, "Half of Taxpayers Pay 97% of all Income Taxes", you can rewrite that to say, "Half of the US accounts for 97% of the taxable income in the US, and half of the US shares the remaining 3% of taxable income."
And, this is why we call you the "looney left".
And this is why you can never trust a right winger, especially when it comes to basic fairness. You've abandoned all your principles, and all you have left is dishonesty and hate.
"The top 1 percent paid a greater share of individual income taxes (38.5 percent) than the bottom 90 percent combined (29.9 percent)"
Yes, the top 1% had 38.5% of the taxable income, while 90% of the US got to share 29.9% of the taxable income.
Thank you for profoundly demonstrating how absolutely unfair our income distributions in the country are. Hopefully your work will help drive progressive taxation so we can reinvest in the bottom 50% of the country to get them to a livable wage, and able to pay the share of income tax that you are indicating that you think they should pay.
Re: (Score:2)
It doesn't matter, anyway. Few people paid taxes at that rate, and Bezos' income isn't that much. That's why some of the smarter Democrats are calling for a wealth tax. it's a stupid idea, of course, and would primarily harm the middle class, but at least they're starting to realize that Jeff Bezos doesn't make a lot of W-2 income.
Re:Wealth Tax (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think the stats you present make the case you think you're making. Sure, the top 1% pay a greater share than income taxes than the bottom 90%. But how do you know those rates are fair?
If we naively assume a flat tax -- that no matter how large the income, the amount of tax paid would be proportionally the same, you would expect the share of income taxes to be roughly equivalent to the share of income. But thats not what we see... In 2016, the top 1% made 40% of the income, while the bottom 90% made just over 20% of the income. So from these numbers, the bottom 90% is overpaying income taxes by almost 10%!
The picture gets even worse when you consider that taxes are meant to be progressive, i.e., you are meant to pay a higher percentage on marginal incomes above various thresholds. So in those cases, higher incomes should see a higher overall tax rate. So from this standpoint, the very rich are drastically underpaying compared with the bottom 90%.
Re:Wealth Tax (Score:5, Insightful)
Stock buybacks and putting stores all across the country out of business because they pay taxes and you don't is not "doing more for the economy".
Bezos is a parasite.
Re: (Score:3)
Anyway, big picture, Bezos is just a guy who set up an e-commerce website back in the day, and based on all of our individual choices it has emerged as one of the largest retailers in t
Re: Wealth Tax (Score:5, Insightful)
So they get rich from monopolies (trademark, patents, copyright) enforced by courts and violence that society pays for. They get dispute resolution enforced by violence once again payed for by society.
They use a transportation infrastructure we fund. For many (the Waltons for example) their workers get income supplemented by the rest of us.
And you think they should pay 0 taxes?
Duh, of course he does (Score:5, Insightful)
The ultra-rich are always in favor of any moves that increase the barriers to smaller companies growing up to compete with their own companies. Nice to be rich enough to have the government suck up to you and do the dirty work of crushing your competitors.
Re:Duh, of course he does (Score:5, Insightful)
You are conflating Bezos and Amazon. Bezos and Amazon do have resources to help them lower their tax burden. However, the elephant in the room is the loopholes in the current tax structure that allowed Amazon to pay no taxes. Increasing his taxes is pocket change to him. Increasing taxes on business means kneecapping smaller competitors that cannot take advantage of those loops holes. Tax reform should first take the loopholes out of the tax code. Then move on to tax increases.
Re: (Score:2)
You're living in fantasy land if you think those loopholes will ever be removed. The rich will always have more political clout than the rest of us, for obvious reasons.
Re: (Score:2)
Tax reform should first take the loopholes out of the tax code. Then move on to tax increases.
The Biden plan that Bezos is expressing support for does both. The biggest loophole closure, from Amazon's perspective, is the two-pronged effort to prevent multinationals from avoiding taxes by moving their headquarters and profits to tax havens. The long-term, and probably unsuccessful, part of that is a call for an international global minimum tax, to eliminate the tax havens. The short-term part is to require US corporations to pay taxes on foreign earnings even if they don't bring them back to the US.
Re:Duh, of course he does (Score:4, Interesting)
If it were easy to just "close loopholes", it would have been done a long time ago. But contrary to popular belief, it's generally not aggressive tax planning that leads to companies paying zero corporate tax.
