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President Trump Attacks Amazon, Incorrectly Claiming That It Owns The Washington Post For Tax Purposes (recode.net)
The Washington Post, which has been critical of Donald Trump and his administration in its coverage, has become the latest victim in Trump's Twitter tirade. On Wednesday, he accused Amazon of not "paying internet taxes (which they should)," adding that the company is using The Washington Post "in a scheme to dodge" the taxes. Quick fact check: Amazon doesn't own The Washington Post, Jeff Bezos -- in his personal capacity -- does. At any rate, Trump's furious tweets come a day after The Washington Post reported that a fake issue of Time magazine with Trump on the cover was hanging in some of the president's golf clubs. The timing of this is also awkward because just last week the president met with Bezos and other top executives to discuss ways the White House can modernize government and aid the tech industry. But the two have a long history. As Recode reminds: Meanwhile, Amazon is about to embark on what could be a lengthy government antitrust review of its bid to buy Whole Foods. Already looming large over the roughly $14 billion deal are the president's own comments: He has previously attacked Bezos and claimed the Post is a tax-dodging scheme for Amazon. "He thinks I'll go after him for antitrust," Trump said at one point during his campaign. "Because he's got a huge antitrust problem, because he's controlling so much, Amazon is controlling so much of what they are doing." Months later, Trump charged: "Believe me, if I become president, oh, do they have problems, they are going to have such problems." Meanwhile, Bezos isn't one to shy about his anti-Trump views either. At one point during the election, Bezos tweeted that he'd save a seat for Trump on his Blue Origin spacecraft, with the hashtag "sendDonaldtospace."
Why the hell does anyone still care?
Don't get me wrong, the president of the US is a pretty important person and whatever he does has some effect on the world. But do we really have to hear every fart he passes? Who gives a shit about this anymore?
Wake me when he DOES something.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It's only smart if it's Trump avoiding taxes legally. The rules are different for anyone not lobbying him directly.
Distinction without difference... The sentiment expressed is still perfectly plausible:
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I'm really confused about the president's position on dodging taxes. If poor people don't pay taxes, that's bad. But if a rich person gets a tax break, that's good. If one of Trump's businesses, or he himself, avoids taxes, that's just his business expertise. But if Jeff Bezos does it, that's bad again.
Help me out here. I'm really confused...
The interesting thing about this is that he's only concerned about tax dodging when it involves a company he doesn't like. I'm sure there are plenty of tax loopholes that is businesses have been able to use over the years.
I think almost everyone knows that businesses don't pay the official tax rates, and the largest ones are able to pay zero or get tax refunds in some cases because they're able to buy loopholes and exploit them. Even small businesses, who are the most vocal about it, structure their transactions to avoid taxes. Wage-earners are about the only taxpayers who don't get these benefits because documented W-2 and 1099 income is directly tracked and taxed at the income tax rate. But, ask any small business owner what entity owns their car, house and personal debt -- I guarantee you the answer is "John Smith Enterprises, Inc." It's way too easy for individuals to just set up a corporation and filter every personal expense they incur through it. It's not technically legal of course, but that doesn't stop it from happening. And then those same people turn around and complain about being taxed and regulated to death...those arguments ring hollow for me.
Usually, I moderate, today Ill reply.
Your wrong. -Everything- Chief Bozo says is news. If Chief Bozo disses the largest tech company in the world, that Big News. For me at least, being a cloud architect, and I regard that profession as quite nerdsy.
This why we need a businessman as president. Someone in business should be able to comprehend that a person can own many companies and not having each company interact with each other.
But we don't have a businessman as president we have a Son of a businessman who used the wealth and fame to more or less just maintain what he got, vs. Actually growing the business. Because if he just did normal investments with the money his dad gave him, he could be much richer.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
We need people well-versed in economics to run our public policy machine. Not just people who took economics in college, but people who have pushed the boundaries.
We should be pushing for DIVERSITY in our leadership. And I don't mean the Hijacked description of diversity called ethnic diversity.... I mean Intellectual Diversity and Diversity of Experience is even more important.
We could start by Step 1. discounting political experience as a qualification to run for elected offices, especially discount lawyers --- instead of having lawyers be legislators - appoint them "Legal assistants" -- In other words, lawyers help to understand the laws but shouldn't have the role in decisionmaking.
Step 2. Play up practical domain experience in decisionmaking, Get more scientists and engineers in office.
Step 3. Implement Term limits for all legislator positions. You serve your 6 years house and/or 12 years senate, after leaving office you must take a 6 year break before running again, and that is IT... no more legislating for you.
Here in Oklahoma, we are thankful for the electoral college. It did exactly what it was supposed to do. What is it supposed to do, you ask? Simple: It's there to prevent tyranny of the majority so large population states, like California and New York, don't have an over weighted say vs smaller states like Oklahoma and Wyoming.
If we had a direct population vote as you insinuate, then Los Angeles alone would overwhelm all of the votes of Oklahoma and Wyoming which deprives those states of representation. The electoral college assures their views are represented.
Sorry if you don't like it but it's the law of the land.....and for good reason.