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Will Amazon Get a Visit From the Tax Man?
theodp writes to tell us that according to the Wall Street Journal, Amazon.com has raised a few eyebrows with their strategy to avoid paying sales tax in eight states where they have warehouses or distribution centers. "As an online retailer, Amazon can avoid collecting sales tax in states where it has no presence, at least until Congress changes the law. But in states where a company has actual facilities, such as warehouses, states tax officials can require the company to collect sales tax. Despite operating hundreds of thousands of square feet of distribution facilities in the eight states, Amazon says it doesn't have any presence in them. The company argues that it doesn't operate the plants, its wholly owned subsidiaries do."
It was his last day, but then Lumberg asked him if he could just go ahead and come on in on Saturday then too, mmmm'kay?
Wheeeee
They have the same problem any distributor does, the relationship with the facilities they control. If they make income from the facility in a domain, then the domain will exercise a level of control over them.
no comment
All Amazon has to do is threaten to move their facilities. The threat of a loss of jobs will dwarf whatever gains they hope to make from pulling in sales taxes.
Can you imagine every transaction paying sales tax to 8 states? Just because they have a distribution point?
Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
I once worked at a company in Silicon Valley that built network ASICs. The company focused on Traffic Management, QoS, etc. features for Oc48-Oc192 switches/routers. The company had a new chip in the lab that was very late and needed to work for some "critical" customer demos in just a few weeks. Management asked the engineering team to all come in and work all weekend to bring up the new chip, and of course they'd comp us the days later, etc. etc. What management didn't say was that on Monday morning they were going to lay off 1/2 the company. So much for comp time. Blah!
That's some Guantanamo Bay-esque logic there. How can they "not have a presence" if they own buildings, even if it is indirectly?
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
One of the main reasons I go back to Amazon time and time again, is for no sales tax. The savings are usually good too, and the MP3 download service rocks.
I really like how Amazon has matured over the years.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
"what is Chutzpa"
I'm aging rapidly, I bought a new game and had no idea if my machine was good for it.
Let's see a state with an Amazon distribution center tax it, and then let's see Amazon.com close it down. That which happened to Ohio and Michigan, will happen again.
This is my sig.
The full 8.75% sales tax rate. Not only that, but the price taxed also includes the shipping. Not that that should surprise me but it certainly does annoy me. Amazon is suddenly becoming much less of a good buy than it was. Thank you Albany.
If you think you understand how taxes work, you aren't looking hard enough.
When something is purchased through amazon.com, usually the point of purchase is in Washington state (I therefore have almost always paid sales tax through Amazon). It shouldn't matter where the item is shipped from. A warehouse is not a retail location. They pay taxed for property, employment, ect. Why should they double dip for the sales tax?
Now this maybe changing on Monday with destination -based sales tax reform. I know that this is causing my company a lot of headaches because we are having to deal with municipalities in some states that are straight up ridiculous ( I am looking at you Colorado and Oklahoma).
The burden of paying a tax is always on the company. You could have a Tax in Tinyshittownville that you would never know about until you get a letter requesting back taxes. It is a freaking nightmare to manage. Municipalities can just keep piling things on.
(/local/home/curiosity)-#who -u|grep thecat|cut -c 44-49|xargs kill -9
I was under the impression you only had to pay sales tax if the sale was made in that state -- ie, the consumer resides in that state. Is this not true?
Buy from Microcenter.com and if they have a store in your state, they will charge you sales tax and shipping - even though there warehouse that they ship from is in Ohio, they charged my GA sales tax.
I'll never buy from them online again. If they don't have it in the local store, I won't buy it.
Anyway, after a bunch of googling on the matter; if they have a physical presence in the state you are buying it from, they have to charge you sales tax for that state. I don't think it differentiates between a retail presence or any physical presence, IIRC.
...or any other state that has no sales tax.
(just random thoughts here.)
They could then threaten to move the distribution centers to other states, and fire everyone there unless they relocate. Yes it's cold-blooded and etc.
But, it would make most states (esp. states where jobs and money are tight) stand up and take notice that you're about to cut a chunk of jobs (and income tax revenue, property tax revenue, injection of money into the local and state economy, etc) out from under them. Call the state next door and say "I'd like to build a large distribution center and hire (n*1000) employees for it in your state... we'll pay all the other taxes, but please don't charge us for sales tax. If the benefits outweigh the loss of sales tax, I'm willing to bet the state (esp. hard-hit or not-so-large states like Mississippi and etc.) would happily take the deal.
