Amazon Europe Unit Paid No Taxes on $55 Billion Sales in 2021 (bloomberg.com) 193
Amazon's main European retail business reported 1.16 billion euros ($1.26 billion) of losses in 2021, which allowed the company to pay no income tax and receive 1 billion euros in tax credits, corporate filings seen by Bloomberg show. From the report: The Luxembourg-based business recorded sales of 51.3 billion euros last year, up 17% from 43.8 billion euros in 2020. The unit, called Amazon EU Sarl, includes revenue generated by its e-commerce activities in the U.K, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Sweden and the Netherlands. Amazon has been a target of European regulators over its tax arrangements. The Seattle-based company won an appeal on a 250 million-euro ($280 million) tax bill imposed after regulators said agreements with Luxembourg dating back to 2003 amounted to illegal state aid. Last year, the European Commission appealed in the European Court of Justice.
gee thanks (Score:4, Funny)
We're lucky we have a tax credit mechanism so that this little-known company didn't go bankrupt! Those are terrible losses.
We didn't create that system (Score:5, Insightful)
And we're not gonna do a damn thing about it, either. Not so long as we're distracted by CRT and trans sports and and the whole culture war. They did the same thing with the "Southern Strategy". Europe has an equivalent, they just used poor eastern Europeans. That's what Brexit was about.
It's all there to get us punching down and fighting each other. You'd think after millennia of this trick being used on us we'd learn, but we never do. The lead in the water and smog in the air doesn't help matters.
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Stuff got pretty close during the occupy wallstreet thing, but then suddenly a lot of absurdly stupid ideas from all political sides got "mysteriously boosted".
Re:We didn't create that system (Score:4, Insightful)
Stuff got pretty close during the occupy wallstreet thing
That kinda fizzled out when they got tired of living in tents, and I think many of them forgot what the hell they were trying to accomplish in the first place. Reminds me a lot of what happened recently with those silly truckers, too.
Protests are supposed to raise awareness about an issue, but as long as the majority who shows up to vote are still happy with the status quo, today's protest soon becomes yesterday's news.
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The protest itself was not the issue, but the fact there were a lot of people actively hating on the banks and focusing on making em pay.
Sooner or later someone would come up with some strategy to actually harm the banks quite badly, kinda like the gamestop thing we had, but even worse.
So, a distraction had to be made.
Re: We didn't create that system (Score:2)
Raise awareness so that what can happen, exactly? The people they were protesting against held basically the same political views that they do. The whole thing was started by an anti-consumerism newspaper, which is odd because most of the people who showed up were definitely the consumerist types, among other things, carrying around ipads.
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The messaging was purposefully distorted to make it look like no one knew why they were protesting.
They didn't get tired of living in tents (Score:2, Informative)
Basically, a whole bunch of powerful people used the establishment and it's powers to stop the movement and it worked.
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Thankfully, that's getting harder. We're not nearly as naive as we were then, and we know how to mobilize people now.
Re:We didn't create that system (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah that happens. When I was in my protest stage during Uni (in australia) back in the 1990s, I remember we did an occupation of the Uni Admin after they announced massive course cuts that would effectively have terminated many of our degrees mid way through. So during the university-senate meeting where it was due to approved, we all kinda stormed in and made it somewhat impossible for the meeting to continue. Coupled with some good lawyers that found some university regulations saying they couldnt just relocate the meeting we had them on lock for nearly a month as various people trickled in and out of the sprawling action.
The problem is over time we got more and more unhinged people turning up, and suddenly we had people demanding an "End to the federal reserve" [god knows how a uni would do that], america out of the the middle east, some anti-semetic dude who ranted incessantly about the rothschildes, etc.
In the end we worked out most of these people where not actually students, so we did a student union meeting where we agreed only students could participate, and had campus security (who where on our side, the one good outside demand we added was an end to the plan to privatise security, so security loved us. Plus state an law said that only campus security had juristiction, so security offered to arrest any cop that tried to enter campus without a student or staff card to arrest us).
And eventually we won. At least for a few years. The courses stayed and campus security kept their jobs. But for a while we where drowning in wingnuts trying to hijack the whole thing until the student union and security workers union ganged up to kick them off the bloody campus.
