Trump Attacks Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos

[Zorro]

Donald Trump thinks Amazon is getting away with paying too little tax, and CEO Jeff Bezos is using the Washington Post as a tool for maintaining that situation.

“Amazon is getting away with murder, tax-wise. [Bezos is] using the Washington Post for power so that the politicians in Washington don’t tax Amazon like they should be taxed,” Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity.

The accusation came in response to reports that the Post has assembled a team of 20 reporters to dig into Trump’s real-estate past. It also came as Trump faces pressure to publish his own tax returns.

Trump said his team was getting calls from Post reporters every hour “asking ridiculous questions.” He said the reporters were “slopping” together information from bad sources in order to write a book full of “all false stuff.”

http://fortune.com/2016/05/13/trump-attacks-amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos/

Attacking the owner of the Washington Post doesn't seem like a wise strategic move politically. Amazon is already taxed in many states, and that doesn't seem to have affected its profitability.

[malaise]

1. Washington Post exposed him big time this morning

complete with a tape from the 90s.

[WhiteTara]

2. Keep digging Jeff. I want to know all.

[angstlessk]

3. If he is talking about sales tax...business' don't pay them, they collect them

and forward the tax on to the state, after a discount for the paperwork involved.

[Mosby]

4. I think that's the issue

A lot of online retailers don't collect sales tax depending on what state you order from.

[PETRUS]

5. Correct.

Dean Baker writes:

For most of its existence, Amazon was exempted from this requirement in most of the states it did business. This amounts to a massive subsidy to Amazon at the expense of both big chains and tiny family operated business. For example, in a state like New York, where combined state and local sales taxes average over 8.0 percent, Amazon could charge a price that was 1.0 percent below its brick and mortar competition, and still have an additional profit of 7 percent on everything it sold. That is a huge deal in an industry where profits are often just 2–3 percent of revenue.

Alternatively, Amazon could pass the most of the savings onto consumers in order to build market share. This appears to be the route that Amazon has pursued, as it has been a marginally profitable company through most of its existence, even as it built itself into one of the world’s largest retailers.

We calculated how much Amazon’s has saved over its existence by not having to collect sales taxes in most states for most of the twenty years since it was founded. While an increasing number of states do now require Amazon to collect the sales tax, we calculated the cumulative savings to the company as more than $20 billion in 2015 dollars. With Jeff Bezos owning a 20 percent stake in the company, his personal share would be roughly $4 billion.

This is real money by almost any standard. There are many people who get very upset about families getting Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) benefits. Mr. Bezos’ special treatment on sales tax would be equivalent to 10 million monthly TANF checks. Food stamps also get many people angry. Bezos’ $4 billion is equivalent to more than 31 million months of the average food stamp benefit.

Read more: http://cepr.net/publications/op-eds-columns/holiday-season-giving-to-jeff-bezos?highlight=WyJhbWF6b24iLCJhbWF6b24ncyIsInRheCIsInRheCciLCJ0YXgncyIsIid0YXgnIiwiYW1hem9uIHRheCJd

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

6. And he's right!

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. Attacking people even richer than him seem a necessary strategic move for him

He's got to fool enough people that he cares about them. So he has to go after some rich people. If Bezos wasn't ever going to support Trump, Trump has to attack him to manufacture an image of populism.