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Yeah, you're missing the US tax code, which means that if there were trying to withdraw or reinvest the profits from overseas, they becompe taxable at corporate
by xchaotic 9y ago
Yeah, you're missing the US tax code, which means that if there were trying to withdraw or reinvest the profits from overseas, they becompe taxable at corporate tax rate. Much cheaper to borrow more money by issuing bonds etc.
- rattray 9y agoInteresting. Why is AMZN's retained earnings so low then? Do they not make much revenue overseas? Do they struggle to raise bonds at low rates? Are they simply able to deploy tax strategies unavailable to GOOG/FB?
- josh2600 9y agoIt's right there in Bezos shareholder letter, the same one he's published every year since 1997. They haven't killed Walmart yet so they have to keep spending to catch up on infrastructure. Google and FB have a comparatively lower need for infrastructure.
- Ant5do 9y agoAmazon's operating expenses are significantly larger than Google/FB. THis means they've never earned a significant amount of cash net of operating expenses They've also dumped a ton of money into capex, even still I don't think Amazon has ever gotten close to the retained earnings of any of the other four companies.