Amazon's Tax Bill Plunges 87% After Tax Cuts (politico.com)
- Reference: 0180748778
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/26/02/06/1918235/amazons-tax-bill-plunges-87-after-tax-cuts
- Source link: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/06/amazon-emerges-a-big-winner-from-gop-tax-cuts-00768985
> Republicans' tax cuts shaved billions off Amazon's tax bill, new government filings show. The company says it [1]ran a $1.2 billion tax bill last year , down from $9 billion the previous year, and even as its profits jumped by 45% to nearly $90 billion.
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> That's largely because of the generous new depreciation breaks GOP lawmakers included in their One Big Beautiful Bill, something that's particularly important to Amazon which -- in addition to maintaining a vast infrastructure for its ubiquitous delivery business -- has been spending billions to build out artificial intelligence data centers.
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> Also helping, though less important: The law's expanded breaks for businesses research and development expenses. The company has long been criticized by Democrats for paying little in tax, and it appeared to be bracing for criticism in the wake of the report to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
[1] https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/06/amazon-emerges-a-big-winner-from-gop-tax-cuts-00768985
Sovereign debt? (Score:3, Interesting)
Wasn't the debt a big concern a year ago or have tariffs reduced it as promised?
Who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes? (Score:2)
Take your pick:
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."
"I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you."
"If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed."
"Everything the State says is a lie, and everything it has it has stolen."
That's funny (Score:4, Insightful)
My tax bill didn't drop 87%. I should probably pick up the phone and call Donald Trump and ask him about it. I'm sure he'll be happy to answer the phone and talk to me right? Right?
I'm sure he has also personally replied to the dozens and dozens of people on the internet who have made posts talking about how they're going to die from lack of medical care after the big beautiful Bill eliminated their health care insurance.
Re:That's funny (Score:5, Insightful)
Yu need to butter up the rapist before you get these cuts.
Re: (Score:2)
Do what that guy in the UAE did (Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, national security advisor and UAE President's brother), buy a $500 million stake in Trump's crypto company (World Liberty Financial). With that kind of payola you could easily call the President whenever you wanted!
Just depreciating in one year rather than five? (Score:1)
> My tax bill didn't drop 87%
From the summary: "That's largely because of the generous new depreciation breaks"
Did you buy stuff for your home business? It looks like the tax break is the one where instead of depreciating something a business (home or international conglomerate) buys over a number of years, they get to depreciate it all in the first year.
For example is my home business I got to take such a deduction for a computer, a display, and a really good chair. I bought more than that but those are the things over the dolla
Re: (Score:2)
How many data centers did you build? How many warehouses?
Tax breaks for capital equipment depreciation are not new, R&D expenditures are often deductible too. I had to visit the senior bean counter more than once to find out if something was capital (therefore depreciated) or expense.
The new $1.6 billion dollar plant that was built in 2009 got tax breaks. The $12 million dollar pilot plant that was built for the next generation reactors (chemical not nuclear) was also depreciated as per schedule and cou
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
When an indefensible story makes your side look bad claim "both sides". Textbook.
Re: (Score:1)
I for one don't have a problem with this. I give uncle Jeff a lot of money each year and I prefer he doesn't spend it frivolously in another country. Americans are pretty rich as it is, they don't need more money.
Now, ideally, uncle Jeff should pay his share of taxes in my country, but he's a greedy foreigner who manipulates public opinion and undercuts local businesses, so it's a work in progress.
Re: (Score:2)
Multi-national corporations by their very nature spend the money you give them (revenue) on other countries.
Globalization happened. Deal with it. No way to turn back the clock, we certainly can't go back to Second Industrial Revolution and even going back to the Third Industrial Revolution is going to destroy the US's position in world finance and make us all poorer. But the Jeff Bezos of the world will still be rich in that scenario.
Re: (Score:2)
Tax evasion (*cough* minimization) by multinationals is not an insurmountable problem that cannot be fixed. It's merely a problem that requires application of force at the right lever point. Right now, the dominos are being aligned around the world. This is a slow process, then a swift one.
Whether we all become poorer is irrelevant, what is bad is if some are much richer than others. Wealth is relative, not absolute. In some places, excessively rich people are rightly targeted. In some places, they remain
What a coincidence (Score:5, Insightful)
Amazon gets its tax bill reduced by almost 90% while at the same time it produces a schlock film about an illegal immigrant who used chain migration to get their parents into the country.
