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Donald Trump attacks Amazon
- Thread starter Living the Dream
- Start date
Why is everyone talking about sales tax?
Retailers don't pay sales tax, consumers do...retailers collect the taxes.
Trump is referring to Amazon's well known business structure meant to avoid paying corporate taxes. Pretty much every big company in the US does similar things but Bezos has been known to attempt even more ridiculous than usual schemes; when he first founded Amazon he tried creating the company with a home adress on a California indian reservation to try to avoid federal taxes.
Trump is an idiot, but "amazon collects sales taxes!" does not refute Trump's claim.
Retailers don't pay sales tax, consumers do...retailers collect the taxes.
Trump is referring to Amazon's well known business structure meant to avoid paying corporate taxes. Pretty much every big company in the US does similar things but Bezos has been known to attempt even more ridiculous than usual schemes; when he first founded Amazon he tried creating the company with a home adress on a California indian reservation to try to avoid federal taxes.
Trump is an idiot, but "amazon collects sales taxes!" does not refute Trump's claim.
KernelPanic
Member
Trying to hurt Amazon sales/stock to get Bezos to only print positive articles about him?
Banana republic level stuff
Bezos would likely spend billions on negative trump ads before capitulating at this weak attempt at intimidation.
Tallshortman
Member
Trump is worth under $4B at best. He is nothing compared to Bezos.
Gordon Shumway
Banned
"They don't pay their taxes!"
The Albatross
Member
He's seriously a fucking idiot.
But what he's trying to do is appeal to populist bull shit fears about internet companies or online retailers and likely connect that with populist idiots who see companies like Amazon as the bane of all evil. There's a typically vocal minority of people on this forum who likely say just as stupid shit about Amazon all the time, but because Donald Trump has said it, they're staying as quiet as possible.
The meat of his comment is baseless, but goes back to when Amazon actively fought paying sales taxes as an internet company and typical tax avoidance that you see from most huge companies (and that Trump typically defends). Previously they used to only pay sales taxes in states with physical distributions centers, but this changed a few years ago. Even in the states without sales tax, Amazon still pays taxes, in the form of real estate, payroll, and other taxes associated with running businesses in a state. And, of course, all Amazon revenue is taxed just like any corporate revenue in the country. But, the reason he's making the comment is to appeal to populist insensibilities amongst his hill billy supporters (sorry to any non-Trump supporting hill billies), and criticize the Washington Post.
Of course, Amazon doesn't own the Washington Post and Amazon pays taxes so none of this makes any sense. The president is a moron.
Elwood Blues
Member
Of all the terrible things Trump has done and said to have people ignore and rationalize, him trying to fuck over Amazon would be the least popular thing he could do in the eyes of the public. Amazon's approval rating is way higher than his.
Amazon avoiding taxes has nothing to do with them collecting YOUR sales tax that YOU pay.
http://www.newsweek.com/behind-amazons-tax-strategy-494325
http://fortune.com/2015/05/25/amazon-tax-eu-regulators/
http://www.newsweek.com/2016/07/22/amazon-jeff-bezos-taxes-479814.html
Collecting sales tax has nothing to do with amazon avoiding taxes... sorry for the bold, but jesus people.. calling Trump a moron while not thinking for half a second that sales tax is not a tax amazon pays.. Trump is a fucking buffoon but Amazon does, as a company, avoid billions in corporate taxes.. they are famous for it.. even in a country where such behavior is commonplace their tactics have been considered shady.
http://www.newsweek.com/behind-amazons-tax-strategy-494325
http://fortune.com/2015/05/25/amazon-tax-eu-regulators/
http://www.newsweek.com/2016/07/22/amazon-jeff-bezos-taxes-479814.html
Collecting sales tax has nothing to do with amazon avoiding taxes... sorry for the bold, but jesus people.. calling Trump a moron while not thinking for half a second that sales tax is not a tax amazon pays.. Trump is a fucking buffoon but Amazon does, as a company, avoid billions in corporate taxes.. they are famous for it.. even in a country where such behavior is commonplace their tactics have been considered shady.
I feel where you're going with this and these disgusting offshore tax avoidance practices of many multi-billion dollar corporations.
I think $4B is being generous. I think Trump is worth around ~$100k, he just had years of cheating on his taxes and making up numbers about the value of his real estate (remember, he said under oath that they are based on 'mental projections,' not anything any experts could validate) and no one can seemingly challenge him.
