from Hacker News

Amazon pays no 2018 federal income tax, report says

by BallinBige on 2/17/19, 5:24 PM with 44 comments

  • by sctb on 2/17/19, 5:49 PM

  • by throwaway5752 on 2/17/19, 5:41 PM

    If this makes you mad, definitely don't look into the taxes of just about every other company in the US. Particularly don't look at defense, integrated oil E&P, agriculture, or residential construction. I bet those industries would love for you to be outraged about Amazon and it's 21% off a $10B base instead their total subsidies that probably are high tens of billions or greater.

  • by darawk on 2/17/19, 5:43 PM

    They shouldn't. They have deferred tax assets from years of losing money. This is perfectly reasonable. If you want to be mad about something, be mad about Google and Apple domiciling their IP in Ireland and siphoning all their profits there.

  • by isoskeles on 2/17/19, 5:50 PM

    What I usually don't understand is that when people bring something up like this, the intent feels like it's to make me mad at Amazon. Did Amazon break the law? No. At least not in this case, as far as I know.

    If you see a problem with this picture, the problem IMO is an overly complicated tax code that mostly benefits people/businesses with the resources to navigate it.

    That aside, if Amazon paying nothing in federal income tax largely has to do with offsetting previous losses, what's the problem? That seems fair, and I would really want someone who has a problem with this to explain why it would be more fair to tax a business' gains one year by ignoring previous years' losses.

  • by o10449366 on 2/17/19, 5:42 PM

    Tax credits and stock-based compensation are the likely reason. Some people will argue that with Amazon being one of the richest companies in the world there should exist no scenario in which they don't pay federal income tax and that the tax code should be simplified to close up these loopholes, but I just want a tax code rewrite so politicians and the media can stop exploiting the uneducated masses who don't understand what a tax break is.