'How About Paying Your Taxes?': Walmart Responds To Amazon's Challenge Over Pay (nbcnews.com)

Amazon and Walmart are in war over worker pay -- and now corporate taxes. After Amazon Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos on Thursday issued a challenge to other retailers, not naming which ones specifically, to match Amazon's pay and benefits, Walmart snapped right back. From a report: "Today I challenge our top retail competitors (you know who you are!) to match our employee benefits and our $15 minimum wage. Do it! Better yet, go to $16 and throw the gauntlet back at us. It's a kind of competition that will benefit everyone," Bezos wrote in his annual letter to shareholders. "Hey retail competitors out there (you know who you are) how about paying your taxes?" tweeted Walmart's Executive Vice President of Corporate Affairs Dan Bartlett on Thursday morning, sharing an article about Amazon paying $0 in federal taxes on more than $11 billion in profits last year.

Comments

Burn

[TimMD909]

Go Walmart! Can't believe they're on higher ground...

Re:Burn

[ruddk]

They are just mad Amazon out-evil'ed them. :D

Actually, they probably *ARE* paying taxes...

[mark-t]

... or more specifically, they are paying what the law states that they owe.

The fact that they apparently properly owe $0 in taxes despite $11b in profits might be a failing in the taxation system, but it doesn't mean they aren't paying what they are legally required to. They are clearly using loopholes and the like to dodge what would otherwise be a considerable tax bill, but just because they are doing that does not mean it is actually illegal.

Instead of appealing to Amazon to pay their taxes, they should instead be appealing to Washington to get the taxation laws changed so that this sort of thing can't continue happen.

Go Walmart?

[skam240]

"Go Walmart! Can't believe they're on higher ground..."

They are? Amazon is playing by the rules in regards to what taxes they pay just like every single other company I've ever heard of. Otherwise the IRS would be after them big time. The problem with Amazon not paying taxes isn't Amazon, it's our broken tax system.

Meanwhile, for the type of unskilled labor both Walmart and Amazon employ a lot of people for, a $15 minimum wage and decent benefits is extremely generous in the context of what you often see in this sector of our economy. All Walmart does is give their employees a stack of pamphlets explaining how to take advantage of federal and state welfare programs because they know their employees need them.

To put it differently, sure, you can say that Walmart is just playing by the minimum wage rules but they also probably pay as little in taxes as they possibly can as well.