Trump vs. Jeff "AmaGOAT" Bezos

MiniCraque said:
Bezos isn't the president. We could bitch about his tax returns if he was, or intended to be. But he doesn't.

There's no inherent contradiction in holding Trump to a higher standard than Bezos, specially if it was Trump who put himself in that position in the first place.
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This doesn't address @HereticBD's point. Bezos's character and idealistic consistency isn't the point of concern.

If one doesn't mind that Amazon isn't paying a dime of federal tax on $58bn in domestic revenue, then one is cherry-picking outrage to bemoan Trump's lack of transparency regarding his taxes. In other words, if you aren't upset that Bezos's company doesn't pay a dime in taxes, I'm not sure why you'd care that Trump avoids them, too. While they may not be morally symmetrical by a letter-of-the-law legal standard, it doesn't mean they aren't morally equitable by a spirit-of-the-law practical standard.

It's a matter of consistency and integrity, but concerning the person asking the questions and demanding answers, not Bezos or Trump.

Otherwise, Trump, as usual, is a pure idiot, but he raises a fair point about taxes. Amazon has grown robustly in their zero-fedtax environment, and yet we are to receive lectures from their seat of power on conservative philosophies regarding taxation.
 
Isn't trump viewed as a scumbag millionaire by the real billionaires and literally all billionaires have nothing nice to said about trump even before he was the president
 
Voltron said:
Isn't trump viewed as a scumbag millionaire by the real billionaires and literally all billionaires have nothing nice to said about trump even before he was the president
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Yeah, and by "all", you mean Mark Cuban.
 
Madmick said:
This doesn't address @HereticBD's point. Bezos's character and idealistic consistency isn't the point of concern.

If one doesn't mind that Amazon isn't paying a dime of federal tax on $58bn in domestic revenue, then one is cherry-picking outrage to bemoan Trump's lack of transparency regarding his taxes. In other words, if you aren't upset that Bezos's company doesn't pay a dime in taxes, I'm not sure why you'd care that Trump avoids them, too. While they may not be morally symmetrical by a letter-of-the-law legal standard, it doesn't mean they aren't morally equitable by a spirit-of-the-law practical standard.

It's a matter of consistency and integrity, but concerning the person asking the questions and demanding answers, not Bezos or Trump.

Otherwise, Trump, as usual, is a pure idiot, but he raises a fair point about taxes. Amazon has grown robustly in their zero-fedtax environment, and yet we are to receive lectures from their seat of power on conservative philosophies regarding taxation.
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This post is a mess.

1st taxes aren't paid on revenue, taxes are paid on profit, so mentioning the amount of revenue Amazon had is pretty much irrelevant. Amazon's profit in 2017 was a little over 3 billion. Amazon doesn't pay taxes because of a loss carryforward and because of the US federal research and development tax credits. The total for those two would be slightly over 1 billion.

Trump and Amazon not paying taxes aren't remotely the same thing, Trump is the president that is changing the tax code supposedly for the benefit of the American people and not himself. Amazon is a private company, what Trump does as a businessman and private citizen would be of no concern to most people, but what he's doing as President and how his policies effect Trump the private citizen and businessman deserve to be scrutinized by those that he's supposed to be serving in his capacity as President. So no the two are not morally equal in any sense.
 
HereticBD said:
$5.6 billion in revenue last year. $0 paid in federal taxes.

Now, I'm no lawyer, so I won't attempt to break it down, but just look into it. Is it technically legal? Perhaps. However, if you're cool with that, and see no reason to look into it further, you might want to stop bitching about Trump's tax returns right about now.
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In addition to the error here that others have pointed out, you're completely missing the point about the lack of transparency regarding Trump's taxes. People want to know where his income comes from so they can identify potential conflicts of interests. Avoiding that is why previous presidential candidates have disclosed the info and why previous presidents have put assets into blind trusts. It has nothing at all to do with tax avoidance (lol if you were thinking that all this time).

HereticBD said:
Oh', and BTW, the filings we do have shows that Trump is in compliance. He's probably cheating on all the returns we haven't seen though, right? All those filings made with the IRS over decades...must have cheated on every one of them, except the one Randy Maddow got a hold of. Those ones were just a fluke.
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See above. And also note that Trump didn't just leak a random year.
 
Jack V Savage said:
It has nothing at all to do with tax avoidance (lol if you were thinking that all this time).
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LOL. It's way more on the "Trump is a tax cheat!" side, than your moronic tribe of simpletons actually thinking of the finer details.

Give it a rest. Even Hillary Clinton hinted at it.

See above. And also note that Trump didn't just leak a random year.
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Nice conspiracy theory.
 
