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Amazon Will Pay a Whopping $0 in Federal Taxes on $11.2 Billion Profits

JasperL said:
Those are either too general to matter (close corporate loopholes - which means nothing without specifics) or were part of the TCJA in broad terms. It is much harder to defer income earned overseas with GILTI and FDII, there is a deemed repatriation tax on overseas holdings (payable over 8 years as I recall), a new BEAT tax which is kind of a corporate foreign AMT, and more. They're complicated and interact in weird ways when you get to the details, and I've just done a little of that so far, but the broad outlines in that summary for corporations were adopted.

But here's the thing - Reagan's tax reform deals (the early tax cuts or TRA 86) didn't entail Reagan and his team proposing something then sitting around Tweeting and watching Fox on the TV hoping Congress did the right thing. They aggressively courted Congress and played a huge role in what emerged. If Trump failed to sell "his" plan, the failure is at least largely on him, not on Congress. He's got enormous support in the party and has leverage to use if he wanted to use it.
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And yet, Congress made no attempt to include all of the things Trump wanted into their tax reform.

Who cares about Reagan? He's been dead for longer than he was President.

I think you overestimate how much support Trump has from Republicans.
 
noonereal said:
If you like the tale that our founders were God like men who only cared to correct the injustices of the masses, you go with that.

That is certainly what is sold to us .
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i never said anything close to that.

The founders were brilliant men, but flawed as well. They were ok with owning people, and not allowing women or non land owners to vote.

They were also not a monolithic entity that agreed on everything.

But....

They did embrace the Enlightenment, and initiated the first democratic republic, that utilized government of the people, and by the people. Far from perfect..(still flawed today) but revolutionary in their time.
 
Cramer said:
It is not clear if you know the difference.
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Give me something you consider a fact. I'll tell you if it is a fact.
 
Hedgology said:
Most Corporations before the 1980's operating as S-Corporations. Today, most corporations operate as C-Corporations and sole-proprietorship, so the income generated from the Corporation was indistinguishable from the person operating the corporation.
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Just for the record, you got S Corps and C Corps backwards. C corps (like publicly traded corporations) have an entity level tax and S Corps pass income through to shareholders, and there are roughly 4.5 million S corps versus 1.5 million C corps.

And in my experience, small businesses that organize in recent years that might have been S corps now form as LLCs - similar liability protection but with fewer shareholder restrictions. They are about 2.5 million of the 3.5 million partnerships these days. But S corps are also still popular.

SOI Tax Stats Integrated Business Data | Internal Revenue Service

It's also interesting how you hear the word "Corporation" and the entities that come to mind are always big name corporations, like brands you have mentioned, like GM, IBM, Dupont, AT&T, Ford, GE. There are over 6 million Corporations operating in the United States, and yet people only know a handful of Corporations. Why do you think that is?
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That's true but the big boys represent the overwhelming majority of business activity, and influence.
 
Mycroft said:
And yet, Congress made no attempt to include all of the things Trump wanted into their tax reform.
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Like what specifically?

And if they made "no attempt" to include ALL of his priorities, blame the fat man in the White House for sitting around watching TV and not working with Congress. And like everything else with Trump, he changed his mind constantly, but the people who scored his original plan estimated it would increase deficits by roughly $1 trillion per year, (i.e. over $10 trillion over the first decade) over the already existing deficits. See here and here. So if Congress didn't take those proposals and put them all in the bill, it's because they were stupid and fiscally reckless even by GOP standards.

Who cares about Reagan? He's been dead for longer than he was President.

I think you overestimate how much support Trump has from Republicans.
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I was just pointing out what someone who leads can accomplish versus an incompetent moron who sits around and blames everyone else for his failures. It's always someone else's fault with Trump. I don't know why you seem to admire that or defend it. Weird stuff.
 
JasperL said:
Like what specifically?

And if they made "no attempt" to include ALL of his priorities, blame the fat man in the White House for sitting around watching TV and not working with Congress. And like everything else with Trump, he changed his mind constantly, but the people who scored his original plan estimated it would increase deficits by roughly $1 trillion per year, (i.e. over $10 trillion over the first decade) over the already existing deficits. See here and here. So if Congress didn't take those proposals and put them all in the bill, it's because they were stupid and fiscally reckless even by GOP standards.



I was just pointing out what someone who leads can accomplish versus an incompetent moron who sits around and blames everyone else for his failures. It's always someone else's fault with Trump. I don't know why you seem to admire that or defend it. Weird stuff.
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Oh, I have a more realistic reason for why Congress didn't include some of Trump's positions in the tax plan: Their donors didn't want them to.

That's why Amazon is still able to pay zero taxes.
 
Mycroft said:
Oh, I have a more realistic reason for why Congress didn't include some of Trump's positions in the tax plan: Their donors didn't want them to.

That's why Amazon is still able to pay zero taxes.
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What provisions are you talking about? Specifically.

And Trump promised net tax cuts of $1,000 billion (i.e. $1 Trillion) per YEAR (over half of total income tax collections per year under old law). Are you really suggesting the donor class objected to a package of overall tax cuts that included a 25% top individual rate, a 15% top c corp rate, and foreign provisions mostly ADOPTED by TCJA?
 
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Mycroft said:
Jesus!!