The main items that lead to zero tax situations for profitable companies are loss carryforwards/carrybacks and accelerated depreciation. Those were deliberate choices intended to accurately reflect income for companies that are in cyclical businesses and to encourage business investment.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe we should have a progressive tax system for corporations. Like for personal income, the more you earn the more tax you pay (at least in theory).
Re:Duh, of course he does (Score:4, Informative)
Reminds my of the He-Man "meme" where Skeletor punches the mirror after he has gone through:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
The small business or aspiring "unicorns" will not have the resources to avoid these taxes. Ultra rich on the other hand will completely bypass them, or can actually afford to pay it if push comes to shove.
Remember, Amazon grew so large by constantly investing all profits back into the business. That is why they also paid 0% taxes.
Let's do a mental exercise: 20% profit every year (making this up), but all that 20% spent in R&D and growth. That will make an initial $1 billion investment in a company into $15 billion in 15 years. Add in the ultra optimistic stock market values, and you have a 150 billion valuation!
Or add in mandatory 10% minimum tax (or some sort of "wealth tax" into the equation), then the investment is only 10%, and the assets drop by 70%. That will ensure the new aspiring company will never catch up to Amazon or become a competitor in any serious way.
This is a new way of "regulatory capture" to slow down competition, nothing more.
STOP THE MADNESS (Score:5, Insightful)
Congress makes the laws. Company pay their taxes based on those laws. If the people and the politicians don't like those laws and want companies to pay more they should change the laws. Companies aren't going to over pay their taxes anymore than you're going to overpay wal-mart for your new television.
"Loopholes" and "tax havens" are ultimately nothing more than laws written in a way we don't like. But they are not illegal. It's a way for politicians to act like its not their fault. But it is indeed 100% their fault! Stop the madness.
Re:STOP THE MADNESS (Score:4, Interesting)
I keep telling people politicians cannot fix the current tax system. We need to scrap the whole thing and release a highly simplified tax system. However that would mean you wouldn't need a large IRS, or companies like turbotax, and lobbying money would dry up. So it will never happen.
Re: (Score:2)
People keep saying they want to simplify taxes, and there was a big push for a "flat tax" several years ago (comes up again and again). Problem is, the rates people pay for taxes is already pretty simple. The incredibly complicated system of taxation really comes down to deciding *what* gets taxed. Most of those deductions are there to promote the actions that we believe will help our nation prosper, like the proposed extension of the child tax credit(s). It can be difficult to divide the baby from the bath
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, Steve Forbes ran a presidential campaign on the UnFair tax, as his income from dividends and capital gains would be untouched until he bought something. Time to Make Guillotines Great Again.
Re: (Score:2)
This. The current tax system complexity is a jobs & benefits program for the tax attorney and tax accounting cabal. They are a cancer on the economy.
A handful of states don't have an income tax and it works. They have a higher sales tax.
A consumption tax would fix so many problems. No more income or corporate taxes or 1040s or april 15. You pay at the checkout line.
Re: (Score:2)
Consumption taxes are highly regressive to start with, and the rich can take their yachts to countries in the Caribbean to buy their big ticket items, leaving even more of their money untouched. The income tax is by far the fairest tax ever invented by man.
Re: (Score:3)
I've lived long enough to see that "closing the loopholes" sounds good, but just means in practice politicians get to hand out loopholes all over again in exchange for both donations and "donations".
Re: (Score:2)
Congress makes the laws. Company pay their taxes based on those laws. If the people and the politicians don't like those laws and want companies to pay more they should change the laws. Companies aren't going to over pay their taxes anymore than you're going to overpay wal-mart for your new television.
"Loopholes" and "tax havens" are ultimately nothing more than laws written in a way we don't like. But they are not illegal. It's a way for politicians to act like its not their fault. But it is indeed 100% their fault! Stop the madness.
Loop holes are legal, they are also the product of corruption. As for tax havens, they are not laws, they are usually physical places outside of the jurisdiction of the country whose taxes are being evaded and you can get jailed for using them. The way loop holes work is more like this: Corporate lobbyists write laws full of loop holes. Congress rubber-stamps this crap after sufficient bribes have been paid in the form of political donations and PAC support. Corporations pay no effective taxes thanks to the
Re: (Score:2)
That is not the entire truth. For example, take a look at the "Double Irish With a Dutch Sandwich". That's a scheme which many big tech companies used. At the core this scheme and many like it use intellectual property rights to shift profits to subsidiaries which reside in favorable tax regimes and are created for the sole purpose of avoiding taxes. This isn't just companies having people who are very knowledgeable with regard to tax laws and not paying more than they have to. This is companies restructuri
Re:STOP THE MADNESS (Score:4, Informative)
It's not nearly that simple. Look at the EU's effort to close the loophole where a local subsidiary makes next to no profit because it all gets paid to some shell company in a tax haven as licencing fees.