IIRC, Wal-Mart does this all the time (at least with local governments) - getting sweetheart tax waivers in exchange for the locality getting jobs and other economic benefits.
Now sure, it wouldn't be easy to just pull up stakes and move, but distribution centers are warehouses, which means that it's not a very complex infrastructure to move... the hardest part would be shifting the logistics.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Really though, sales tax is always a regressive tax and I don't think it is a great idea in general for that reason...
Sales tax is flat, it is only implied to be regressive because we assume, for example, the first $50,000 a person spends must be on necessities, and since that was all they had to spend as a $50,000 earner it was regressive when compared to a person spending 50,000 from a 100,000 in earnings. If the person earning 100,000 spent other 50,000, they would pay twice as much in sales tax as the 50,000 earner. The fact is that they both spent the same amount in taxes at the same spending level. That is not regressive, that is flat.
The income system in the US regressive, the sales tax is flat.
no comment
You're not a lawyer, you don't understand US corporate law, and you don't understand US taxes. Thanks for providing valuable insight!
IANAL, *but* I know enough that you can't wiggle out of tax situations by simply creating new companies.
What you think you know, is flat-out wrong. One of the primary reasons for creating subsidiary corporations is precisely to deal with tax issues.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Now, I like tax free(er, I mean, untaxed at time of sale, later calculated and payed by me, in accordance with the law) purchases from Amazon; but their logic seems, at best, deeply tortured.
In fact, my first thought on seeing that explanation was "Wait a second, Amazon has started up a defence contracting department?"
Never a good idea. After all the government makes the rules and interprets the rules. Imagine if the government decides to seize the warehouses and their contents. Amazon will have a serious problem at that point.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
First off, that sales tax would be for all Amazon sales within the state of the facility. So you can figure that only some (I'm guessing between 1/5 and 1/20) of the sales would be taxed in that facility's state. Second, that subsidiary is paying for the services mentioned above by way of corporate / property / employment taxes, etc. True, not as much as the local hardware store down the street that charges sales tax as well, but they are paying the lion's share. Third, going after Amazon could cause them to be dicks to all of these states by threatening to let go of all the employees in the respective facilities and move out of the state--leaving the state with none of the taxes mentioned above and an empty warehouse that, if it's not worth much, the subsidiary might just abandon & let foreclose. (After all, if there's sufficient legal distance between Amazon & that subsidiary, it might not harm Amazon's bottom-line or credit rating).
All it would take is 6-12 months to buy & build warehouses in states with no sales tax (i.e. NH), or a state with few Amazon customers they would be forced to charge sales taxes to (MT, NM, WY come to mind), and presto! Problem solved.
Windows 3.1x calc: 3.11 - 3.10 = 0.00
I agree. This has to exist. Think of this from a grocery shopper's perspective. I work for General Mills, and I know we have distribution points in a number of different states. Should you, as a customer going into a grocery store and buying a box of cereal, have to pay sales tax for your state as well as eight states you don't live in, just because the product came through those distribution points on its way to you? Of course not! This is just an attempt by several states to tax interstate commerce, which is constitutionally outside their realm, and they should be justly smacked down for this.
Note: I think it is probably ok if a state like New York wants to pass a law saying Amazon has to collect sales tax for New Yorkers buying on its site. In that sense, it is treating Amazon like any other retail option selling in New York. But you can't just tax goods bought by people from other states. Unless such a law is in place, Amazon should be paying property taxes, and that's it.
In conclusion, I really think Amazon's argument is flawed in this case; it's not about whether they or a subsidiary truly owns the distribution points. It's about the constitutionality of a state levying an interstate commerce tax, and that's what they should be disputing.
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
If the distribution centers are run by wholly-owned companies, then they are probably not independent by law. An item owned by a company A wholly owned by company B might just as well be owned by company B.
It is understandable that Amazon.com would resist the New York law taking effect this month, which would make it collect sales tax, not just for purchases in New York State but for those in all localities ("the retailer must charge the tax amount appropriate to the locality where the goods are shipped") — as if Indiana sales tax is any business of New York State's. (Amazon collects Indiana sales tax, anyway, since it has a distribution center northwest of Indianapolis.)
The argument that Amazon benefits from police, fire and other government services falls flat when you realize that Amazon already pays for those services in property taxes (at least in Indiana) and inventory taxes (elsewhere). And the argument is irrelevant to the law requiring the collection of the taxes of other states.
