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Amazon Will Pay $0 in Federal Taxes on $11.2 Billion Profits (fortune.com)
Those wondering how many zeros Amazon, which is valued at nearly $800 billion, has to pay in federal taxes might be surprised to learn that its check to the IRS will read exactly $0.00. From a report: According to a report published by the Institute on Taxation and Economic (ITEP) policy Wednesday, the e-tail/retail/tech/entertainment/everything giant won't have to pay a cent in federal taxes for the second year in a row. This tax-free break comes even though Amazon almost doubled its U.S. profits from $5.6 billion to $11.2 billion between 2017 and 2018. To top it off, Amazon actually reported a $129 million 2018 federal income tax rebate -- making its tax rate -1%.
I'm all for capitalism but it's ridiculous that Amazon gets money back from the government after those huge profits!
Circle the wagons and fire inward. Entropy increases without bounds.
Why would the United States of Amazon tax itself? Move along. Next story please.
Let's confirm with Washington Post first. Could be fake news.
The wrong question is, "Why doesn't Amazon pay more in income taxes?"
The right question is, "Why are income taxes appropriate for anyone to pay and why doesn't everyone pay $0 for income tax?"
Who do I talk to to get this deal for successful small businesses that employ people, provide a great service level and benefit their neighborhoods and towns?
Q: So who is paying for their employees' Social Security and SSI disability?
A: We are.
I'm more than a little bit tired of the wealthiest corporations and individuals paying proportionally less in taxes than even people in the bottom tax bracket. Giving tax breaks to help small businesses grow makes sense. Giving huge tax breaks to help one of the largest businesses in the world grow does not.
It's time for a tax revolution at the ballot box. Vote only for politicians who declare a willingness to make our tax code more fair and less protective of the wealthy. Raise capital gains taxes. Phase out corporate tax exemptions for companies earning more than 100M annually or add a business version of the alternative minimum tax. Make our tax system fair.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
The company’s newest corporate filing reveals that, far from paying the statutory 21 percent income tax rate on its U.S. income in 2018, Amazon reported a federal income tax rebate of $129 million. For those who don’t have a pocket calculator handy, that works out to a tax rate of negative 1 percent. The fine print of Amazon’s income tax disclosure shows that this achievement is partly due to various unspecified “tax credits” as well as a tax break for executive stock options.
Aggressive use of tax credits gets ordinary people audited. Businesses, though?
Thanks, Trump!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
It is common for companies that made several years of losses to not pay tax until those losses are zeroed from current profits.
Maybe nothing to see here?
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Yet I'm sure Amazon isn't kind to go lightly on their employees who find public transport inadequate to get into work reliably.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
But they're an equal opportunity employer, it says so right on the box. Give them a break from all this bad publicity, would you? Jeeze.
They are a business expense and are passed directly to the consumer of their goods and/or services.
So actually, you pay their taxes.
Before we bash Amazon it's important to note the following from the linked to article.
"...ITEP notes that its non-existent federal tax payment is a result of the Trump Administration’s corporation-friendly tax cuts. The think tank writes that the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act not only decreased corporate tax rates from 35% to 21%, but it also didn’t close “a slew of tax loopholes that allow profitable companies to routinely avoid paying federal and state income taxes on almost half of their profits.”
According to The Week, Amazon ended up paying an 11.4% federal income tax rate between 2011 and 2016, which is a contrast to the -1% rate this year."
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
Q: So who is paying for their employees' Social Security and SSI disability?
A: We are.
No, Social security and SSI disability are paid by both the employee and the employer, and are not "Income Taxes".
Your ignorance of the topic undercuts and invalidates your argument.
Ken
I'm sure the average taxpayer would love to be able to pay $0.00 in federal taxes.
It must be nice.
Seriously.
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
Donâ(TM)t buy from amazon
Talk to the folks that write the tax code, they structured it this way for a reason, and we (collectively) keep re-electing them.
Ken
Can't fault people or companies from paying as little tax as legally possible.
You can hate the people or companies for this, it's the political system that is to blame. Yes, I know companies lobby for this, but it's the system that allows them to lobby.
Hate the system or change the system!
"I have stated my concerns with Amazon long before the Election. Unlike others, they pay little or no taxes to state & local governments, use our Postal System as their Delivery Boy (causing tremendous loss to the U.S.), and are putting many thousands of retailers out of business!"
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2018
For all of the calls for the Rich to pay for this and that, when will people on the left learn that the wealthy have enough money to practice really good asset protection? i.e. they end up paying very little in taxes because, asset protection often means own nothing, control everything. Calls to tax the rich more result in nothing, because there is nothing to tax. All you will end up doing is jacking up taxes for the middle class.
Oh no! Then customers would be forced to support local, brick-and-mortar, small businesses instead (the ones that actually DO pay taxes and create real jobs).
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Q: So who is paying for their employees' Social Security and SSI disability?
A: Amazon. Just because Amazon isn't paying corporate profit tax doesn't mean they aren't paying *any* tax. Besides, social security is paid through withholdings from it's employees.
Q: So who is paying for their employees' Social Security and SSI disability?
A: We are.
Um ... no.
Don't just vote for those who say they will make taxes fairer. Vote for those who VOTE for fairer taxes and not just tax breaks for corporations. Conversely, vote against those who voted for tax breaks for the corporations.
