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No, their revenues go up not their profits. I understand you have a link with the word "profits." WaPo is misusing the term. Profits are revenues after expense

No, their revenues go up not their profits. I understand you have a link with the word "profits." WaPo is misusing the term. Profits are revenues after expenses and the numbers in that graph are not taking certain expenses into account. When the expenses are taken into account the profit drops to zero. Specifically, one of the big expenses deducted before calculating tax was liquidation of employee stock options. And guess what? Instead of being taxed at the corporate income tax rate those options were taxed as individual income for the employees who exercised them -- an even higher rate! In your example the gains were in fact taxed. The tax was just applied in a different place than where you're happening to look.

smt88 6y ago
Thank you for explaining profits to me. I'm glad you did so long after I went to business school, because your description of this situation is mostly wrong. > WaPo is misusing the term. Profits are revenues after expenses and the numbers in that graph are not taking certain expenses into account. "Profit" is not a defined term. It's shorthand for something else, usually gross profit, operating profit, or net income. For 2018, AMZN had gross profit of $93B, operating profit of $12B, and net income of $11.6B. The WaPo numbers in the graph use one of the latter two figures, so the graph is absolutely correct. It is NOT revenue in the graph, and their profits have absolutely gone up. Do you honestly think an edited and widely read paper like WaPo is going to make an incredibly basic accounting mistake in their business section? > In your example the gains were in fact taxed. No, they weren't. Most of Amazon's shares are not held by employees. Taxing employees is not solving the core issue that everyone is upset about, which is that Amazon (taken either as an entity or as its owners, most of whom are not employees) is paying close to 0% taxes. Period. That's it. No one is arguing whether the activity surrounding Amazon generates tax revenue. That's outside the scope of the argument.
- throwaway09223 6y ago
  > "Profit" is not a defined term. It's shorthand for something else, usually gross profit, operating profit, or net income. And in this case, we are discussing profit as is relevant to the tax code. There is no need to be adversarial considering you've just said you agree with me. > No, they weren't. Yes, they were. > Most of Amazon's shares are not held by employees. This is irrelevant as capital gains are necessarily taxed. > which is that Amazon (taken either as an entity or as its owners, most of whom are not employees) is paying close to 0% taxes. Period. That's it. And this is just wrong. > That's outside the scope of the argument. It appears it would be most accurate to say that your argument hinges on a particular narrow definition of terms and scope of analysis. I don't think we need to discuss this further. Your point has been made, such that it is.

smt88 6y ago

Thank you for explaining profits to me. I'm glad you did so long after I went to business school, because your description of this situation is mostly wrong. > WaPo is misusing the term. Profits are revenues after expenses and the numbers in that graph are not taking certain expenses into account. "Profit" is not a defined term. It's shorthand for something else, usually gross profit, operating profit, or net income. For 2018, AMZN had gross profit of $93B, operating profit of $12B, and net income of $11.6B. The WaPo numbers in the graph use one of the latter two figures, so the graph is absolutely correct. It is NOT revenue in the graph, and their profits have absolutely gone up. Do you honestly think an edited and widely read paper like WaPo is going to make an incredibly basic accounting mistake in their business section? > In your example the gains were in fact taxed. No, they weren't. Most of Amazon's shares are not held by employees. Taxing employees is not solving the core issue that everyone is upset about, which is that Amazon (taken either as an entity or as its owners, most of whom are not employees) is paying close to 0% taxes. Period. That's it. No one is arguing whether the activity surrounding Amazon generates tax revenue. That's outside the scope of the argument.

throwaway09223 6y ago
> "Profit" is not a defined term. It's shorthand for something else, usually gross profit, operating profit, or net income. And in this case, we are discussing profit as is relevant to the tax code. There is no need to be adversarial considering you've just said you agree with me. > No, they weren't. Yes, they were. > Most of Amazon's shares are not held by employees. This is irrelevant as capital gains are necessarily taxed. > which is that Amazon (taken either as an entity or as its owners, most of whom are not employees) is paying close to 0% taxes. Period. That's it. And this is just wrong. > That's outside the scope of the argument. It appears it would be most accurate to say that your argument hinges on a particular narrow definition of terms and scope of analysis. I don't think we need to discuss this further. Your point has been made, such that it is.