I figure this would be enough for Amazon to close its center in New York State and relocate it somewhere else on the East Coast.
There's a joke about lawyers. . .
A bad lawyer can let a case drag on for years. . . a good lawyer can make it last even longer.
IANAL, *but* I know enough that you can't wiggle out of tax situations by simply creating new companies. At least here in Canada,
I wasn't aware Mounties had WiFi for reading /.
Yeah, I'm the taxman And you're working for noone but me taxmaaaaaan
They said the online sales were a different company that the retail store. Maine fought it and they (Cabellas) eventually moved 4 or 5 staff from their online and phone orders into Maine so they would collect sales tax on internet and phone orders placed in Maine and the case wouldn't go to court, since if it was ruled that subsidiaries counted as a presence in the state it would affect many other states as well
Anyone who gives the shaft to the tax man gets RESPECT+9999 in my book.
Circumcision is child abuse.
I was involved with an Amazon subsidiary in California. Amazon stayed very far on the safe side of the border between subsidiary and satellite office. For one thing Amazon did not have any day to day say in the operations of the company. Everything was done by board meetings. And I believe Amazon bigwigs made a point of not visiting California for those meetings. Many if not all meetings would instead happen in Seattle.
That's not to say that the subsidiary's employees didn't occasionally work on projects with Amazon employees. And back when every Amazon employee dropped their work to go work in distribution centers at Christmas many of the subsidiary employees went too (voluntarily).
But everything was really separate. Health plan, retirement plan, HR, IT and especially day to day management were independent.
I was involved with a program through my University that put us in contact with engineers who were also entrepreneurs. We spent a week in the Silicon Valley area catch up with Alum who had gone on to become VPs of engineering at startups, or presidents of companies based on their work. One of them was a man who was Product Manager for the Kindle at Lab 126 in Cupertino.
He talked with us for a while, basically hinting at us very strongly at what the kindle was, and showing us some prototypes that eliminated any doubt as to the devices nature. He also had his staff talk to us. One man, who had worked closly with Bezos said this (paraphrased):
"Jeff HATES taxes. The reason that Amazon has made as much money as it has is because Jeff carefully played the game to avoid paying as many taxes as possible. Lab 126 is a wholly owned subsidiary, because if it wasn't, every California resident would have to pay sales tax on Amazon.com."
And that was for a research lab that was actively developing a new product for direct sales from Amazon.com. Somehow, avoiding sales tax for warehouses doesn't surprise me.
Of course there is a reason, and it is that a person with a lot of income spends a lower percentage of that income on consumption.
That is NOT guarenteed by any means. There are people out there that make half of what I do and save money, there are people who earn ten times what I do and spend every cent of it and then some.
Me, I save 10-20% of my income. In my state, food from a grocery store isn't subject to sales tax.
Is the sales tax still necessarily regressive?
I don't read AC A human right
You act as if a tax which is applied equally to everyone, and is blind to factors such as race, sex or economic status, is a bad thing.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Exactly.. it's not Amazon that is paying the tax, it's YOU. Corporations do not pay taxes, they only raise the cost of their products and services. Amazons customers pay that tax, and I think they are dammed well in their right NOT to charge it.
What a biased story.
Bringing liberty to the masses. - http://freetalklive.com/
Show me someone who can get buy with only the 'necessities' excluded from sales tax and I'll show you the Amish - and even then it's a stretch.
Amazon's "position" notwithstanding, they have a warehouse in Kentucky, and began collecting sales tax on Kentucky orders once that warehouse opened. While they may have complained about it, they aren't putting their money where their mouth is by refusing to collect the tax.
Sent from my iPhone
If they want to avoid taxes, they should sell those centers to a third party and contract out the warehousing duties.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
How do we expect to win our war in Iraq and the one we are about to start with Iran if we don't pay our taxes?!?!?! The simple solution most, if not all of our problems is to tax everything bought/sold/traded/etc over the intarweb. I say set the tax to 20%. It's not that much really. Just a fifth. We can afford it and think of the benefits!
We'd have more money for our endless wars. We have huge numbers of bankruptcies right now because people spend more than they should. By raising taxes people won't be able to afford as much, will think twice about impulse purchases, and will end up saving money in the long run. This means less bankruptcies in the future. Did I mention we need money for wars? We could help keep people from losing their shirts in the stock market by taking that money from them in the form of taxes. We need money for wars damn it?