Well technically he is right. Social Security is called Social for a reason. Technically we are paying for their benefits in our payroll taxes (assuming you are normally employed) with the expectation that future generations will pay for ours. Now here is where he makes a good point. Legislators "borrowed" money from SS to fund things that should have been funded by other taxes like income tax. Since they have no intention on paying SS funds back we pay for it in the form of later retirement and less benefits when we get ready to retire.
Q: So who is paying for their employees' Social Security and SSI disability?
A: We are.
I'm more than a little bit tired of the wealthiest corporations and individuals paying proportionally less in taxes than even people in the bottom tax bracket. Giving tax breaks to help small businesses grow makes sense. Giving huge tax breaks to help one of the largest businesses in the world grow does not.
It's time for a tax revolution at the ballot box. Vote only for politicians who declare a willingness to make our tax code more fair and less protective of the wealthy. Raise capital gains taxes. Phase out corporate tax exemptions for companies earning more than 100M annually or add a business version of the alternative minimum tax. Make our tax system fair.
I'm tired too but here's what needs to happen. 1) It's hard to phase out Amazon from everyday life, but for starters everyone should stop purchasing from them. They dominate the cloud market so it will be hard to go cold turkey as they touch lots of society. I had an Amazon account for 1 year and shut it down. Never looked back. Next, folks need to stop working for them. I know, it will be hard but it's completely possible.
This right there would be a solid start.
Yet...he did absolutely NOTHING to make them pay tax. If anything, the tax plan made sure they paid even less in taxes.
You must be a special kind of stupid if you believe anything that liar says. Mexico was supposed to pay for the wall; instead he's had to rob the treasure for it. TWO YEARS of a Republican controlled house and senate that would have given him whatever he wanted....but he had to wait until there was a conflict. He had to wait until it looked like he had a reason to start the transformation to dictator.
Sure...he complained about Amazon. Then he did nothing.
Seriously...you must be a real special kind of stupid if you actually believe anything that asshole says.
your ignorance of what the dgatwood said is astounding.
a: we are.
as in the customer that gives money to amazon in the first place, pays for amazon and thus indirectly pays for the employee to be employed which is inclusive of all of their benefits.
Then the Politicians world not get kickbacks to make exceptions to the tax code
Raise capital gains taxes. Phase out corporate tax exemptions for companies earning more than 100M annually or add a business version of the alternative minimum tax. Make our tax system fair.
I've started suggesting the following ideas to try to make the tax system more fair:
Maybe if corporations don't pay taxes, we can get closer to overturning the stupid idea that corporations are people.
Its cute when you Amerikuks think of yourself as "policeman" of the world. So explain why no one else runs their country on your genius Value Added Tax? We have the USA to pay our police bills right? We must all be floating on wealth..
MORAN.
Amazon actually spends their money to help bring people good things.
Since apparently Amazon pays little or no income tax, the rest of us end up paying a bigger share in our income taxes. However if we forced Amazon to pay income taxes, Amazon would just raise prices to cover that cost - and we end up paying anyway. Granted the "we" in the first case is most everyone (in the US) and is just Amazon customers in the second case. Either way Amazon is not likely to make less money over all.
If only they weren't 100% compliant with all applicable laws, and there was an obvious way to change those laws to mean that they do have to pay tax!
I mean... who'd ever live in such a world!
So much better to let them - or anyone else - do it, completely legitimately, then try to invoke ire that they decided it was a good thing to do, not pay any tax that they weren't required to.
I tell you now, if the taxman gave me an option to not pay any tax, completely legitimately, with no comeback, I'd damn well exercise it. So I don't see why Amazon should be singled out for having done so.
The problem is... how did they manage this, and why aren't the taxation authorities and law doing anything to close whatever "loophole" (read: crappily written law) they utilised.
The UK and EU have been cracking down on this, ever since Apple paid some pathetic percentage in Ireland and tried to claim that covered ALL their EU tax. Even *Ireland* protested and basically fought Apple's corner for Apple NOT to pay more tax to Ireland... Ireland literally talked themselves out of billions in tax that the EU *FORCED* Apple to pay them - because they knew they their little backhanders and "favours" were supposed to happen in lieu of Apple paying tax, so Apple would get pissed off and move out of Ireland if they were made to pay *the actual amount they should have owed*.
Amazon used an antique tax law in Guernsey (Channel Islands, sorta-belongs to the UK) to ship DVDs without paying VAT... that law was designed to cover tulip shipments to make the Guersney flower industry thrive. It got misused such that Amazon posted ALL their DVDs and CD from Guernsey for nearly a decade.
Because not one fool thought "Maybe that tax exception should only apply to the flowers we don't want to tax, not every single thing under the sun of a similar value"
They remit billions in state sales taxes collected at point of sale now. Their employees pay billions in federal income taxes, social security and medicare. Paying another billion or so is meaningless now. If it is legal deny the feds any more money to build their fucking walls and conduct worthless military exercises.
But of course this being slashdot and ignorance of math and finance the name of the game here, let us all have a hissy fit and throw tantrums. So far it looks like you're doing a bang up job.
Maybe taxation is a bad way to organize society.