Hijackers ruin everything, and be it Trots, Fascists, conspiracy loons or campus tories, they'll all try and to do that hijack. Because the left can't organize for shit, and thats a damn shame.
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Hijackers ruin everything
People don't even need to hijack the actual protest, they could hijack the message and repurpose it elsewhere. I think a lot of the Occupy Wallstreet movement lost its wind when "Occupy ${insertOtherThingHere}" started popping up everywhere. Same with many other protests. I think one of the turning point for the Yellow Jacket protests in France was when these so called Yellow Jacket protests appeared elsewhere spouting some irrelevant crap in countries which didn't even experience the issues the Yellow Jack
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I think at some point in the not too distant future a populist cleverer and less lazy than Trump will do what Trump couldn't, and then Americans are going to start shooting at each other like it's the 1860's.
This will be bad for the whole world, so I hope I don't live to see it but I probably will.
So apparently you've never heard the phrase (Score:2)
Here's another phrase you probably don't know: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. That's the problem the left has with mega corporations. Billionaires too. It's just too much power in the hands of
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With their HR Gestapo.
I think you mean 'Gazpacho'.
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Apart from FOX can you call one republican tv channel out there?
Sure. CNN, ABC, CBS, CNBC, etc. Even MSNBC isn't exactly a liberal paradise. They're all corporate media with a decidedly anti-progressive agenda. It's why you often seen pitifully moderate views attacked as "too extreme".
The problem is that the right has pushed itself so far that you'd call Ronald Regan a communist. Hell, even Fox 'News' has been called a leftist propaganda outlet by viewers who are flocking to more extreme sites like NewsMax and OAN.
This is what happens when a party doesn't have a pl
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the progressives are a minority but a LOUD one that with social media amplifying them
Yeah, you're clearly delusional. This has been studied [bbc.com] endlessly [wired.com]. Social media overwhelmingly amplifies right-wing viewpoints.
The majority of the US is NOT progressive,
Again, reality tells a different story [cnbc.com].
their proclivity to cancel and hurt anyone that disagrees with them.
Oh, please. You guys are holding actual book burnings [vanityfair.com]. It's always projection with you people. It's getting ridiculous.
Re:We didn't create that system (Score:4, Insightful)
It's all there to get us punching down and fighting each other. You'd think after millennia of this trick being used on us we'd learn, but we never do.
The technique works. Three damn threads about Netflix and each one is full of people arguing back and forth about how an on-demand streaming service is somehow too woke. It's a fucking streaming service where you choose what plays, if it's too woke the problem (to paraphrase the old "ID10T error") is located between the couch and the TV. It doesn't take three threads worth of bickering to figure that out.
Meanwhile, I doubt this thread will get anywhere near the same amount of attention. A big company weaseling out of taxes is just business as usual. The average person is more concerned with the quality of their entertainment than the quality of their leadership.
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It's so comforting to live in a world were billionaires and megacorps can use tax credits and financial juggling to avoid paying taxes. Good for them.
When I experience losses, they don't carry over to the next year. The government takes almost half my income, automatically deducted from my paycheck, even more than I should be required to pay, and I have to set the world in motion to get back the part that was taken too much.
If only all of us could afford the benefits of elite accountants.
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You might look to (if in the US) incorporating yourself, I recommend the S-Corp se
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But then you're also regurgitating another myth about a plan that worked to undo the Democratic Party's tradition of framing economic issues as racial.
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I don't know why the parent was modded as troll...
But basically Amazon is killing competition (working with a 2% or so loss rate below even its very low margins) but receiving a stipend to do that.
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Tax their sale volume not there "profit". (Score:3)
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As per title...
Isn't VAT what does that? except it taxes the buyer, not the seller. At any rate, taxing a sales volume would just result in higher prices as teh tax is passed on, just like VAT.
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Is VAT paid by the buyer? Wasn't the case in Iceland. In the US, sales tax is paid by the retailer even if they don't collect it from the customer (that's why you see "no sales tax weekend" sales from time to time). Some states try to make the consumer pay sales (or use) tax on things bought out of state, but their options to enforce it are pretty limited.
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Is VAT paid by the buyer? Wasn't the case in Iceland.