20%. That's all I ask. Just one fifth of everything. We could use a little to help social security... maybe give half away to other countries... I can think of more stuff... so start giving now!
How is it that one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
So for items costing around $100, there's essentially no real price difference. You can get it today or wait a week but the final cost is pretty much the same.
But things are changing; the rapidly increasing cost of oil is having a profound impact on the shipping companies. For most of those shipping companies the largest expense they have is the cost of fuel to run their trucks, delivery vans, airplanes, etc. These companies are scrambling to find ways to cut costs and stay profitable without increasing their rates - laying off employees, cutting back on "non essential" services, consolidating routes, etc. This is only a temporary fix; energy costs continue to rise and it's just a matter of time before the cost to ship a package increases substantially.
That'll increase the total cost of online purchases - I wouldn't be surprised to see the shipping costs double over the next couple of years. This will translate directly into a loss of business for online stores and more than a few of them will shut down.
Adding sales tax into the mix will make things even worse. That would mean that instead of a $100 item costing $108 after paying for shipping it would become $124 after paying for "new improved" shipping and sales tax. The bricks/mortar store will still be able to sell for $108.
The end result of this ill conceived plan will be that we will no longer be able to access a wide range of products - or if we can they'll be a lot more expensive. The brick/mortar stores will still only carry the items that sell in large numbers (as they do now). The state governments will receive a small increase in their tax collections. And us, the consumers, will pay for all of it. Less choice, higher prices. Thank your governor for their fine public service...
Why should someone who works harder, innovates, starts their own business, or pursues a higher-wage career be penalized?
It is in the interest of the people to provide a safety net for those who cannot earn enough to feed, clothe, house, and educate their families. A slight subsidy to lower-income families helps keep them out of subsistence crime.
The company argues that it doesn't operate the plants, its wholly owned subsidiaries do.
Tax law is complicated so I wouldn't presume to know the particulars of Amazon's situation. It's quite common for economic entities to be comprised of a number of legally separate companies. For example General Electric is actually about 30 or so large legally separate companies under the umbrella of a single economic entity. In principle there is no problem with Amazon using subsidiaries to control their warehouses. Sometimes using subsidiaries can have beneficial tax consequences so there is no fundamental problem there either unless they are attempting to not pay taxes that they rightfully owe in spite of their corporate structure.
The real question is what is their consolidation policy for their financial statements. Generally speaking wholly owned subsidiaries have their financial statements consolidated into those of the parent company and they are treated as a single economic entity. (which in effect they are) The parent company has a lot of discretion as to how much detail they break out from their subsidiaries but they are required to show all material results, including of course taxes. All this consolidation policy information is required by the SEC to be in Amazon's financial statements.
Isn't the whole *point* of slashdot to be a place for people who don't know, to tell you how things are?
Do you really think that Bill Gates is as spineless of a coward as most of the livestock at cube farms are?
Yes, I do. Haven't you noticed that Bill Gates has been bullied around by Steve Ballmer ever since Windows 1.0. The reason Gates' work is never realized is because he's never been in charge. He has done precisely what Steve has told him for years. And Steve ruined his entire image and turned Mircosoft from a beloved entity into a corrupted and one of the most hated companies. So ya, I do think Bill Gates is spineless.
Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
So then move the business to a state without sales tax then? New Hampshire maybe?
That would just make more money for UPS, which has to ship more packages from New Hampshire to California. Longer distances mean longer times and higher costs. Most of the time, shipping is already more expensive than sales tax in the United States.
Since 1997, Microsoft has used a front office in Reno, Nevada to avoid paying Washington State over $528 million in software sales taxes.
The Redmond company makes products here but records software sales to PC makers and high-volume customers through an operation in Nevada, where there is no corporate tax. So Washington is missing out on revenue it could use for badly needed infrastructure needs -- like replacement of the 520 bridge.
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
Bill Gates is spineless
He prefers the term 'flexible'.
This is not about a tax Amazon pays; you the consumer pay sales tax. They only collect
and organize it. This is about a competitive advantage that Amazon has, and it's a very good one - 5-9% across the US.
At some level, Amazon doesn't care whether or not you pay the taxes, never mind what "Jeff" thinks about taxes, how hard it is to keep track of what taxes get paid where (give me a break), or some of the libertarian nonsense that has show up in this thread. Amazon should care about keeping this important margin. It's not the only competitive advantage A has but it's certainly a good one.