The fine print of Amazon’s income tax disclosure shows that this achievement is partly due to various unspecified “tax credits” as well as a tax break for executive stock options.
In researching what "a tax break for executive stock options" means, I found a Forbes article from 2013, that described it this way:
The option break,which Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) calls an “unjustified corporate loophole,” works like this: A company issues options to executives to buy stock at a certain, usually low price. (For example, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg had options to purchase 120 million shares for just 6 cents a share when the company went public last May at $38 per share.) Then, when the executive exercises those options, the company gets to deduct the difference between the executive’s exercise price and the shares' higher market value, even though the company hasn’t actually paid the exec that large amount of cash. As a result, while Facebook reported $1.1 billion in pretax U.S. profits for 2012, it owed no corporate income taxes and in fact qualified for $429 million in refunds. (One key here is that companies report their earnings to shareholders and the SEC under different rules than they use to report taxable income to the IRS.)
It went on to explain:
Defenders of this tax treatment for executive options point out that it’s not like Uncle Sam is getting stiffed. That's because the executive must report the same amount deducted by the company as ordinary income. So while corporations avoid a 35% corporate income tax, wealthy executives pay individual income taxes (after this year's fiscal cliff tax deal) at a top 39.6% rate. Plus, the whole amount is considered compensation subject to Medicare taxes at a 3.8% rate. (That’s the normal 2.9% Medicare rate, equally split between employer and employee, plus a 0.9% Medicare surcharge on highly paid employees that was part of ObamaCare.) And, of course, the exec has state individual income taxes to pay too. (In California, the top rate on income above $1 million is now a whopping 13.3%.) Some companies such as Facebook, “net settle” options. As Forbes contributor Robert Wood, a tax lawyer, explains here, that means Facebook made tax payments to Uncle Sam on employees’ behalf (essentially, it withheld taxes the workers owed), giving them only the shares they would end up with, after tax. (Note that the tax treatment of executive stock options—also called nonqualified stock options--is entirely different than the tax treatment of the "qualified" or "incentive" stock options typically handed out to rank and file employees.
So taxes were paid, mainly by the employee exercising the stock options, but also to an extent by the corporation as well - the article sums it up thusly:
To tax geeks, the treatment of executive stock options makes perfect sense: A tax deduction on the corporate side is balanced by taxable income to the employee.
Source: Stock Options Meant Big Tax Savings For Apple And JPMorgan, As Well As Facebook
The takeaways - rather than tax the income at corporate tax rates (21.5%) the income is taxed at the highest individual rate (39.6%) AND Medicare at 3.8% and state tax rates, and the source of these deductions predate the Trump administration, since the above article is from during the Obama Administration. The origins of the tax break are left as a research project for the reader, I've done my part by showing the taxes are still paid by the employee that got the tax break, and paid at a higher rate than the corporation would have paid. (All tax rates described are from the 2103 article, the concerned reader is invited to substitute in post-Trump tax break rates if they like, the principle remains the same.)
Ken
I thought that all corporations were basically supposed to pay 0% taxes, All the taxes are there to create pressure to do things that help the overall economy. Hire people for work, build public works, etc. So basically, it's like this. Spend the money on the public good, or we will take the money and spend it for public good. Just to be clear, I am not an advocate of corporate welfare, but I would like to see what they did to qualify for 0% taxes, most likely not enough.
From the CNN Finance summary: "Institutional investors hold a majority ownership of AMZN through the 57.75% of the outstanding shares that they control. This interest is also higher than at almost any other company in the Internet Retail industry."
Besides the unfortunate loss in employment opportunities for unscrupulous accountants and lawyers, I think the US would be better off if they eliminated all corporate income taxes. There are so many loopholes and handouts that it is impossible to make companies pay an equitable amount.
To compensate for the loss of federal income, personal taxes should be raised, especially taxes on capital gains, and loopholes closed so that corporate resources cannot be used for personal gain without taxation.
Most US states/counties/cities would also be much better off with a (lower rate) VAT rather than GST, so they could get income from a broader range of economic activity (especially lawyers fees). But Americans seem to as blind to the concept of VAT as they are to so many other modern ideas.
When it comes to stuff like this believe nothing you see from mainstream media of any kind. (Fortune = Mainstream media)
Here's the problem with this:
Amazon just pulled out of NY after democrats don't want to work with them.
Democrats start projecting calling Amazon a "petulant child," despite this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlMIyae9-ZU
Now mainstream magazines posting triggering articles bashing Amazon saying they will pay no taxes.
F the MSM. God save Donald Trump.
- Alex
Amazon isn't alone! Creimette will pay 0$ in federal taxes on his 33 cents profit from 2018!
Also, likely not the whole truth, but when did truth stop us!
Your ignorance of the topic undercuts and invalidates your argument.
The speaker's ignorance never invalidates an argument.
A person who does not understand English stating "The cube root of nine is three." does not change the truth-value of the statement.
Q: So who is paying for their employees' Social Security and SSI disability?
A: We are.
I'm more than a little bit tired of the wealthiest corporations and individuals paying proportionally less in taxes than even people in the bottom tax bracket. Giving tax breaks to help small businesses grow makes sense. Giving huge tax breaks to help one of the largest businesses in the world grow does not.
