Government Subsidized Amazon Pays No Tax

Amazon, which doubled its profits and made more than $11 billion in 2018, won't pay any federal income taxes for the second year in a row, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy reported on Wednesday.

The company will not be required to pay the standard 21 percent income tax rate on its 2018 profits, and is claiming a tax rebate of $129 million, which ITEP describes as a "a tax rate of negative 1 percent."

Amazon drew ire in 2018 for not paying federal taxes on its $5.6 billion in profits the year before, which was made possible due to tax credits and stock-based compensation, reports Politifact. Last year was the first time Amazon paid no federal income tax whatsoever.

theweek.com/speedreads/823590/amazon-pay-0-federal-income-taxes-second-year-row
web.archive.org/web20190214165156/http://theweek.com/speedreads/823590/amazon-pay-0-federal-income-taxes-second-year-row

As Amazon builds up its distribution network, it’s hit on a trick long practiced by the likes of Walmart: using the federal government to help pay its workers. A new study by Policy Matters Ohio found that more than 700 Amazon employees receive food stamps, or more than 10 percent of the tech giant’s 6,000-strong workforce in the state. Some of those recipients may be part-time help, but the fact that they need federal aid to survive suggests that they would be happy to work more. “Why is this giant, successful company offering such limited pay and hours of work that many of its workers need help buying food?” asked Zach Schiller, research director at Policy Matters.

Amazon ranks nineteenth among Ohio businesses in number of employees on food stamps, behind Walmart, McDonald’s, and Kroger. But Amazon is only the fifty-third-largest employer in Ohio, suggesting a higher rate of employees on food stamps than its counterparts. More important, Amazon has obtained at least $123 million in state tax incentives to place warehouse and data center locations in Ohio. This reflects a perverse form of double-dipping: Amazon gets a bounty to create jobs in Ohio, and then a good chunk of the jobs are so low-paying that workers have to seek federal assistance, providing a second subsidy for the e-commerce giant.

Cities and states are offering Amazon eye-popping tax subsidies to win its second headquarters. But smaller, existing tax incentives have already made Amazon the leading recipient of so-called “economic development” subsidies in the country. According to Good Jobs First, a non-profit that tracks state tax breaks, since 2000 Amazon has received $1.115 billion in 129 communities in the U.S., rocketing past the previous leader in this category: Walmart.

archive.fo/UM1EP
newrepublic.com/article/146540/amazon-thriving-thanks-taxpayer-dollars

Attached: Government Subsidized Amazon Pays No Tax.jpg (620x320, 62.53K)

The whole spy tech industry is government subsidized and tax exempted. They want a monopoly of big tech so they can force themselves into your lives. FACT.

bump

hmmmmmmmmmmmm

Remember Bezos has his friends in high places like the CIA. Its really a govt-run monopoly that makes money from third world foreign slave labor manufacturing. Then there is the Big Tech industry behind it as well (spying on people, which the government also likes).

Antitrust against the monopoly when!?

Precisely never from within the system.

It's not a monopoly though.
Amazon has much competition in the form of Walmart, eBay, etc.
Once those companies are gone, or at the least fading away, can you make the argument that Amazon is a monopoly at that point.

Amazon may have been exempted from the Corporate tax rate, however, their profits did not escape taxes entirely.
Profits reinvested into the company are tax exempt, while dividends payed out to investors are claimed on income taxes.
Frankly, the "Corporate tax" system is complete BS, as it allows double taxation of income.

...