There's a number of arguments that can be made about whether it is good for this competitive advantage to continue (look what is happening to local retail, not just bookstores) and whether this system as a whole is paying its fair share in taxes. I don't think that's in scope for this thread but we all should be thinking about it. I don't see how the current tax-free system can continue, realistically.
it's illegal here to pay the tax on behalf of the buyer.
you MUST COLLECT or face penalties or fines.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The consumer pays the sales tax to the state they live in IF they are buying from somewhere that has a physical presence in the state. So if they ship from florida but the buyer is in new york, the consumer does not have to pay sales tax. They are avoiding it because it gives them a competitive advantage, and there is no reason why the consumer shouldn't pay sales tax. You would have to at a local bookstore, you should have to at Amazon, unless there isn't a physical distribution center. The only way they should be allowed to avoid this is if they only have a presence in a sales tax free state. Property taxes don't negate the need to pay sales tax. Don't all you homeowners pay your property taxes AND whatever sales taxes apply? There shouldn't be a loophole. And honestly, in this recession, we should be happy to have more money going to the states to benefit all instead of Amazon's pocketbooks (with their added revenue from people who buy with them to avoid sales tax).
http://www.clairehenry.net//powered by linux
Then they just have that covered under another equivalent tax.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
That's because it only works with hardware not floppies.
Charity begins (and should end) at home, not at the business end of a gun.
Emphasis placed on who ends up using more force -- the business community who thinks it is $DEITY.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Now if we listen carefully we can hear the cry of the slope headed repug: "Nuh uh! Yer retarded! Yer retarded!" As you can see, this pathetic creature has no arguments and must resort to insults to defend its territory.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I have someone else do my taxes, so apply a grain of salt.
Oklahoma has some kind of line on the income tax form for internet sales tax that you failed to pay.
Never trust a man wearing a coat and tie!
Taxing the rich isn't punishing them, it is simply keeping them from taking advantage of the hard work of others, thereby helping ensure that their success is actually merited and not a result of unfairness.
As the rich are already engaged in class warfare against you and I, I see no moral reason not to fight back. If you look at the policies supported by the rich you will see a common thread: they are aimed at taking money from the common person and giving it to themselves. The more poor and desperate people their are, the less the rich have to pay in wages.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
To even out the distribution of wealth somewhat. History shows that if this doesn't happen, the rich end up on the pitch forks eventually.
"Really though, sales tax is always a regressive tax and I don't think it is a great idea in general for that reason..." Well, this is only partly true since rich people are more likely to buy a BMW than a Dodge. What I like about the sales tax is that it is always collected, no matter if the car is produced in the US or in China. Hence it would even make more sense to rise the sales tax to lets say 30% and lower the income taxes. This money could be used to pay the retirement obligations and maybe a general health care. It basically would at a penalty to imports.
From an operational point of view several early dot.coms figured out how to administer sales taxes which could vary with every zipcode. Government bodies havent pushed hard yet for this technology during the Internet "tax-free honeymoon" decade. Except their interest has been increasing during this recession. But technologically its been solved.
Huh, Ballmer? I don't think monkeyboy has been around that long.
Amazon has a very large distribution center in my state and they have to charge me sales tax because of it.
Ballmer joined in 1980. That video of him pitching windows 1.0 on youtube is not fictional.
Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
REIT Real Estate Investment Trust
A tax "strategy" where a company essentially pays rent to itself *and* gets to expense the cost.
A favorite of Wal-Mart who is being sued big time over this.
Threaten to close the distribution center entirely and get the local government to give you enough incentives so you can absorb the sales tax and not charge your customers.
If they don't play ball, close the distribution center and move to another city or state that will play ball.
If none of them play ball, bite the bullet and put your distribution centers where it makes the most economic sense to do so, all things considered. This may mean having just one distribution center, located in the state where you have your corporate offices, or having 2 or 3 in low-population states, where charging locals sales tax won't drive away too many customers.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Back in 1997 http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,5230/www.idgconnect.com/ Amazon filed a lawsuit alleging that the wholly-owned subsidiary relationship between Barnesandnoble.com and the brick-and-mortar Barnes & Noble, Inc. bookseller was not sufficient to allow Barnesandnoble.com to avoid collecting sales taxes in states where Barnes & Noble, Inc. had a business presence.
Although they eventually settled that case without a court ruling, Barnesandnoble.com eventually lost the issue over the wholly-owned subsidiary claim in the California court case.