It's time for a tax revolution at the ballot box. Vote only for politicians who declare a willingness to make our tax code more fair and less protective of the wealthy. Raise capital gains taxes. Phase out corporate tax exemptions for companies earning more than 100M annually or add a business version of the alternative minimum tax. Make our tax system fair.
I'd love to but both parties are bought and paid for. The Democrats have a few fringe players who talk about reform they are not in power and are marginalized. Those types also typically hate me as a cis-gendered white male so why would I support them? The reason aggrieved groups are given such a microphone by media is that it keeps the spotlight off declining standards of living, wages going down, etc. BLM doesn't cost companies a thing after all.
Since Amazon products are shipped all over the world, 70% covered by water and US Navy is to keep ocean commerce free of pirates, they should help pay for that service. Also other military services allows commerce of US products that also allows Amazon to ship their sales stuff around. Unless Bezos gives up Blue Origin to fund his own military services to allow undisturbed shipment of products, he should pay taxes. Yikes a private military of Amazon, now that's a scary concept.
mfwright@batnet.com
There's.. a lot of ignorance in the reaction to this. It's outrage fodder appealing to morons.
Corporate taxation is mostly silly anyway. They should pay basically use type taxes, e.g. for roads, local services, etc... Income taxes are paid by the people who actually profit from the company. If you want more money tax them at a higher rate (in particular, capital gains rates should probably go up a bit).
So all that profit either goes to pay people (shareholders, new employees they hire, companies they buy, etc...) who pay taxes on it, or it goes to their "warchest" in which case it gets taxed when it goes to a person at some point.
I know this will get downgraded because some folks cannot accept the fact that corporations NEVER pay taxes anyway. People pay taxes. To a corporation taxes are a business expense. Taxes are simply rolled into the cost of production. A large tax bill for a corporation means only one thing. Prices of the products will increase to cover the tax payments. People still wind up paying the taxes. It may be hidden so you don't see it, but you pay hidden taxes on every product you buy. To say that "It's not fair" that some corporation doesn't pay taxes totally misses the point. The "outrage" here is misplaced.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
This is all correct, though nobody but left wingnuts claims corporations are people. Corporations have some of the same rights as people because they are composed of people (for example, freedom of speech). But they aren't people and nobody but left wingers regurgitating outdated talking points claims they are.
But you are right on the taxes, increase capital gains a bit cut out some loopholes and eliminate corporate income taxes. They should still pay local e.g. use taxes (roads, firefighters, police, etc... that they are eligible to use) but not federal income tax.
$800 million what? Revenue not profit. No civilized country in the world taxes on revenue but as you dumb fucks no NOTHING and can't remember to even include the "unit of measure', if you even understand the term you are doomed to become the dumbest generation that ever existed.
You people are so stupid that you don't know what a profit and loss statement is or what a balance sheet is let alone know the difference between a cost and an expense.
But remember to praise a teacher for this wealth of knowledge, and remember that it took a baby boomer to raise these idiots, these "special children".
So the thing I'm amazed at is given the stranglehold Amazon seems to have on its market, they only made 11.4 Billion for the year. From what I can see, Apple posted a 14.1 Billion profit on Q4 alone.
" In 2016, the company earned $10 billion but recorded a tax benefit of $400 million for a 12-month tax rate of -4.5%, according to Forbes."
"GE was one of 18 Fortune 500 companies that paid no net federal income taxes between 2008 and 2015"
https://www.thestreet.com/stor...
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
The ONLY reason i buy from amazon is free shipping which i do NOT pay for whatsoever. See many of us can game amazon just as they game the tax system. And when i cant free shipping is the day i stop using amazon. Its only a matter of time till free shipping ends. BTW i do pay taxes as much as i don't like to they are necessary.
Jack of all trades,master of none
Well that sounds fair...
1. The employer's share of payroll taxes are paid for by the employee, in the form of a lower wage. If the employer hired you knowing they'd be paying you a salary of $50,000/yr plus $3825/yr in their share of your payroll taxes, then they hired you knowing you would cost them $53,825/yr. So absent the payroll taxes, they would've hired you at a salary of $53,825/yr. Since you are receiving only $50,000/yr instead of $53,825/yr, you are paying the employer's share of payrolll taxes in the form of a lower wage.
2. While they are not technically "income taxes", any tax which reduces the disposable income available to the wage-earner functions identically to an income tax. This includes sales taxes and value added taxes (which decrease the purchasing power of your disposable income). This is pretty obvious once you realize that the entire point of taxation is to divert some of the country's productivity into the government's coffers so the government can decide how the money is spent instead of you. Since the only source of productivity is people (the productivity of a corporation is just the sum of the productivity of its employees), every tax functions the same as an income tax.
Surprisingly, this includes corporate taxes. Corporate taxes are assessed as a percentage of a corporation's profit. Corporate profit goes to shareholders as distributions. So a corporate tax functions the same as an income tax on those shareholder distributions. The only difference is that one tax sends the money to the government before it changes hands from the corporation to the shareholder, the other sends the money to the government after it changes hands.
