Misdirected Anger At Business
By Jim Bauer
@porwest (112730)
United States
August 4, 2018 7:57am CST
If you have been paying attention to the news, Amazon recently caught some fire after it was reported that the company, after record profits and sales increases, only paid $2.2 million in taxes in the UK.
Not that it is uncommon for the 'regular folks' to blame the companies when they don't pay what some consider their 'fair share' in taxes.
But the truth is, the anger is misguided and misdirected. Nobody wants to pay more taxes than they have to. Think about it. You go to your tax preparer and they give you an amount you owe to the government, or tell you what your refund is. Do you ever say to your tax preparer, "Oh no. That's not enough. Dig a little harder and find a way to make sure I owe the government MORE."
Of course not.
If one wants to place any anger, they need to place it on those who write the laws that govern how taxes are applied. I fault no company for taking advantage of any tax law or tax break that is offered to them that is in their favor...
So long as it is legal.
That being said, I would much rather anyone, including a large company like Amazon, get to keep more of their earnings. That means more money for workers, infrastructure, research and development, advertising, and of course more money for their shareholders. All money that pours into the real economy and does more to help economically than the government sucking the money into their coffers to simply be squandered and wasted, and quite frankly pilfered by this group or that group.
9 people like this
7 responses
@JohnRoberts (109841)
• Los Angeles, California
4 Aug 18
The problem with Amazon is that most of the profits end up in Jeff Bezos' pockets so he can spend a billion dollars building his space ship ( he raised Amazon Prime rates two days after the announcement about the space ship so guess where that money is going). The beef with Amazon is that Bezos is an extreme Trump hating liberal which is fine but also a hypocrite who is right there taking advantage of the tax cuts and being an elitist wealthy pig that his own political philosophy condemns. So anger at Amazon isn't so much about the company but the man who owns it.
3 people like this
@porwest (112730)
• United States
4 Aug 18
That being said, you don't get to be a Jeff Bezos or an Amazon and become the richest man in the world UNLESS many more people actually support him and his company than don't. I disagree, of course, with his political views. As for Jeff Bezos lining his pockets? Why not? And besides, anyone can invest in the company and share in the profits. So I am not sure I understand the beef. But that's just me. That money he made and continues to make didn't get into his pockets without people buying stuff from his site. If people really have a beef, it would show in his LACK of profits and lack of consumer support for his business. But that is clearly not what is happening.
1 person likes this
@JohnRoberts (109841)
• Los Angeles, California
4 Aug 18
@porwest The beef is he supports a political philosophy of spread the wealth and hatred of the wealthy and yet his actions are contrary to that and his profits have increased thanks to the very man in the White House he so vehemently hates. Another issue is Amazon's quest for domination over every aspect of consumer life as the company gobbles up businesses in all areas and is borderline anti-trust violator. It's beyond making profits and good business but a vision of being the only company with zero competition.
1 person likes this
@porwest (112730)
• United States
12 Aug 18
Very true. All of those dollars not taken away by the government go to much better use, economic expansion, new business start ups, more wages and benefits to employees. The free market makes much better use of any money flowing through it.
1 person likes this
@Mike197602 (15504)
• United Kingdom
4 Aug 18
All true, they're doing nothing illegal just following the rules.
The rules do need to change though.
Amazon is on course to become one of the first companies to reach $1 trillion market capitalisation, and CEO Jeff Bezos was declared the richest man in modern history by Forbes last month. So why does it pay so little tax?
1 person likes this
@porwest (112730)
• United States
12 Aug 18
To what end do we change the rules? We know, historically, that the higher the tax rates the less the real economy benefits. And lower tax rates actually mean higher amounts of overall taxes are collected due to the heightened commerce in the free market. EVEN IF some pay a higher overall amount and others pay a lesser amount...it's just the way it works. The more taxes you try to collect as a percentage the less actual dollars you collect as a whole.
@porwest (112730)
• United States
4 Aug 18
You bet they would. Besides, what most people don't get is that if you tax a corporation you really tax the buyer. Companies do not pay taxes, really. They RECOUP them. All of the costs of running a business, which taxes are a part, are passed along to the consumer in the form of higher prices. So, when someone thinks taxing the big corporations sticks it to the big corporations...they get the last laugh because you essentially pay those taxes when you buy their stuff. 
1 person likes this