He talks about firing Mueller not because of being accused of being a traitor, but because Mueller has access to his tax returns.
skullmuffins
Banned
I guess, but people assume he's talking about sales tax in part because Trump has used this line of attack before and called Amazon out for not paying "internet taxes", which sounds more like criticizing them based on outdated info that they don't collect sales tax on online sales than something based on them headquartering offshore, which doesn't have anything to do with the internet.
Lights and Waves
Member
He's really pissed at WaPo tonight. I think a bombshell is coming tomorrow!
H.Cornerstone
Member
So the pot calling the kettle black
Wag
Member
That makes them smart.
Bam Bam Baklava
Member
He's already talked about internet taxes before. What makes you think you're right?
You're trying to make sense of an inherently nonsensical man.
NullPointer
Member
I love how he asks these questions he's in the best position to know the answer to, like he's asking people to do his homework.
You're the president, jack-ass. Why the fuck are you asking us?
And how does Trump, of all people, think he can take the high ground when it comes to avoiding taxes?
So they're both playing the same game that Trump has bragged about winning by playing the same way, but only one is actively destroying the country. It's not like one has anything important to do than to attack an online store on social media.
Deflection.
GabeTheGrouch76
Member
Savage.
I have numerous problems with Amazon, particularly regarding their employment practices, but Amazon absolutely does collect sales tax in states. Not to mention Trump is the absolute last person who should ever be bringing this up, considering he still hasn't released his tax returns, killing decades of practice trying to make our presidential candidates more open.
Also Amazon doesn't own WaPo, Bezos does. Not that affects the quality of it's reporting. I don't judge a piece of media by who owns it, but by how well it reports and how biased (or not) it is.
Also Amazon doesn't own WaPo, Bezos does. Not that affects the quality of it's reporting. I don't judge a piece of media by who owns it, but by how well it reports and how biased (or not) it is.
OdysseusVA
Banned
Send in the drones, Amazon
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-hooky-watchdog-finds/?utm_term=.e9bccbcccdc9
This is just one of the articles on the subject. It's directly led to changes in practices which have only slowed the patent office. The weirdest thing is that they complain about tax payer dollars but the patent office is paid by fees they charge businesses to file the patents.
No clue why the stories would change. But they have.
There was never any stopping it. They had all our addresses.
So Trump is throwing stones at his own glass house then.
Because then we need to see the tax records for Trump and his company.
Are you seriously trying to argue that Trump is arguing some sort of moral argument against offshore tax-havens and avoidance schemes here? Hahahahahaha.
Its amazing to me how the man can just spew bullshit on the floor, and his supporters will come out of the wordwork to try and explain why its actually the Mona Lisa.
mashoutposse
Ante Up
Given that Amazon is a public company, one can easily look up what they pay in taxes. For example, Amazon paid ~$1.4B in taxes on $3.9B income last year, which boils down to an effective tax rate of ~36%.
https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:AMZN&fstype=ii&ei=CBZ3WcmpFIPAjAGklIi4Bg
It's plausible that Amazon's tax rate is higher than what Trump himself pays by a factor of ten.
Trump was clearly talking about the outdated and now-invalid notion that Amazon destroyed brick-and-mortar retail and became a "monopoly" by charging zero sales tax ("no-tax monopoly").
He's calling them biased. Which will probably stick, honestly.
shira
Member
Coal on Amazon Same day shipping?
I really really hate the word fake news and how this fucking idiot throw those words at every media outlets that don't kiss his ass. A few years ago, you would rarely hear "fake news", now it's all over the place and are not directed at the right people on top of that...
And did you see WHY he calls them fake news? Makes it even worse.
Because of this article:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...821a62-6beb-11e7-96ab-5f38140b38cc_story.html
And he doesn't even dispute the content of the article, he calls the payments "massive, dangerous, and wasteful" in the same damn tweet lol
No, the coal on comes after the HTTP, not before the Amazon.
ResidentWeevil13
Member
It's happened already with the Trump supporters I know.
What bothers me most is that there is a real debate to be had over Amazon's increasing wealth, power, and influence, but Trump has hijacked that concern for politics.
And now all the Trump supporters I know will cry all day about Jeff Bezos and George Syros, but don't give a fuck about Rupert Murdock or the Koch brothers