First they have to get all the member states to agree and act together. A bit easier in the US where there is a federal government but it still needs states not to undermine it. Then they have to talk to all the countries they have trade deals with. Then they have to deal with the US not liking it and setting up tariffs.
At this point member states got fed up of waiting and are implementing their own rules, which will probably be adopted at EU level eventually. You can bet both the government lawyers drafting them and the corporate lawyers reading them are examining every possible loophole and dodge they can think of too.
Some loopholes are easy to fix but some really aren't.
Re: (Score:2)
Transfer pricing has been an issue for decades. The problem is you have to fight each transfer pricing battle individually, which requires extensive economic analysis. The solution would to be to get rid of the "arms length" standard for charging out to subsidiaries and replace with a worldwide apportionment formula (similar to what U.S. states do) where your tax is allocated by where your business activity is. Problem is that requires agreement from the entire world- good luck with that when most countries
Re: (Score:3)
Companies write the laws. Congress passess the laws. Companies pay their taxes based on those laws.
FTFY
Sure. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's still a skewed field in terms of where they have warehouses - they have agreements that give them sweetheart deals on all kinds of taxes.
Taxes are overblown in terms of what folks imagine in general, in a money flow sense.
We've had 80%+ taxes on top brackets here in the US, at times of some of our greatest % economic activity relative to the world. The tax rate doesn't change the fact that people in those brackets are still making money, hand over fist, and shift money around using methods and economies of scale that no one else can reach.
We've just been letting rich folks set their own tax policy for a few generations of time. It's not actually optimal, even for the rich to do that. Crumbling infrastructure isn't of great benefit in the end - nor is increased boom/bust cycles and lowered public welfare.
Taxes DO make a difference - there are optimal points - but it's still largely a background factor in terms of being accounted for in business. Having a functioning government that can provide services and a functioning culture to do business in is also crucial to business.
None of this is especially complex - when you just look at how businesses exist in other nations, and other timeframes.
Ryan Fenton
Re: (Score:2)
There would be a maximum wealth limit. Like the max level limit in D&D or WoW.
Re:Sure. (Score:5, Funny)
There would be a maximum wealth limit.
$4294967295
you can also get there by going $1 into debt.
Re: (Score:2)
This is the best joke I've heard this year.
Oddly enough... (Score:2)
Bezos is the FAANG CEO that benefits most from the infrastructure plan. From highways that will allow him to transport his goods with less costs to improved internet connectivity that will fill his coffers more quickly than his other buddies in big tech, Amazon will rake in the cash from this bill. It's needed, but let's be honest here, Jeffy, it's pretty obvious who benefits most.
A modest proposal (Score:2)
How about we tax shipping boxes instead? Add a $0.50-$1.00/box federal excise tax. That would guarantee that Amazon pays its fair share and would be a nuisance to their smaller competitors that don't offer something like Prime.
Re: (Score:3)
Give that money to the post office to prop it up.
"Yes, tax my competitors!" (Score:4, Insightful)
Meanwhile he pays next to nothing (1.2% is the most Amazon has ever paid).
Double nothing is still nothing. Every % added to the tax other companies have to pay increases Amazon's competitiveness; of course he's all for it.
Re:"Yes, tax my competitors!" (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile he pays next to nothing (1.2% is the most Amazon has ever paid).
Amazon has chosen to re-invest 100% of their earnings back into growing the business. So there is no to very little profit to pay taxes on. Any company can choose to do this. But most choose to grow slower and pay dividends, etc to shareholders.
Re:"Yes, tax my competitors!" (Score:4, Interesting)
Meanwhile he pays next to nothing (1.2% is the most Amazon has ever paid).
Amazon has chosen to re-invest 100% of their earnings back into growing the business.
Right. So opening a sham office in Luxemburg and having a non-existent business there cross-charge the parent company for "licensing costs" is "growing the business"? Because it sounds a lot like fraud to me.
Re: (Score:2)
Amazon has chosen to re-invest 100% of their earnings back into growing the business.
On paper, at least.
