Posted on 02/27/2018 9:12:10 AM PST by Enlightened1
In 2017, Amazon reported $5.6 billion of U.S. profits and didn’t pay a dime of federal income taxes on it. The company’s financial statement suggests that various tax credits and tax breaks for executive stock options are responsible for zeroing out the company’s tax this year.
The company’s zero percent rate in 2017 reflects a longer term trend. During the previous five years, Amazon reported U.S. profits of $8.2 billion and paid an effective federal income tax rate of just 11.4 percent. This means the company was able to shelter more than two-thirds of its profits from tax during that five year period.
Incredibly, Amazon’s corporate tax goose egg for 2017 doesn’t include the effect of a second big tax disclosure: the $789 million one-time tax break the company projects it will receive due to the new tax law. While the Trump Administration’s corporate tax cuts generally took effect on January 1st, the law includes a grandfather clause for companies that (like Amazon) have managed to defer or postpone tax liability from prior years.
Instead of paying these deferred taxes at the previous 35 percent rate, Amazon now gets an extra reward for postponing the taxation of this income: a 40 percent discount from 35 to 21 percent. This is the source of Amazon’s $789 million windfall.
At a time when Amazon is pitting state and local governments against each other in a Hunger Games-style contest over the location of the company’s new headquarters, the company’s new disclosure should cause some consternation among the state officials who have been most willing to pony up billions of dollars in tax incentives.
(Excerpt) Read more at itep.org ...
Keep in mind they received a $1.46 of tax payer money for every box they ship too.
If Amazon paid zero taxes, how do they then get a “tax break”?
Where’s Nancy Pelosi to comment on this??
And the last that I saw, Amazon was still running the NRA’s TV channel and ignoring the anti-Second-Amendment academic herd.
Great question!
All I know I made no where near this amount and I owe taxes.
I guess it really pays well to have good lobbyists.
Well that’s good at least.
Is it that you are an employee?
If so, earned income (W-2) is the highest taxed form of income.
Amazon is a business, not an employee.
defer or postpone tax liability from prior years
I’m sure Bezos will echo Gates in saying he should pay more taxes - then do nothing about it.
Must be made by the same toy company that makes those imaginary debt ceilings.
Amazon also has a special category and prices for NRA books and is one of the companies that has *not* caved in to the teachers, instructors, students and feminists for gun control.
Not defending Jeff Bezos or his liberalism at at all but how many people does Amazon employ and what do they pay in payroll taxes? Probably a lot.
The thought that they paid no federal taxes isn’t quite accurate. For each employee they had they paid half of their employment taxes, half of their FICA and half of their Medicaid. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
A gazillion companies don’t pay taxes and get perks from the cities they’re in. This practice is WRONG.
If we can’t get across-the-board tax cuts, I’m all for tax cuts wherever they can be enacted.
I know what you’re thinking: that’s not fair etc. Do YOU take every d@mn deduction you can on your taxes? of course you do.
Exactly.
A corporation is PEOPLE working toward a common business goal. They all get paid.
What’s wrong is taxing their income as a group, AND as individuals. Just a sneaky way for the gov’t to raise individual income taxes by one-off misdirection.
When I look them up, it says Amazon paid $769 million in taxes on $3.8 billion in income in 2017.
Did something get re-stated?
“Keep in mind they received a $1.46 of tax payer money for every box they ship too. “
I don’t think so but you can explain ...
It’s ironic that before this was a Trump tax cut this forum was pretty much populist about corporate taxes and companies paying 0 taxes. Especially after the 08-09 recession.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.