Amazon hasn't paid any income tax within the last two years, even though they have received federal tax credits in the past two years. Not only is Amazon the third-most valuable company in the world, but they also earned an estimate of $10 Billion dollars last year. Amazon is clearly a successful company and its earnings, despite losing $241 million in 2014, has topped their losses. However, some of Amazon's earnings have come from outside the U.S, where they paid little to no taxes. The U.S. tax code does allow companies that have lost money to reduce future taxable income, but Amazon's most recent financial statement says that they have $1.4 billion left in tax credit to offset any tax bill that they might have in the future. They are planning to add more job opportunities to offset for not paying taxes.
Even though they still have money for tax credits and have not paid income tax in the last two years, they are avoiding paying taxes. Should Amazon be held to the same standard as any other U.S citizen when it comes to paying taxes? Are they subject to tax evasion? Any other U.S citizen would be, why not Amazon?
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/15/tech/amazon-federal-income-tax/index.html
2 comments:
Very interesting, i know callaway did the same thing for a number of years. If amazon uses the money from the tax credit to put back into the economy causing new jobs and growth i don't see any issue with it.
This is an interesting debate on whether companies are allowed to carry losses forward to offset future gains. It makes sense for many companies and helps them recover from bad years and allows them to stay in business. But amazon certainly could afford to pay the taxes on their earnings. Is it fair to hold larger companies to a different standard then smaller ones because like many start ups they lost a lot of money in the beginning. Also to what extend can the US tax companies for international sales, this has been a problem in the past and is why many large tech companies keep most their money offshore but by allowing them to bring it back to the US they are able to reinvest and help the US economy grow. Individuals also are able to do something similar with there taxes by claiming capital losses. Personally I don't have an issue with allowing companies to claim a tax benefit from losses and move their money around without very high taxes both of which allow them to grow and help the economy.
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