It is painfully obvious that Trump leaked the only year he paid any taxes.
 
HereticBD said:
LOL. It's way more on the "Trump is a tax cheat!" side, than your moronic tribe of simpletons actually thinking of the finer details.
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Meh. I told you what the concern is, and I could quote many people expressing it. I think the problem is that you can't get your head around the idea that not everyone looks at things as crudely as you do. Or generally that if your first instinct doesn't make sense that you might want to think harder about the issue.

HereticBD said:
Nice conspiracy theory.
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What's the conspiracy theory? That Trump didn't randomly choose a year to leak?
 
I'm amazed any REAL Liberal would defend AMZN with all we currently know. They are LITERALLY the exact opposite of what Liberals preach.

I swear, Hitler could rise from the dead and bash Trump and a good portion of the population would embrace him
 
jk7707 said:
Yea it would be good to rework the tax code to deal with that. Oh wait, the Republicans did rework the tax code and not only did they leave all those loopholes in but they also cut the taxes for everyone else by a shitload. And now Trump complains about it. What a crock of shit.
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True, but this is a what aboutism.
 
mr.bigglesworth said:
I have no problem with taxing assets only when realizing gains, but the ability to write-off millions or billions in losses for years on end has got to stop. A few hundred thousand for the small business owner is one thing. But corporations like Amazon who run a deficit as a business and tax strategy is going way too fucking far.
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They've closed down many competitors by doing so. It's crazy they've been allowed to
 
SBJJ said:
I'm amazed any REAL Liberal would defend AMZN with all we currently know. They are LITERALLY the exact opposite of what Liberals preach.

I swear, Hitler could rise from the dead and bash Trump and a good portion of the population would embrace him
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Huh? What is the argument against AMZN from a liberal perspective?
 
PolishHeadlock said:
I'm a corporate tax accountant and I've done a cursory look and posted about it many times on this forum.

Amazon operated at a loss for many years resulting in NOLs and probably some credit carryforwards.

It looks like most of that has been exhausted but they are also paying large stock options and rewards which were deducted for book purposes in the year they were granted but for tax purposes couldn't be deducted until they were exercised.

There is also a windfall benefit component to the stock exercises that was recorded through equity instead of their income statement.

That is not reflected in the $5B because it was either deducted in prior years or is a decrease to equity but it is cash out the door in the current year so they get a tax deduction for it.

This is all very standard stuff for all US corporations.

What isn't standard is a President refusing to release his tax returns.
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It maybe standard, but when we created tax breaks for losses, and investment, that wasn't done so it could be gamed with accounting fraud, and legal bribery.

If you or I attempted to do this with our taxes, we would get audited.

Donald trump is a platinum citizen. That doesn't excuse Jeff Bezos for being one as well.

I want to live in a country that has just plain citizens.

Platinum citizenship is an abomination, and I don't understand how anyone defends it.
 
Jack V Savage said:
Huh? What is the argument against AMZN from a liberal perspective?
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The way it treats its workers. Its business practices. I can only see conservatives and libertarians defending that shit.

From somebody in this thread that worked there. Same thing reported by the news:

I worked at an Amazon warehouse a while back. They're glorified 21st century sweatshops.

Fuck Bezos for every tax dollar he's allowed to write off and every American he works to the bone.
 
VivaRevolution said:
It maybe standard, but when we created tax breaks for losses, and investment, that wasn't done so it could be gamed with accounting fraud, and legal bribery.

If you or I attempted to do this with our taxes, we would get audited.

Donald trump is a platinum citizen. That doesn't excuse Jeff Bezos for being one as well.

I want to live in a country that has just plain citizens.

Platinum citizenship is an abomination, and I don't understand how anyone defends it.
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Jeff Bezos is not Amazon.
 
Madmick said:
This doesn't address @HereticBD's point. Bezos's character and idealistic consistency isn't the point of concern.

If one doesn't mind that Amazon isn't paying a dime of federal tax on $58bn in domestic revenue, then one is cherry-picking outrage to bemoan Trump's lack of transparency regarding his taxes. In other words, if you aren't upset that Bezos's company doesn't pay a dime in taxes, I'm not sure why you'd care that Trump avoids them, too. While they may not be morally symmetrical by a letter-of-the-law legal standard, it doesn't mean they aren't morally equitable by a spirit-of-the-law practical standard.

It's a matter of consistency and integrity, but concerning the person asking the questions and demanding answers, not Bezos or Trump.

Otherwise, Trump, as usual, is a pure idiot, but he raises a fair point about taxes. Amazon has grown robustly in their zero-fedtax environment, and yet we are to receive lectures from their seat of power on conservative philosophies regarding taxation.
Click to expand...

You're better than this
 
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