Other than "bad for me" vs. "good for me", what does Amazon claim has changed since they filed that 1997 case to make a wholly-owned subsidiary's business presence represent a presence by the parent company?
Not that I *want* Amazon to have to go back to having warehouses in only one state, but...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGvHNNOLnCk
and so that should settle that nonsense. lost it in the 1970s, so it's well-established. lost it doing defense work, so amazon can't claim an exemption selling books to the feds, either. and amazon can't go to the US Senate for help, either... the ND tax commissioner at the time, Byron Dorgan, heads the senate tax and business committees.
no escape. cut the check.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
and I do 1.3 million dollars in taxable sales annually in NJ
My accountant tells me this is so, and I don't know where the law is as it applies to sales tax, but I do know where it is shown as required for our new hotel/motel tax
http://www.state.nj.us/treasury/taxation/index.html?hotelfeeinfo.htm~mainFrame
Customer Billing Guidelines: The State Occupancy Fee and the Municipal Occupancy Tax are imposed directly on the customer and must be separately stated on any bill, invoice or other document given to the customer. A vendor may not advertise that the Fee/Tax is not due, that it will pay the Fee/Tax for the customer, or that the Fee/Tax will be refunded to the customer.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Yeah, Amazon isn't liable for the tax, but the subsidiaries are, and because they are more than 51% owned by Amazon, accounting rules dictate that all income and expense be reported on Amazon's income statement. That's how the IRS will see it I'm sure. 'nuff said
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
Progressive taxes (income tax which increases in percent as the principal increases) are nonsense.
No they are very sensible: they allow MORE people to survive with FEWER government handouts. Given that all civilised governments need to provide some services: health care, defence, resource allocation, social safetynet etc. they need money to do this. Lets suppose that if a flat tax rate were imposed it would require 30% of everyone's income to fund this and suppose that the minimum cost to provide food and shelter is £8,000/year.
With the flat rate this means that everyone who earns under £12,000/year would need government handouts to survive. This would increase the government's costs, raising the tax percentage and resulting in more people requring support until equilibrium.
However if you introduce a progressive tax rate you can set the lower bracket at, say, 10% and gradually increase it to a maximum of say 40% in certain steps. Doing that the minimum salary requiring government handouts to survive drops to £8,800/year which means far fewer people rely on the government for support and government costs are kept lower.
Of course this is a greatly simplified view and other means of progressive taxation can also be employed (standard allowance before tax is charged is an example). But I'd hope you agree that having more people making their own way rather than relying on government handouts is something worthwhile?
Yes, to avoid triple taxation. Subsidiary companies are used when a business has foreign investments or owns a company that it uses in production of its main product. When you have to purchase raw materials, but then also use those materials to create another product, you dont want to have to pay taxes on the materials, and then on the product, because then the consumer gets both passed along to them. Thats bad for everyone, not just business. Subsidiaries aren't wiggling out of tax situations, they are creating true tax situations based on the reality of what end product is providing value for society.
Sounds like they are paying these taxes just not under the Amazon.com name but under the subsidiaries; whatever they are named.
No officer, those are not my pot plants.
They belong to my dogs, Mary-Jane and Budz.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
When Hollywood studios practice "Hollywood Accounting" to screw people like Peter Jackson for example by shuffling off expenses and other things to subsidiaries, everyone comes out and says what terrible scam artists they are. Yet when Amazon does the same thing by handing off duties to subsidiaries to get around rules, the government is suddenly the bad guy.
Amazon should set up a network of distribution centers as subsidiary companies perhaps in every state but no order placed in a given state shall be shipped from the center in the same state. Ship something out of state, no tax. Problem solved.
Better yet, tell the bastards in Congress to get their heads out of their big cellulite-ridden collective ass and quit taxing the economy into oblivion. Furthermore, how about a law that states that fuel taxes go ONLY into an account administered by the Dept of Transportation. Maybe that way we'll have bridges that don't fail. Oh, and while we're at it, we need to put all Social Security taxes BACK into ONLY the Social Security account instead of the general fund (you can thank the Dems back in the 60s for pulling that sh*t). "We don't know why Social Security will be bankrupt." That's because you spend the money on other crap, morons!
You are either willfully lying or just plain ignorant.
That's not even close to true, but the AC beat me to it with stats. The top 2% pays roughly 30-40% of the bill.
The top 50% of income earners foot 90% of the tax burden with regards to income tax.