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks for the tip! I reported them to ICE.
Re: (Score:2)
> Thanks for the tip! I reported them to ICE.
Amazon or Melania?
CONSUME (Score:4, Funny)
I'd boycott but I need same day delivery too much.
Meanwhile (Score:3)
Everything costs more due to tariffs. Please stop the winning!
Re: Meanwhile (Score:2)
The tariff pung ping games have driven investment out of the US. VW for example has reduced investment here and diverted it to China, because at least in China they know what the investment environment will be like a week from now.
Melania (film) (Score:2)
Guess that $75 million gift to the Trumps paid for itself and then some.
The best government... (Score:2)
...money can buy! ...a shitty vanity film for his wife can buy!
The headline should read.... (Score:3)
70 million dollar bribe pays off big!
Better than a hundred to one!
Endgame (Score:2)
I look forward to the end game where we have no taxes. No corporate taxes. After all they just pass it on to consumers. No income taxes. Just pay for it on import tariffs. Skip that too, why not? We already run a large deficit. All the spending sits on the ever expanding national debt. Now no one has a say except those who sit on massive piles of cash that faces risks of devaluation. Sounds awesome. Even foreign holders of cash/debt. They matter more than the citizens after all. Power to the powerful!! Afte
Re: (Score:1)
Just like it's fashionable to justify anything because it "helps" small businesses.
Re:This also helps my business (Score:5, Insightful)
surely there are ways to help "small business" however the GOP defines such without also giving a luscious handj...er, handshake to companies that have never paid their fair share
Re: (Score:1)
LOL. So you think Amazon lowered the prices with those billions in extra revenue. ROFLMAO.
Re: This also helps my business (Score:2)
So you do admit they won't pass on any savings to you. They will split it between growing their business or giving it to investors, the only thing that makes sense. So it's one way, right? Taxes go up and they cut you deeper, taxes go down and they squeeze more juice. There's no upside. There's nothing for you to celebrate.
And you have to tax them or you can't use tax incentives to steer them the way you want like buying American, creating jobs not robots, whatever. Same thing you do with individual income
Re: (Score:2)
> LOL. So you think Amazon lowered the prices with those billions in extra revenue. ROFLMAO.
You need to be a shareholder. Consumers pay all the taxes. Shareholders benefit from all the tax breaks.
Re: This also helps my business (Score:3)
Sounds good to me! They can pass them on to their customers. Then we can each voluntarily decide if those products and their actual costs including externalities are worth it. Sounds like a basis upon which to construct a rational market place rather than opaquely burying the true cost of their business using subsidies comprised of my tax dollars. Would be great if their heavy vehicles paid their share of road wear too, so the full costs of their products were built into the prices consumers pay rather tha
Re: This also helps my business (Score:2)
Consumers pass on their tax burden by spending less, you should fucking know.
It's a cycle, that's how the economy works, dipshit. All incomes should be tapped. Then tax incentives can be used to encourage behavior that benefits economic growth and social stability.
OFC some rich fucks want the tax burden moved entirely to personal income taxes, they get better effective tax rates there, it's pretty obvious what the play is.
Re: (Score:2)
Only because there exists neither the competition, nor the regulation, to prevent them doing so. Nor the regulation to prevent them preventing the competition that would prevent them doing so.
I love trickle down economics (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this some dry satire or something? Isn't Amazon responsible for destroying small and local businesses with it's aggressive pricing policies and sellers fees? Didn't we witness the destruction of brick and mortar stores at the hands of Amazon just two decades prior?
Re: I love trickle down economics (Score:1)
No, that was Walmart, Target and Kroger in the 70s and 80s, Amazon didn't even start selling books online until 1996.
Re: (Score:1)
compete with Amazon? good luck
Re: This also helps my business (Score:3)
That's awesome, and it helps Amazon more. One of the last companies on the planet that needed a leg up. May their investments trickle upon you.
Re: (Score:1)
I am all for Amazon keeping the money they earned rather than turning it over to the government.
The government shutdown for like thirty something days last year and I would not have known if I did not turn on the news.
Amazon would not deliver anything for three days because of snow last week, and I sure as hell noticed that every day!
I do not mind Amazon keeping $7.8 billion that would just go to either fraud in Minnesota, or DHS annoying and shooting Minnesotans in the street.
I am happy for a strong milita