Basically, the massive tax code we have is an enormous shell game to try to hide taxes from the people who are paying for it all - wage earners. It would be a whole lot easier, cheaper, and more transparent if we just combined all the taxes into one, single tax. And if you believe in a progressive tax code (higher incomes pay higher tax), then the obvious single tax to keep is the income tax. All other taxes could be eliminated in lieu of an income tax. (Though you'd probably want to keep behavior-modifying taxes, like fuel taxes, property taxes, cigarette taxes, etc.) This would have the additional benefit of eliminating corporate tax dodging, since that's only made possible because corporations can exist simultaneously in multiple tax jurisdictions. People can only exist in one place at a time, so they can't dodge an income tax.
"Talk to the folks that write the tax code, they structured it this way for a reason, "
because theyve been bribed.
"and we (collectively) keep re-electing them."
not really, thanks to gerrymandering we dont really have much say over what kind of people "represent" us. This hasnt really been a representative democracy for a LONG time. Its all about money, whoever has the most money gets to buy the office.. and then their lobbyist paymasters tell them what theyre allowed to do with it.
Or you could make the corporations pay all the taxes and the people pay no taxes. This would also be a step closer to overturning the idea the corporations are people. 8^)
See, the thing is, corporations are just groups of people. Much like unions, corporations are a groups of people. Bigoted progressives happen to hate people who organize together to create jobs, which is fundamentally retarded, but corporations are merely collections of people. By incorporating, they have a formal agreement with each other, and that makes regulating and taxing them much, much simpler. But, corporations are merely groups of people. Stop being a retarded progressive.
I'm not sure how your post is related to what you quoted from the parent post...
What the parent post talking about is that the money that goes into SS fund is coming out from each employee and employer at the rate of 6.2% of the employee's salary. The amount is calculated separately from (or in addition to) federal/state taxes. If you look at your W2, you should be able to figure it out.
He never said income taxes asshole.
Profits would be passed along to the people who own Amazon (shareholders), and those shareholders would pay income tax on those profits with their personal taxes. Why is it a good idea to tax profits twice, once with the corporation, and once with the shareholder? I could maybe see the value of taxing corporations that hold on to profits for a long time, and never return those profits to shareholders. But not otherwise.
If the government offers tax credits in exchange for behaving in certain ways, and Amazon, Trump, Ross Perot, Joe Doaks, or whoever adopts those behaviors in response, they haven't gamed the system. The system has gamed them. They were *supposed* to do those things, because the policymakers considered them good. There's no sense in crying foul.
No, Social security and SSI disability are paid by both the employee and the employer
A philosophical nit but when the dust settles, corporations don't pay taxes. They may write the check but "the corporation" is just a middleman.
Eventually the tax burden will fall on real flesh and blood humans. It may be the employees (through lower wages and benefits), the customers (through higher prices), the investors (through lower profits), or the suppliers (through buying cheaper or fewer inputs). There are probably other ways the tax gets passed along. In any real situation, the corporation will react in some mix of all these ways and the specifics will depend on many details.
When the burden gets to that human, they have to make a choice about what not to buy because they now have less money to buy things with. That's who feels the pain of the tax. And by the way, that's the ultimate cost of the tax: what that human had to give up because they were paying a tax instead.
So, we should put a stop to companies making a profit and put a stop to big companies making big profit? While we are at it, we should put them out of business and lay off everyone working there! All of the money multipliers that exist because of said business should stop also. We are not a socialist 3rd world (whirled?) country yet and we will not stop until we get there! Make all rich people regret being rich. Make everyone who works for rich companies suffer! Make all politicians who want to bring jobs to their state stop. We want to be out of work people making no money!
Even though ( via Citizens United ) Corporations are now " people " too, not all citizens are equal apparently. Especially when it comes to paying their share of taxes. :|
Whereas the vast majority of us pay somewhere between 20-30% in Federal Taxes every year, it seems most corporations pay no where near this amount. With some, like Amazon, not paying anything at all.
How do we fix this ?
Can it be fixed ?
Why is the majority of the tax burden sitting on the shoulders of the individual tax payer instead of the multi-billion dollar shoulders of Mega-Corp ?
Woot! Making monopolistic capitalism great again!
Know what's weird though? My federal taxes went up this year. I musta done something wrong, 'cause I know the Donald gave me a great, truly fabulous, phenomenal tax cut. He said so.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
If the employer hired you knowing they'd be paying you a salary of $50,000/yr plus $3825/yr in their share of your payroll taxes, then they hired you knowing you would cost them $53,825/yr. So absent the payroll taxes, they would've hired you at a salary of $53,825/yr.
Bullshit. They would have hired you at $50k/yr and pocketed the rest because you agreed to hire in at $50k/yr. Nobody gives a shit what their employer pays when agreeing on a salary, and the employer isn't going to give you a dime more than they have to. If I don't think the job is worth it at a certain rate, I'm not going to take it. Your expenses aren't my problem any more than my expenses are yours. The notion that if taxes were to drop the employer would pass the savings on to the employee is ridiculous.
Jeff Bezos is both a rabid liberal and the richest person alive, and his newspaper, The Washington Compost, is one of the leading outlets of carefully-crafted liberal propaganda.
Funny how big corporations embrace capitalism and yet they seem to love social programs and social benefits.
