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The Truth about Amazon’s Tax Bill | James R. Harrigan, Antony Davies fee.org/articles/the-t… via @feeonline
The truth of the matter is not nearly as compelling. While Amazon paid no federal income tax, it did pay over a half billion dollars in payroll taxes, and over a billion dollars in local, state and international taxes.
Bernie Sanders would prefer not to talk about the billion and a half dollars in taxes Amazon did pay. That’s an uncomfortable truth.
Also uncomfortable is the reason Amazon paid no federal income tax. The company was playing by the rules that Sanders and his colleagues in Congress created.
In an effort to encourage businesses to invest in research and development, and to take risks in creating jobs, Congress deliberately wrote the tax law so that development costs and past losses would reduce the tax burden on businesses that took chances and survived.
While it has become fashionable to point to Amazon as a villain in this story, to the extent there should be blame at all, that blame should rest with the crafters of the tax code: Congress.