Not sue about Iceland, but when I buy things in the EU and take them out I get a VAT refund, since it is baked into the price. Amazon UK, for example, shows prices inclusive of VAT and discounts it if shipped outside teh EU.
In the US, sales tax is paid by the retailer even if they don't collect it from the customer (that's why you see "no sales tax weekend" sales from time to time). Some states try to make the consumer pay sales (or use) tax on things bought out of state, but their options to enforce it are pretty limited.
True, retailers submit periodic sales numbers and remit the applicable tax, even if they didn't collect it. Tax free weekends can be, as you said, the seller paying the tax or in some cases states have a tax free weekend, though with limits on what qualifies. In that case, the seller
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As per title...
That's ridiculous. Did you skip business classes in school?
I sell $1,00,000 worth of widgets for $1 each. The widget cost me $.50 cents each. My employees cost me the other $.50 cents. We broke even. But now I have to pay $88K in taxes on revenue that I made no profit on? Where is that money going to come from? My company would now be bankrupt. Stay in school bro.
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That's called a "sales tax," or in Europe, a "valued added tax," and they already pay that.
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Who gives a shit. (Score:3, Insightful)
Corporate taxation is mostly a rabble-rousing scam topic anyway. Just tax the actual people who take in any profits, it's much easier than trying to play cat and mouse with corporate taxation. Ultimately that money goes to shareholders and employees - just tax them, increase capital gains taxes, etc..
But it will never happen. Both the left and, to a lesser extent the right, get votes off provoking people with their tired "them corps didn't done pay no taxes!" nonsense.
Same with the "muh billionaires don't done pay no taxes!" bullshit. What do the left wing dummies do? Why, we need a fucking wealth tax! Nevermind that it's unconstitutional in more ways than one and there are very simple solutions to the issue of e.g. buy, borrow, die like closing the readjustment of basis on death loophole, taxing capital gains and high income earners more, adding transaction taxes on stock sales, etc.. But no! That's too simple and might solve the problem, easier to string people along on bullshit promises and never solve the problem.
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Ultimately that money goes to shareholders and employees
You got 50% of that right.
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So you support the Trump 1 Trillion Dollar tax cut for the rich? The 1 Trillion Dollar tax burden on the rest of us?
More and more loopholes that only the rich can exploit? I don't think you understand the advantages the elites have... the system is heavily rigged against the middle class.
Re:Who gives a shit. (Score:4, Informative)
When corporate profits aren't taxed, they don't pay dividends. Instead, they spend their untaxed profits in ways that benefit the people who run the company, but don't count as pay.
Instead of being an employee, you form a corporation that takes care of you, and that corporation contracts out your services to your employer. The corporation owns your car, your house, your food, your clothes, and pays you $1/year.
There's historical precedent.
You're not as clever as you imagine.
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Instead of being an employee, you form a corporation that takes care of you, and that corporation contracts out your services to your employer. The corporation owns your car, your house, your food, your clothes, and pays you $1/year.
I've actually thought about setting up a "my life Inc." corporation just to take advantage of corporate taxes being lower than personal income taxes.
Has anyone ever done that and documented his experience and results?
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Re:Who gives a shit. (Score:5, Insightful)
All your "solutions" are actually very complicated to implement.
Just tax company income like we tax personal income - i.e., turnover. As long as you tax profit there will be millions of complications and loopholes.
Or, alternatively, scrap all this stuff about companies being legal entities and make shareholders and directors legally responsible for their actions instead of hiding behind limited liability laws.
Don't worry (Score:3)
Here in the U.S. there's always the middle class taxpayers [go.com] to make up any shortfall in tax revenue.
Never understood the business model (Score:2)
How can they stay alive when it is just cheaper to order anything from dozens of local online shops, which not only deliver cheaper, but also offer free pickup. While Amazon sends everything from warehouses in a different country, which makes a warranty process also hard.
Amazon VAT (Score:3)
Isn't Amazon subject to VAT? In that case income tax is irrelevant; Europe got a chunk of that $55bn.
Profit can be easily manipulated, which is why Europe went to VAT.
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VAT is paid by the consumer.