There are income taxes and there is the Income Tax. Income taxes are any tax that is based on the income earned by a wage earner. US Federal Withholding is the Income Tax which is calculated on the taxable income of the wage earner. FICA taxes are income taxes as the tax is assessed based on the adjusted taxable wages of the earner. FICA taxes are 12.4% of the employee's adjustable income with an income cap of $127,200 along with 2.9% on adjustable income with no upper limit. The law states that the wage earner is only responsible for half of that tax while the employer is responsible for the other half (6.2% + 1.45%). What a given business would do with the FICA they pay for if FICA were repealed is a case by case basis but at a minimum those FICA income taxes for their employees are part of the total annual cost of employing that worker. Some companies might increase the wages of their employees or use it in a way that benefits the employees. Some might pocket the difference and use it in a way that benefits the business. Others may look at lowering prices for their customers due to less overhead.
Their accountants report huge profits to Wall Street and losses to the IRS and their auditors sign off on both
>just stop purchasing from them
Yes, this is how I prevented the ills caused by EA on an entire industry. I no longer suffer the cancers brought on by their practices, once I stopped buying from them.
Your solution is to do literally nothing.
they're, like all major corporations, gearing up for a recession. A recession partly _cause_ by said tax cuts. We pumped too much money into one side of the economy (the top 1%), so to prevent a bigger slowdown later the fed's jacking interest rates and slowing down other forms of stimulus (on the demand side, always on the demand side).
Meanwhile my taxes went up substantially this year. Thanks Obama^XTrump.
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argue with straight faces that the reason for the 8% decrease was people didn't withhold enough.
While technically true, these same sumabitches spent the last 2 years promising everybody big fat tax cuts.
I'd like to think that even somebody watching Fox News can figure out that their taxes went _up_ under Trump.
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Only losers need their neighbors to pay their medical bills for them.
Amazon followed the law and it worked out in their favor, good for them. If you don't like it, change the law or get good at understanding out you, too, can pay $0 in taxes.
the problem is there is no penalty for politicians to not live up to their advocated platform.
If i break a 'lawl' i am punnished.
If a politican breaks a promise, they made to the people -- they possibly rewarded. (regulator / politician hired to the company they regulated, but were light on.)
I haven't done my taxes yet, but I think the amount of taxes I paid last year is going to have a lot more to do with whether or not I bought any washing machines, solar panels, etc.
Trump, without Congress' involvement (so Congress gets no blame for this), unambiguously raised taxes on everyone. Some of the taxes went from 0% to as high as 50%, seriously. He's a big taxer, but he admits it, and it's part of his "MAGA" thing. He said he would use enormous tax increases on goods and materials (and visa restrictions for labor) to transition us from a free market economy to a centrally-planned economy,and he did it. Comrade Trump is the good kind of Communist, a promise keeper.
But Congress (and Trump signed it too, so he can have some credit) lowered income taxes a bit.
So whether you're praising the conservative Republicans or condemning the Trump Republicans, comes down to how much money you made and what you bought.
One thing's clear, though: Trump Republicans and conservative Republicans aren't going to be able to keep their alliance much longer. I think the conservatives will break off once Trump's various criminal cases get far along enough. Enjoy this far-left government while you have it, because the conservatives (not just Republicans, but even Democrats as they too are a bit more conservative than the president) are going to start pushing back as soon as he's impeached or indicted (whichever happens first).
Amazon writes big quarterly checks as their portion of the SS insurance/SS disability obligations, based on employee salaries, that is not their 'income tax' and those programs were funded as required by law.
The original poster conflated payroll deductions with income tax.
Ken
Hi, I'm Jeff Bezos. I run a small start-up out west and would like to expand. If your city gives me $3bn I would gladly open up a new office there. My plucky little team will be sure to bring many new jobs. We may need to move out a couple people in the neighborhood and rents may go up a smidgen, but isn't America all about helping out the little guy get a foothold so that maybe one day we can make it on our own?
udachny is a sock puppet of roman_mir. the latter uses the former to try to convince more people that the foundational principles of his cult are righteous and sane. they both often post at -1 (and have their postings limited here on slashdot) because they have poor karma scores here as a result of repeated abusive behavior and their consistent religious proselytizing that is seldom on topic with the discussion thread. don't let him convince you that his doctrine would actually benefit you, or even result in him being less offensive.
the one pager 10% flat tax for all seems easy. who is willing to fudge the numbers and get audited? everyone and no one.
Amazon payed no tax in my country either, even though I bought two things last year.
Moran State Park? Yeah, it's nice... but you're kind of a moron yourself!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I don't remember there being a line for "Board Member of H&R Block" on my ballot.
Politicians don't write the tax code. They pass tax code that is given to them by lobbyists.
This wouldn't happen with no deduction flat taxes, or even a sliding scale no deduction tax system.
That's Fucked Up.
Signed,
Uncle Sam
Orange. Man. BAD!
...
https://www.politifact.com/cal...
"It's not a way to organize a society, it's a way to fund things of public benefit" doesn't make any sense.
The founders didn't recognize a need for taxation; they just didn't know a better way. Ignorant people come up with bad solutions.
Just because you cannot envision another way to fund those services doesn't mean there isn't another way. There is a market for those services—even education of the youth; maybe the youth should be learning how to be productive members of society, paid for by their employers, rather than learning to hate white people in governmental indoctrination centers.
