January 13, 2017
The NYT devoted an article to Amazon’s plans for building out its warehouse network and managed to completely avoid any reference to Amazon’s efforts to avoid having to collect sales tax. For years, Amazon pursued a strategy of trying not to maintain a physical presence in states so that it could argue that it did not have to collect sales tax. This effectively gave Amazon an enormous taxpayer subsidy at the expense of conventional retailers.
Jeff Bezos has effectively been handed millions of years worth of food stamps by government regulations that allowed him to avoid collecting sales tax. The savings from not having to collect sales tax almost certainly exceeds Amazon’s cumulative profits since it was founded.
Comments