No doubt that revenue paid a lot of VAT taxes (Score:2)
so the "no tax" headline is misleading
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CONSUMERS paid VAT, Amazon just collected it on their behalf. So the title is correct, Amazon paid no taxes, and was in fact a leech on society by collecting tax BREAKS.
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What is the difference? If Amazon pays it, they just increase the cost to the consumer. The consumer ends up paying for ALL corporate taxes in the end. Who collects it is just a shell game.
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That's true of all corporate taxes. ALL tax burdens on corporations are passed straight on to the customer.
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Fascist lefties who want to "redistribute" wealth - other people's wealth - do that.
Riddle me this, Batman (Score:3)
How is it a company can lose a billion dollars (or Euros in this case) and change year after year and still be able to stay in business? Something about that, if you'll pardon the pun, doesn't add up.
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If you're growing and receiving ongoing investment, you can maintain that until the investors get sick of it.
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If you're growing and receiving ongoing investment, you can maintain that until the investors get sick of it.
Amazon is not in an investment growth phase. They haven't been for well over a decade.
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Dutch sandwich [wikipedia.org], Double Irish [wikipedia.org], etc ...
Basically the main selling subsidiary pays what it earns (and more) to an empty entity as "royalties for using the Amazon brand" so that it makes no profit or loses money. Then the empty company based in the Nederlands pays no taxes because of the way taxation works in the NL.
Then you end up with countries like NL and Ireland sucking the money from the others in the EU and blocking any change because they have no interest in that of course.
It is key to repeat over an
Taxation is theft. (Score:2)
Government is taking from you to give to itself and its cronies.
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Thankyou for posting that on your internet connection, made possible through infrastructure paid for by taxes.
Businesses pay tax on PROFITS not INCOME. (Score:2)
See my subject.
If a business doesn't make a profit, they pay no income as their income was (according to tax legislation) not positive so there is no income to tax.
For individuals it's much harder for them as in most tax jurisdictions living expenses are not deductions.
You live at a loss but had an income? Too bad, so sad, you (likely) pay income tax.
And people are taxed on incomes, not profits.
Maybe that should change?
Though, if it does, a great many countries would collapse as their governments run out of
propaganda aimed at stupid people (Score:2)
Taxes are NEVER paid by businesses - by definition.
Taxes are just another expense on the accounting ledgers of any business, and that means they are part of the cost of producing and delivering any product or service to the customer - and thus, like the cost of labor or materials, are simply passed along to the customer as part of the price of the product or service. All your achieve when you tax a business is [a] your fool morons into thinking you stuck it to a fat cat businessman, [b] you drive inflatio
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Re: Good for them! (Score:2)
The law is for sale to an extent, sure enough. And the law changes every year. We have the best legislation money can buy.
This year the company is taking advantage of the current tax loopholes. Last year it took advantage of the past year's loopholes. Next year it will take advantage of whatever exists then.
While I want them to pay full taxes towards government costs, I understand why the accountants and lawyers shuffle money in legal ways to minimize the cost.
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It is upon them to use the law for maximum benefit. don't like it? Change the law
I'll pay for my lobbyists and Amazon will pay for theirs. Lets see who wins!
Re: REVENUE != PROFIT (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: REVENUE != PROFIT (Score:4)
Their revenue doesn't tell you much about what their profits were.
Also worth noting that book profits and taxable income are two different things. Tax authorities intentionally create tax rules that differ from financial account rules. They often do this explicitly to incentivize investment (such as provisions allowing accelerated depreciation on new investments). But then everyone gets up and arms when companies actually take advantage of these provisions as designed.
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FYFY
Re: REVENUE != PROFIT (Score:5, Funny)
FTFY.
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No question there is lobbying, and one can certainly argue that it puts businesses at an unfair advantage, but your point on "Accounting techniques that would get anyone else thrown in jail" simply isn't based on reality. The tax law is the same for everyone, but a W-2 employee obviously can't take advantage of provisions that were written to apply to business investment.
Finally, I'd point out that at the end of the day, tax is borne by individuals. If a corporation pays tax, the actual payors are the emplo
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But then everyone gets up and arms when companies actually take advantage of these provisions as designed.
But that loophole was written for my brother-in-law's company. You were not supposed to use it.
