> “Across Europe, we pay corporate tax amounting to hundreds of millions of euros,” an Amazon spokesperson said. In the filings, a note states that the $1 billi

> “Across Europe, we pay corporate tax amounting to hundreds of millions of euros,” an Amazon spokesperson said. In the filings, a note states that the $1 billion net tax benefit is “mainly due to the use of net losses carried forward in accordance with the tax consolidation system.” So, buried in all this, the VAT tax is doing it's thing. They are paying taxes where fulfillment is happening - their European HQ is going to be a loss center. > “We are investing heavily in creating jobs and infrastructure across Europe — more than 100 billion euros since 2010”, an Amazon representative said. “Corporation tax is based on profits, not revenues, and last year Amazon EU Sarl made a loss as we opened more than 50 new sites across Europe and created over 65,000 well-paid jobs, taking our total European permanent workforce to over 200,000”, the spokesperson added. This is the same thing they did in the US: avoid posting a profit if they can help it; spend every dollar they make in growing the company; get free money by skipping taxes. It's hard to be too mad at it - the point of tax codes being written this way is to encourage companies to spend their money hiring people and growing. But still, Amazon being able to grow rapidly because their investors don't care about negative cashflows does seem like an unfair advantage against all of the companies that do actually have to pay for things