5 ms·

Private companies pay taxes, which profits other tax payers.

by simonh 6y ago

croes 6y ago
"After two straight years of paying $0 in U.S. federal income tax, Amazon was on the hook for a $162 million bill in 2019" "$162 million is still just a fraction of the $13.9 billion in pre-tax income Amazon reported for 2019 — roughly 1.2%" How much is your income tax rate?
- imtringued 6y ago
  Corporate income tax is too easy to game. I wish it was replaced by an enhanced income tax. Here is an article with a nice chart: https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/how-does-corporate-income-tax-work https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/how-does-corpo...
- simonh 6y ago
  Does the fact that some people game their personal income tax make your income tax contributions worthless or irrelevant? I'm not clear what point you're making. Corporate income tax is the third highest source of tax revenue in the US, at $230bn in 2019. Shareholders also pay capital gains taxes, and companies pay other taxes as well or collect taxes for the government as well like sales taxes.
  - croes 6y ago
    State expenses have to be paid and if the wealthy don't pay, who is? I guess the one who can't afford an account in places like the Caimans. And of course Corporate income tax is a hight source of tax money. The larger the share in profits, the higher the share in tax revenue. The question is why isn't it the highest source of tax income?
- nybble41 6y ago
  According to their 2019 annual income statement[0], Amazon paid a total of $2.374B of foreign and domestic income tax on pre-tax income of $13.976B. That's 16.9%, not 1.2%. Is the author perhaps comparing US taxes with global income? (Or perhaps just whatever was left over after paying estimated taxes?) That certainly looks to be the case since they cited US federal income tax while the $13.9B pre-tax income figure is global, and even the domestic portion of the income taxes was $1.360B (9.73% of global pre-tax income), not $162M. Given the federal corporate tax rate of 21%, the domestic tax numbers work out nicely if we assume approximately 46% of pre-tax income was from the US and the remaining 54% was foreign. Which seems plausible to me, though that is obviously a vast over-simplification and ignores a lot of details. In particular, the distribution of foreign and domestic deductible business expenses may not be the same as the distribution of revenues. [0] https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/AMZN/financials/annual/income-statement https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/AMZN/financials/annua...
  - croes 6y ago
    Interestingly you are ignoring the part that Amazon paid no income tax at all in 2018 and 2017.
    - simonh 6y ago
      At least it was accurate. I don't think anyone here is cheering tax evasion on or denying there are problems There clearly are. Let's at least be honest about it though.
      - croes 6y ago
        The 13 billions pre-tax income seems to be domestic and not foreign. https://www.statista.com/statistics/241835/amazon-operating-income-annual-by-segment/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/241835/amazon-operating-...
        nybble41 6y ago
        What you can tell from that source is that most of the income is attributable to AWS—which is global—with most of the remainder being from sales at amazon.com, amazon.ca, and amazon.com.mx. Even if we simplify and assume that revenue from sales at amazon.com is strictly domestic, and the sales from the Canada and Mexico web sites are negligible, that says nothing about pre-tax income for the purpose of calculating US income taxes. For that you would need to know what fraction of their business expenses are related to their US operations.
        croes 6y ago
        "losses" and expenses like the double dutch irish sandwich the used in earlier years. We all know that before Trump's tax reform the big players parked their money in Europe to evade the US taxes, but since the reform and Europe's shift in tax regulation companies like Amazon and Apple transfer their money to the US, to pay less taxes. So the companies count these money as domestic income. Measured in terms of the amount of money involved, there are huge differences compared to the working population. Ever heard of progressive tax? This is the opposite.

Private companies pay taxes, which profits other tax payers.

by simonh 6y ago

Private companies pay taxes, which profits other tax payers.

"After two straight years of paying $0 in U.S. federal income tax, Amazon was on the hook for a $162 million bill in 2019" "$162 million is still just a fraction of the $13.9 billion in pre-tax income Amazon reported for 2019 — roughly 1.2%" How much is your income tax rate?

imtringued 6y ago
Corporate income tax is too easy to game. I wish it was replaced by an enhanced income tax. Here is an article with a nice chart: https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/how-does-corporate-income-tax-work https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/how-does-corpo...
simonh 6y ago
Does the fact that some people game their personal income tax make your income tax contributions worthless or irrelevant? I'm not clear what point you're making. Corporate income tax is the third highest source of tax revenue in the US, at $230bn in 2019. Shareholders also pay capital gains taxes, and companies pay other taxes as well or collect taxes for the government as well like sales taxes.
- croes 6y ago
  State expenses have to be paid and if the wealthy don't pay, who is? I guess the one who can't afford an account in places like the Caimans. And of course Corporate income tax is a hight source of tax money. The larger the share in profits, the higher the share in tax revenue. The question is why isn't it the highest source of tax income?
nybble41 6y ago
According to their 2019 annual income statement[0], Amazon paid a total of $2.374B of foreign and domestic income tax on pre-tax income of $13.976B. That's 16.9%, not 1.2%. Is the author perhaps comparing US taxes with global income? (Or perhaps just whatever was left over after paying estimated taxes?) That certainly looks to be the case since they cited US federal income tax while the $13.9B pre-tax income figure is global, and even the domestic portion of the income taxes was $1.360B (9.73% of global pre-tax income), not $162M. Given the federal corporate tax rate of 21%, the domestic tax numbers work out nicely if we assume approximately 46% of pre-tax income was from the US and the remaining 54% was foreign. Which seems plausible to me, though that is obviously a vast over-simplification and ignores a lot of details. In particular, the distribution of foreign and domestic deductible business expenses may not be the same as the distribution of revenues. [0] https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/AMZN/financials/annual/income-statement https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/AMZN/financials/annua...
- croes 6y ago
  Interestingly you are ignoring the part that Amazon paid no income tax at all in 2018 and 2017.
  - simonh 6y ago
    At least it was accurate. I don't think anyone here is cheering tax evasion on or denying there are problems There clearly are. Let's at least be honest about it though.
    - croes 6y ago
      The 13 billions pre-tax income seems to be domestic and not foreign. https://www.statista.com/statistics/241835/amazon-operating-income-annual-by-segment/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/241835/amazon-operating-...
      - nybble41 6y ago
        What you can tell from that source is that most of the income is attributable to AWS—which is global—with most of the remainder being from sales at amazon.com, amazon.ca, and amazon.com.mx. Even if we simplify and assume that revenue from sales at amazon.com is strictly domestic, and the sales from the Canada and Mexico web sites are negligible, that says nothing about pre-tax income for the purpose of calculating US income taxes. For that you would need to know what fraction of their business expenses are related to their US operations.
        croes 6y ago
        "losses" and expenses like the double dutch irish sandwich the used in earlier years. We all know that before Trump's tax reform the big players parked their money in Europe to evade the US taxes, but since the reform and Europe's shift in tax regulation companies like Amazon and Apple transfer their money to the US, to pay less taxes. So the companies count these money as domestic income. Measured in terms of the amount of money involved, there are huge differences compared to the working population. Ever heard of progressive tax? This is the opposite.