Re: REVENUE != PROFIT (Score:5, Insightful)
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I think you fail to realize that we want the governments to change the rules so that companies can't get away with that shit anymore. We aren't just yelling at the companies. We are yelling at our governments to stop allowing companies to hide assets, break rules and abuse rules to avoid paying taxes. We want the rules to change. You say it's 'as designed', but we want them to redesign it. Amazon isn't investing in anything that is beneficial to anyone but themselves. We certainly don't need to incentivize them to do so. Amazon isn't what creates our economy. It lives inside of and takes advantage of our economy and that needs to be fixed so they pay what any company or person should pay. Which is their fair share of taxes.
Amazon has made life more pleasant and easy for millions of people. The evidence for that is right in front of you, millions of people choose to give Amazon their custom.
If you want governments to change the rules, go right ahead. European democracies are so much better than ours, right? Should be no problem for you.
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Their revenue doesn't tell you much about what their profits were.
No but their tax rate does. Hint: Somehow all the profits were in tax havens. Funny how those things work.
They often do this explicitly to incentivize investment (such as provisions allowing accelerated depreciation on new investments). But then everyone gets up and arms when companies actually take advantage of these provisions as designed.
No the issue here is one of a global disagreement on how explicitly to apply taxation and the fact that some countries (the aforementioned tax havens) abuse these rules to create loopholes. Closing such loopholes requires all countries to agree on a taxation model. You say "incentivize investment" which is a euphemism for "trying to prevent the work which directly targets their country from moving just
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But then everyone gets up and arms when companies actually take advantage of these provisions as designed.
The government is attempting to set laws to encourage certain behaviours (investment etc) having a reasonable amount of tax and to not inadvertently destroy some of the millions of businesses they barely even know about. Amazon on the other hand can spend 1000x more than most governments on lawyers and accountants to find unintended gaps in the rules that allows just them and no one else to cheat and p
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Re: REVENUE != PROFIT (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure Amazon had a loss in those 54b sales. I have a bridge to sell you.
Hard to say; but they could, depending on how the EU tax laws are, have a loss carried forward. At any rate, if teh EU doesn't like it, change the law. Everyone with half a brain uses the law to legally minimize their tax bill.
The EU can't change the law (Score:3, Insightful)
The point of this article is that the Game Is Rigged. Telling me "why don't you just play the game" is like saying "if you don't like throwing loaded dice how about a game of blackjack with these marked cards?".
The whole game needs to be binned.
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Go build your own Amazon that pays excessive taxes if you like it so much.
And... try to compete against an Amazon that doesn't pay taxes? Uhuh. You're missing step 2 in your underpants plan.
Re: REVENUE != PROFIT (Score:5, Insightful)
At any rate, if the EU doesn't like it, change the law.
Indeed. And the way to change the law is to inform the general public about what's happening, so that they understand the truth and get disappointed in the status quo and they vote for politicians who promise to do better.
This article therefore is one of the necessary first steps in changing the law.
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if only it were that simple. Many countries in the EU tried changing the laws, The US threatened trade sanctions against any country that tried to prevent the use of tax havens and profit transfers for american companies. Pretty hard to effectively change the law when a large Mafia like country is running protection for this racket.
In the case of Ireland, the Irish fought the EU, not the US.
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>> I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Tax free no less...
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"Sure Amazon had a loss in those 54b sales."
Well, there's the 34 billion that were returns...
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So answer this simple question: If a company consistently loses money, year after year, how do they manage to stay in business?
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How do governments that year after year run on deficits not go bankrupt?
So long as they have enough revenue to pay interest on debt, they can get loans or issue bonds. Amazon has historically invested most of their cash flow back in to the business for growth. That growth increases their revenue which gives them more money to pay interest with. Or they can use that growth as an attraction to issue more shares and sell those shares for funding. That does dilute existing stock holders' shares, so it can b
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How's that accurate? LOCALBAR CORP and LOCALBAR INC are all part of the same entity of LOCALBAR.
The headline is they paid no taxes. The details are the cheats they used to implement it. And the thing is most people don't really care that much how they cheated the taxman only that they did. So it's a perfectly reasonable headline.
Re:Amazon's taxes? (Score:5, Informative)
Have you seen all the extra expenses Amazon has complying with EU rules? How are those not taxes?