They very much care in the research and consulting games. Those costs of hiring and maintaining you (including taxes the employer pays, and the cost of collecting and forwarding taxes the employee pays) are all part of the overhead. So they're paying you $50K (which you all agreed to because it was reasonable for your work, or else they were the highest (or only) bidder for your work which in theory might be worth more) but when your work is paid for by somebody else THEY are getting charged $80K or more.
Yet...he did absolutely NOTHING to make them pay tax. If anything, the tax plan made sure they paid even less in taxes.
This just shows you have no idea how the Federal Government works. The President isn't the one who sets taxes. That would be Congress. Also, as for the wall, that's ALSO Congress. In fact, the wall was authorized in 2006 with the Secure Fence Act (which Obama and Biden both voted for.)
So, instead of reveling in your hatred of all things Trump, watch some Schoolhouse Rock, read the Constitution, or do something to be informed about how things work instead of complaining about the wrong person.
Also, the whole "Dictator" thing is laughable. It reminds me of the "OMG! He will have The Button and kill us all!" when he was first elected. It is full of sound and fury but, in the end, signifies nothing.
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
So nobody then? I've yet to see a politician tackle tax code loopholes. They just move the deck chairs around. Even the democrats target the middle class instead of the wealthy. The latest bout of tax hikes under Obama hit upper middle class and small business. Rich people got off scot free via loopholes. I mean the Medicare ACA 1% tax hike hit joint incomes of 250k. Deductions and exemptions were also phased out at that level. Setting the bar there is a hell of alot different than setting it at 100M.
So basically, the Republicans don't want to tax anybody, and the Democrats want to tax the upper middle class. Pick one.
Since you did not provide a source, I found an article on Politifact's site which contained a few of these numbers here. It seems to ramble, and appears to be an opinion piece.
There are some better statistics that you can examine from the Associated Press, The Atlantic, and WalletHub, and The Tax Foundation
The Tax Foundation tracks the numbers back to 1981.
https://people.howstuffworks.com/which-states-give-the-most-the-federal-government-which-get-the-most.htm
After reading all of these, I am inclined to believe that you were fishing for something that would reinforce your opinion.
You can't fool all the people, all the time.
so most people who think they are smart are actually idiots about this.
Taxes are "expenses" to a business, and are therefore passed on to the customers of the products and/or services of the business as a component of those prices right along with the other costs of producing them.
It's a simple concept, but beyond the grasp of anybody who has been raised on a steady diet of Marxist ideology as most American school kids since the 1960s have been. The indoctrination has become worse with every decade in which the very left wing part of the Democrat party that includes the nation's two big teachers' unions have been in charge. Every current highschool senior is certain to know a lot about transgernderism, "social justice", everybody having a "right" to "healthcare", and all the other current progressive claptrap and yet very few will know even the most basic principles of money and accounting and business.
This is related to the idea that something like a college education or healthcare (which people must be paid to provide and which require costly physical infrastructure and materials as well) can be "free". These things can never be free, even if slavery is reinstated and the people in those industries are forced to work for free - there are still costs for facilities, supplies, energy, and more that have prices. The whole "free" thing is a lie, SOMEBODY has to pay; it's just sloganeering for Marxist redistribution that's meant to disguise the armed robbery by pretending the stuff being handed out fell into our hands from a clear blue sky instead of having been stolen from somebody else.
Even a basic understanding of economics is dangerous to the left, so most young people are not taught these things. Alexandria Occluded Cortex is a fabulous example of this ignorance.
Bezos is a left-wing troll and a Trump hater.
Trump's tax cuts, though not responsible for the loopholes and deductions Bezos takes, did indeed lower overall rates and therefore benefitted Bezos. If Trump was 1% of the evil fascist tyrant the people the left has demanded he is and that Bezos's Washington Post newspaper keeps claiming then Trump would have excluded Bezos and Amazon from those breaks. Hell, if Trump was a fascist then he would have shut down Bezos' newspaper and jailed his reporters after the 2+ years of lies they have spewed against him.
I'm starting to suspect that Trump may well be the most squeaky-clean politician in Washington DC in American history. No other person I can recall has ever had the full weight of the FBI, CIA, DOJ, plus a special prosecutor, plus over 90% negative news coverage for nearly 3 years and still had no violations of law exposed. It's particularly amazing given the thousands of laws on the books and the idea that every single one of us accidentally violates several every day.
(Using your distinction of upper case and lower case income taxes and Income Taxes)
There's no evidence Amazon didn't pay every "income tax" it owed, which likely was in the hundreds of millions, both it's portion and collected from employee paychecks.
This article is about "Income Taxes", and that Amazon didn't pay any last tax year.
The original poster obviously conflated the two.
Ken
just fine them like the good bitch they are...
Right... politicians aren't in the least bit responsible for how they vote in Congress, so it doesn't matter which ones are running things.
Has nothing to do with electing people and allowing them to have the power over us to decide which economic interests to favor or not.