I'm sure Mr. Bezos paid off his ex-wife from money he found under the sofa, not from any profits that Amazon made.
what about giveing up 50M to AC all amzaon (Score:2)
what about giving up 50M to put in AC in all amazon warehouses
Mandentory minimum Corporate tax rate (Score:2)
A global trade treaty should be signed to require a mandatory minimum corporate tax rate and ban subsidy. It's okay to race to the bottom so long as we define where the bottom is.
Exceptions more important than effective tax rate (Score:2)
Amazon pays next to nothing in tax due to the various loopholes that they're able to exploit. Raising the rate won't do anything to get any more money out of them, but closing some of these loopholes certainly would. If half of the big tech companies paid anything close to the standard tax rate there would be no need to raise it in the first place.
Does the tax rate even matter? (Score:5, Insightful)
Trust the Bezos (Score:2)
As a reminder, this is the same Amazon that was fined 300 Million euros because they had 75% of their EU profits funneled through a shell company in Luxemburg to avoid paying corporate taxes from 2003-2017.
Ref: https://www.forbes.com/sites/p... [forbes.com] (adblockwalled)
This is a clever anti-competitive move by Amazon. They can afford to set up complex international tax shelters, increasing the difficulty for new competitors to get established.
No one is stopping him (Score:2)
Instead, rather curiously, he is asking an authority to extract wealth with threats for non-compliance. It would be much easier and much more ethical to lead by example and create social pressure for others to do likewise (if he believes the
Re: (Score:2)
Anyone, at any time, is more than welcome to give the government more money:
https://www.fiscal.treasury.go... [treasury.gov]
Re: (Score:2)
if the rules change, his competition is also forced to pay more taxes.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You say that like it's an open question. Even if civilization and services were free, the rich should be taxed at a high marginal rate to prevent a gross imbalance of wealth and power.
Re: (Score:3)
"If Mr Bezos sincerely wishes to contribute more to the government budget he can write a personal cheque."
A unilateral decision to pay more in taxes is a subsidy for other rich people who don't, which runs counter to the objective of not subsidizing rich people.
Tax rate ... sure (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Its in his interests to get the rules changed so everyone else has to pay more tax too, rather than just making a donation to the government.
in the US (Score:2)
Jeff supports increased taxes in the US but not globally. Because he know he can shift profits to tax havens outside the US. Yep, increase tax on up and coming competitors go for it. Jeff is no dummy.
Two things: FairTax Plan and... (Score:2)
1. Personally, I think we should give the FairTax Plan a try. It gets rid of all of the taxes and replaces them with an inclusive, national sales tax. It moves the tax line items from the paystub to the cash register receipt (more transparency) without a price hike.
https://fairtax.org/ [fairtax.org]
2. Check out this article from last Friday (4/2/21): "55 Corporations Paid $0 in Federal Taxes on 2020 Profits"
https://itep.org/55-profitable... [itep.org]
Re: (Score:2)
A revenue neutral fair tax is a massive tax hike on the poor and middle class. You can try and fix it by zero rating essentials or providing a rebate, that just shifts the burden from the lower class to the middle class. The wealthy save a large portion of their income, and it's nearly impossible to make them bear the main brunt of a consumption tax .
You mean the FuckTheWorkersTax (Score:2)
As nealrc points out, that's a highly regressive tax that hurts the poor the most and the rich the least. Who can all hop in their yachts and buy big ticket items in the Caribbean, paying even less of their income as a percentage.
Hard pass.
Re: (Score:2)
People attack sales/use taxes as being regressive, but let's be honest, a fair amount of the funding that other Western governments that we are often envious of (health care, unemployment benefits, maternal/paternal leave) is recovered through VAT. To identify a tax as not being acceptable because it is regressive is also accepting that we will continue to have a large pool of citizens with almost zero income. If we were to implement a VAT-style system alongside expanding our welfare system in that gray are
whats your point? (Score:2)
its in the companies best interests to pay as little tax as they can inside of the law.
doesn't mean Bezos can't be up for changing the rules.
Loopholes (Score:2)
Corporate tax? Who pays those? (Score:2)
I'll wait.
Consumers pay so-called "corporate taxes"... we always pay. No wonder Bezos supports them.
Re: (Score:2)
The baseline is shareholders' return on investment.
That must be maintained, or the company fails to survive.
Any tax on the corporation -- either by taxing revenue or profit -- is reflected in increased prices.
In Amazon's case, there is insufficient competition to hold those prices down.
