
Trump Attacks Amazon, Saying It Does Not Pay Enough Taxes - zonotope
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/29/us/politics/trump-amazon-taxes.html
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orf
In his own words that makes them smart, right?

[https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-taxes-
smart/](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-taxes-smart/)

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peacelilly
Yes, which makes the Gov dumb for letting them get away with it. That's why he
became president, to fix dumb things (in his opinion) in government.

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SippinLean
So he's combatting the wealthy paying too little in taxes by giving major tax
breaks to the wealthy?

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twothamendment
As long as they play within the rules, fair game. If Trump doesn't like the
rules, don't single out a company, change the game.

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foobarbazetc
What rules though?

If they’re not turning a profit there’s no income tax owed.

Just because he lacks the ability to understand slightly complex concepts
doesn’t make them “unfair”.

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IAmEveryone
I’m most impressed by his accusation of Amazon using the USPS as their
“delivery boy”.

Seriously, this guy could have had a great career in standup. It’s a great
loss for the country.

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throwaway2016a
Made even funnier by the fact that parcels are one of the few places USPS
actually makes money and has growing revenue.

I've been hearing this argument (Amazon is abusing the USPS) from a ton of my
far-right family / acquaintances and I'm sure these claims will just amplify
it.

With that said, if USPS really isn't making money on the parcels from Amazon
they can and should raise their rates. And if doing that makes them no longer
competitive with UPS and Fedex than so be it. That's how markets work. In the
private sector it is usually illegal to sell for less than your cost to
undercut competitors.

An interesting analysis: [https://www.vox.com/2017/12/29/16830128/amazon-
trump-twitter...](https://www.vox.com/2017/12/29/16830128/amazon-trump-
twitter-postal-service-feud)

Another interesting article that says the post office loses money on Amazon
because of the capital expenditure required to ship packages. But it strikes
me that eventually that cost will be paid for:

[https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/for-every-amazon-
package-...](https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/for-every-amazon-package-it-
delivers-the-postal-service-loses-146)

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dclaw
After literally just cutting their fucking tax rate.

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johnzim
Those two aren't mutually exclusive - if your aim would be to target that
company specifically, changing the federal corporate tax rate would be a poor
way of achieving it.

What is more pertinent is how much tax they pay on overseas income and how
much they repatriate.

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thibran
Wrong country and maybe wrong company.

Apple pays so few taxes in Germany – approximated 2,8% taxes on their earnings
– that the public is totally pissed (but it is for incomprehensible reasons
legal). World wide Apple made ~62 billion dollar last year, but paid only ~25
million tax in Germany (0,2% of the total). At the same time they sell a lot
of products here, this is so wrong. I guess Amazon is not better, but the real
sinner is Apple.

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Mononokay
Most resources say they make ~25-30 billion a year in revenue in Europe, and
the idea that Germany makes up the majority of said revenue is a bit silly.

Did they pay taxes on the revenue they made in Germany? If so, I'm not sure
what your problem is with them? Are you saying that they, a company that owes
nothing to Germany, given it wasn't helped by the country at all really in
terms of benefits, talent or monetarily, should have to subsidize a country
based on the fact that they're successful in other markets?

If every country had that kind of a notion towards taxing, Apple would have
less than 1M in profit after paying everyone taxes based on global earnings.

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DanBC
> Did they pay taxes on the products they sold in Germany?

VAT is a tax paid by the consumer, not vendor or manufacturer.

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Mononokay
Corporate tax exists in Germany,which is what I was inferring to - although I
did use unfortunate wording. I'll edit that a bit.

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slashcom
My understanding was that Amazon, until recently, intentionally hasn’t turned
any profit. You don’t have to pay taxes if you don’t make any money...

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calebm
Which is one reason why the high-revenue/low-profit growth strategy is so
good. It feels similar to me how in chess you sacrifice pieces to capture
control of the center of the board.

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poster123
You could argue that part of Amazon's success has been due to its helping
customers evade state sales taxes. However, Trump has often talked about
loosening libel laws because he thinks he is unfairly attacked by the press,
and he dislikes the Washington Post, owned by Jeff Bezos. I don't trust
Trump's objectivity on this issue, to put it mildly.

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sjg007
This is all about the Washington Post. If it starts publishing a pro-Trump
narrative he will back off.

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RcouF1uZ4gsC
The fastest way to make a person publicly change their opinion about something
is to have Trump state that opinion.

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scottmf
That just makes Amazon “smart”.

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neo4sure
Checkout financials

[https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AMZN/financials?p=AMZN](https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AMZN/financials?p=AMZN)

Please look at profitability. Who says Amazon doesn't make a profit?

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rtx
Fair game.