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
When "the rich" top 1% of income owners pay 2x their share of income in taxes, then the only way to make the tax code "more fair" would be to lower taxes on the rich, not to increase them. When the top 50% of income owners pay 97.5% of income taxes, then the bottom 50% who pay only 2.5% of the taxes aren't in a position to declare that's "not fair". I'm not sure you understand what "fair" means. It'd be fair if everyone contributed in taxes exactly what they got back in benefits over their lifetime, but we left that behind a long time ago in the name of envy and greed.
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
landed a nice contract. It'll end though. Next year is probably going to be way worse. Doesn't mean he won't be paying taxes next year. He'll pay less, but no 0.
Enough of this crap where we let companies go without paying taxes because they lost money ten bloody years ago. Not paying taxes while you're not making money? Cool. Once the money comes in it should be the same as me: Pay your damn taxes.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
They have the f'n money and we don't. Pay the f* up Amazon!!!
I dispute your finding
http://www.governing.com/week-...
and
https://rockinst.org/wp-conten...
with the data to support it from
https://www.govinfo.gov/conten...
NY and NJ pay a lot of taxes and don't get it all back.
and Politifact California, can't find your reference, cite your source
if you see me, smile and say hello.
Both sides are not the same. Stop it with that stupid trope. Obama and the democrats let the Bush tax cuts expire and raised the taxes on the rich. They're doing exactly what you asked. So go support them. Don't wait for your soulmate to be on the ballot box.
All those against a simple, flat tax; how is the complex, loophole ridden tax system working out for you?
Digitize currency. Tax all transactions x/1000'th or so of the transfer amount, no deductions, no other taxes, everyone pays according to ablility, transfer tax a bit harder if transactions are made out of the country that is if you want to keep money inside your country. You can then shut down all goverment tax offices by building in transparency to transfers, this can be done while maintaining anonymity of sender and receiver. In such a system there is one lever, full comprehension, full transparency and no cheaters, everyone contributes according to ablility and everyone contributes fairly. This will be done for all transactions between any type of entity, be they, persons, corporations or other. As for spending. The tax people get to vote on percentages to be spent on areas making it onto an ongoing ballot that clearly specifies what money is used for. Hence there are no shady political deals, once again you have full budgetary transparency and best of all no politicians can hold people for ransom in some rigged system where you have no idea of what is going on... This should be done on a global scale in every country allowing citizens of each country to have a say in the state of affairs in their homeland. Creating a fair for all society ain't all that hard if you really want to do so.
Can someone explain where exactly is the problem? They provide services, pay bribes and do business as everyone else. What are you all dumb or something?
This kind of thing doesn't happen in a system you can vote your way out of. Buy a rifle. You're probably right in thinking you won't solve the problem with it, but "live free or die" is the only way anyone ever lived free.
Nothing to see here. Everything is fine.
Good for them. There should be no taxes levied on corporations. Not even kidding. There should be no taxes on income of any kind period. We should be encouraging work.
Changing to a consumption tax like the rest of civilized society would increase personal wealth while at the same time reducing frivolous consumption. That's good for the environment.
If AOC had two brain cells to rub together she would have made the GND about consumption tax rather than punishing work.
If they are breaking the law, arrest them. I you think the tax credits they are using are wrong change them. There are economic and social reasons for these tax credits. Just remember it is called a "tax loophole" if they use it, and a "tax credit" if we use it. It is the responsibility of business to maximize profit and minimize expenses. They would be irresponsible not to use all available tax credits to minimize their tax liability.
you have now commingled the following amounts
executive cash income
executive option to purchase of corporate stock at price x when market price of stock is y
market price of company stock, measured at various times of the year
executive federal income tax
executive state income tax
corporate entity income
corporate entity profit
corporate entity federal income tax
corporate entity withholding of employee federal income tax
corporate entity state income tax
please show me a spreadsheet example of the two different scenarios and how the government did not lose money.
dont forget the situation where companies have different types of stock.
Amazon should really just subsidies the nearby housing area so people are not outpriced from their homes. Amazon can afford this motif easily. It will bring them a better reputation for investors and local business and would still bring them the same amount of jobs.
http://gamehacking.org/vb/threads/12747-nensondubois-codes http://twitter.com/nensondubois_
Right... politicians aren't in the least bit responsible for how they vote in Congress
No, politicians defer to "experts" because no politician can be an expert in everything they vote on. Those experts don't always come with pure intentions.
What a terrible misleading post. So let me see, one minor fact that was left out, the billions of dollars of losses that amazon axxumulated over the past decade, itâ(TM)s called carryover. Oh yeah, a minor detail not newsworthy.
Both sides are not the same. Stop it with that stupid trope. Obama and the democrats let the Bush tax cuts expire and raised the taxes on the rich. They're doing exactly what you asked. So go support them. Don't wait for your soulmate to be on the ballot box.
It's not a stupid trope, it's quite accurate. Here's a whole list of reasons why: I'm in the middle class. Do Democrats help me? No. They might help the welfare recipients or illegals but not me. I'm a tax payer far more than a tax recipient. Do Republicans help me - no so much either, but at least they don't hate me because of my skin color, gender, or religion. I'm very much in favor of a workers party but we don't really have one in this country.
I hit send before adding links: Obama has many failures but the ones I am most against are: - National debt more than doubled (>120% increase) - Identity politics set country back decades Citation: https://www.debtconsolidation.... Fun reading: https://www.bostonglobe.com/id...