So in reality, consumers pay more, shareholders' ROI remains the same, and the gov't gets the difference.
Let's talk about limiting executive compensation -- at the
Corporations. Not customers. (Score:2)
Tax on profits has nothing to do with the cost of goods, which are always priced to maximize revenues. If companies can raise prices without driving away too many customers, they won't wait for a tax or minimum wage increase as an excuse to do so.
They'll just fucking do it and pocket the extra money.
Of course he does (Score:2)
Big business and big government are like peas in a pod.
His company will easily use whatever loopholes they need to (not that he wouldn't still be richer than any pharaoh if they never made another dime). They certainly have the resources to throw at the problem.
Smaller competitors won't be nearly as well situated to thrive under this though. What a coincidence.
Reagan (Score:3)
For 40 years now, administration after administration has punched holes the size of supertankers into the tax laws for corporations, while also lowering the tax rate.
Whenever such schemes reach a breaking point, some of the tricksters understand that the game will be over soon if they don't cut it back a little.
So they're happy to raise taxes - to a rate that anyone before Reagan would't considered criminally insane and that only seems like a "raise" if you were born yesterday and don't remember the times before corporations controlled ALL of the government.
Because thanks to millions of tax-evasion loopholes, the actual amount of actual money they will actually pay more is going to be ridiculously tiny.
Re: (Score:2)
Is that performance art or sincere Randian Dumbfuckery? You like paying for all the upkeep of civilization while letting corporations worth trillions pay nothing? So much bootlicking for a club you'll never be allowed into...
Not raising. (Score:2)
You misspelled "ending tax exemptions (aka stealing infrastructure and not paying for it, so we have to pay for them)"
Of course they are in favour - they won't pay any (Score:2)
only reason (Score:2)
only reason bozo the clown supports increased taxes is Amazon is so big, they would never notice. In fact, it would benefit Amazon since it could hurt the competition.
Amazon maths (Score:2)
So Amazon made ~386billion in revenue in 2020 alone. But they have paid only 2.6billion in taxes for the past 4 years? I like their maths that they are paying their fair share. They'd have paid 81billion just last year if they didn't have a great staff of accountants, etc. to work the numbers. Go ahead and raise the tax rates. Amazon and their ilk ain't paying that rate anyway. But for the guys who can't afford to find the loopholes or make the limits of them, they are screwed. Good way to reduce the compet
It's the Base Dummy (Score:2)
Tax rates are a red herring. What matters is the tax base.
I can design a 1% tax that would absolutely ruin you. How about a 1% tax on all of your assets assessed on a daily basis? I could design a tax with a 100% rate that would result in nobody paying anything. How about a 100% income tax, but all spending, investment, and savings are deductible?
The problem with corporate tax is that defining the base is extremely complicated, and generally only people working in the field truly understand the issues that
Well, duh, of course he is! (Score:3)
Uh huh... (Score:3)
If Bezos is signing off on higher corporate taxes you can be sure that he and his team of lawyers and tax accountants have already figured out a way to get around it. What this will end up being is higher corporate taxes...for smaller competitors.
Amazon, and all other big companies, employee lots of lobbyists to ensure that laws are crafted to their liking. All of the loopholes that companies currently legally exploit - like setting up offshore subsidiaries in low tax countries and funneling the money through there - were passed by Washington politicians with the help of corporate lobbyists.
This is classic political diversionary tactics. Blame the big bad corporation when the real problem is the political system itself. Every once in a while they will drag these corporate CEO's in front of congress for a dog and pony show, brow beating them about their evil ways only to join them on the golf course later on.
If we want to restore integrity to our political system (I know, a pipe dream) how about start by outlawing lobbyists? It is nothing less than legalized bribery.
Re: (Score:2)
Fine as far as it goes. But who's behind the corporations?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Fine as far as it goes. But who's behind the corporations?
You!
Citizen: Votes for Ted Cruz
Cruz: Passes laws for less corporate taxes and opens more "loopholes"
Citizen: Complains their personal taxes are going up and amazon isn't paying!
Cruz: Makes all kinds of bold claims and lies about Amazon and the Dems
Citizen: Re-elects Cruz. Wonders why nothing changes.
Re: (Score:3)
Nice try. Now show us where Ted Cruz ever voted for increasing personal taxes.
Hello, the goddamn Trump tax law? If you weren't a business, there's a good chance that your tax bill increased compared to the pre-Trump tax law.
https://www.policygenius.com/t... [policygenius.com]