READ THE DAMNED THREAD!!!
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I did, and you pointed to some general provisions, most of them if not all IN THE TAX BILL. I have no idea which ones are missing or what their impact was on Amazon's tax liability. Apparently you're also in the dark, which is understandable, because no one I know has seen Amazon's return for the post TCJA period.
 
Cramer said:
i never said anything close to that.

The founders were brilliant men, but flawed as well. They were ok with owning people, and not allowing women or non land owners to vote.

They were also not a monolithic entity that agreed on everything.

But....

They did embrace the Enlightenment, and initiated the first democratic republic, that utilized government of the people, and by the people. Far from perfect..(still flawed today) but revolutionary in their time.
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They were regular well off folks at a time and place that resulted in having had an impact.
 
noonereal said:
They were regular well off folks at a time and place that resulted in having had an impact.
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i think you are selling them a bit short.

They were not God like people (mostly men), but they were extraordinary, that created amazing documents. DOI, The Constitution, (Jefferson and Madison), and all the pamphlets that led up to the revolution.

And achieved an incredible basis for a new type of society.
 
Mycroft said:
Keep on topic.
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You asked for a fact. I gave you one.

Do I need to stay in the boundary of the OP?

How about this, trickle down economics are a farce....tax cuts for the rich do not help the middle/working class.
 
Cramer said:
You asked for a fact. I gave you one.

Do I need to stay in the boundary of the OP?
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Yes, you do need to do that or risk being dismissed.

How about this, trickle down economics are a farce....tax cuts for the rich do not help the middle/working class.
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That is still off topic. But it's not a fact. It's an opinion.

Look. It's obvious that after reading the thread, you have nothing relevant to say to me.

You are dismissed.
 
Mycroft said:
Yes, you do need to do that or risk being dismissed.



That is still off topic. But it's not a fact. It's an opinion.

Look. It's obvious that after reading the thread, you have nothing relevant to say to me.

You are dismissed.
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Dismissed?

You have zero authority to dismiss anyone here (are you a mod?)

It is quite apparent you are not very good at this debate thing.

It appears your ability to have an adult conversation is beyond your reach..

When adult talk/debate, the conversation does not always stay in the same little box.

Now you see, that is an opinion....and and I am quite confident I am correct.

Ciao.
 
JasperL said:
Just for the record, you got S Corps and C Corps backwards. C corps (like publicly traded corporations) have an entity level tax and S Corps pass income through to shareholders, and there are roughly 4.5 million S corps versus 1.5 million C corps.

And in my experience, small businesses that organize in recent years that might have been S corps now form as LLCs - similar liability protection but with fewer shareholder restrictions. They are about 2.5 million of the 3.5 million partnerships these days. But S corps are also still popular.

SOI Tax Stats Integrated Business Data | Internal Revenue Service
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I'm not sure which spreadsheet you were reading but your numbers are... not correct.


That's true but the big boys represent the overwhelming majority of business activity, and influence.
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I'm not sure what this has to do with anything. The "Big Boys" only represent a small portion of all Corporations. Majority of corporations are businesses with asset less than $1 billion in assets.
 
Hedgology said:
I'm not sure which spreadsheet you were reading but your numbers are... not correct.
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It was Table 1 for 2013. You have to scroll to the right, and I rounded the figures obviously just to provide a general overview. Here are some data for more recent years (2016 and 2017), but these don't break out LLCs which I wanted to include:

Screen Shot 2019-02-16 at 6.49.15 PM.jpg

Table 2, page 4 here: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/17databk.pdf

I'm not sure what this has to do with anything. The "Big Boys" only represent a small portion of all Corporations. Majority of corporations are businesses with asset less than $1 billion in assets.
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Correct, as I said. I was just pointing out the focus is on the Fortune 500 because just those 500 represent about 75% of nominal GDP.

The other maybe 11 million business entities (S corps, C corps and partnerships), and maybe 15 million sole proprietors make up the remaining 25%. So we focus on the ones who matter most, and who wield the most power.
 
Lord of Planar said:
Maybe we should also eliminate the dodge US tax payers have on their tax returns as well.
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Soon as I get to deduct "operating expenses" like food and mortgage payments, sure.
 
Lord of Planar said:
You know, the democrats have more rich people contributing to their campaigns than republicans do. When it comes to tax loopholes, they have buddies they are helping too.
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And yet they put for anti-corruption/finance reform legislation that you apparently will oppose because librul? I hope one day the majority of Americans start acting like informed citizens.
 
JasperL said:
Correct, as I said. I was just pointing out the focus is on the Fortune 500 because just those 500 represent about 75% of nominal GDP.
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Why is this metric meaningful?

The other maybe 11 million business entities (S corps, C corps and partnerships), and maybe 15 million sole proprietors make up the remaining 25%. So we focus on the ones who matter most, and who wield the most power.
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But it doesn't answer the question by corporate profits make up 12% of GDP, which I have already explained...
 
dirtpoorchris said:
Time to tax all corporations 5% and pay it directly to all Americans as Universal Basic Income for at least 10 years.
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They are already taxed at 7.2% to pay half of employee's Social Security tax. Not to mention how much they're taxed to pay employee's health insurance.
 
Bullseye said:
They are already taxed at 7.2% to pay half of employee's Social Security tax. Not to mention how much they're taxed to pay employee's health insurance.
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That doesn't include
SS tax
workman's comp
and a whole host of other taxes
that go to have an employee.
 
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