Amazon gets to profit off of an enormous taxpayer funded infrastructure in every EU country where it operates. Thatt seems like adequate compensation for Amazon having to suffer the injustice of a few constraints on its behaviour. Furthermore, are you seriously trying to tell us that Amazon being told by EU member states' national governments (and it's them, not the EU that make most of those rules you are complaining about) that Amazon has to properly dispose of plastic waste, for example, instead of dumping it wherever it wants to (like your back yard) is 'unfair taxation'?
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Everyone except the taxpayer.
Re:Amazon's taxes? (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't everyone get to profit off of an enormous taxpayer funded infrastructure?
Yes, but Amazon and other companies like it are 'special' in that while they make copious use of this infrastructure they contribute next to nothing to its upkeep and expansion. Meanwhile a choir of free market fundamentalists (a.k.a. useful idiots) sings operas about how Amazon and friends are being 'victimised' through the 'violent theft' of taxation.
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Customer's buying product from Amazon pay VAT. If they bought from a retail store of course they would also. However, the retail store would also have to have deliveries but would probably consume MORE resources in total in many respects. Each individual driving from store to store likely ends up using more "road" resources than Amazon delivery trucks do overall.
As well, in small retail, the productivity per employee is probably much less as demand is more variable and if a business has a staffing level of
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Customer's buying product from Amazon pay VAT. If they bought from a retail store of course they would also.
Have you tried getting a VAT out of Amazon? I have... you'll get something from Luxembourg that's useless.
There's definitely some sort of scam going on there, too. I figure they're paying 3% in some country or other while charging me 20% and keeping the difference.
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If their expenses are greater than their revenue, they're not profiting. They're losing money regardless of how much revenue they had. Now, they could be using some creative accounting to shift profits to other entities. If so, and legal, that's the fault of the European governments for creating such loopholes. It could also be that the added expense of labor, fuel and other things required to run their business during covid led to losses.
It's hard to believe how many people that consider themselves edu
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If their expenses are greater than their revenue, they're not profiting. They're losing money regardless of how much revenue they had. Now, they could be using some creative accounting to shift profits to other entities. If so, and legal, that's the fault of the European governments for creating such loopholes. It could also be that the added expense of labor, fuel and other things required to run their business during covid led to losses.
It's hard to believe how many people that consider themselves educated and smarter than the average bear don't understand that revenue does not equal profit.
It's hard to believe that there are actually morons out there who think Amazon makes no net profits because it is being 'victimised' through 'unfair taxation': https://theatlas.com/charts/BJ... [theatlas.com]
Re: Amazon's taxes? (Score:2)
Amazon lost money, no profit, in the tax sense/definition.
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I note that the cost of adjusting web pages once to pop up a notice about cookies is probably about as much as Amazon spends on headquarters potted plants each year.
In the UK bricks and mortar businesses pay something called business rates on their buildings. These are huge and are the consequence of the natural law of taxation that all financial activity is taxed. In the last few years large numbers of these businesses have shut down as they cannot compete with Amazon. Amazon does not pay these taxes and t
Re: Amazon's taxes? (Score:2)
The costs of supporting GDPR and other regulations like PSD2 is actually very high. Itâ(TM)s actually an advantage for Amazon since they can afford to throw teams of developers at the compliance issues without batting an eye while their smaller competitors feel the cost of the regulations. The deadline for PSD2 got kicked back multiple times because payment processors and e-commerce companies couldnâ(TM)t meet the deadline. I doubt Amazon was the one asking for the extension.
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They are quite welcome to shut down their business here and leave.
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They did, they only added a business presence there because your neighbors wanted them too. You, OTOH, are not required to visit their website.
I always find it funny how detractors want to force their choices upon others.
I'm not always a fan of Amazon, but I live in a small town where prices have often been 20-30% higher than what they are in larger markets. We had 1 bookseller that would regularly reprice books to be 10-30% higher than
what they were 40-50 miles away because they had no competition. They
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Fair for whom? What you proposed is fair for the middle class. Equality can be seen as act of giving everyone equal measure, or it can be seen as making sure people prosper equally.
Note none of this defends current taxation practices which don't fit any definition of equality.
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