Amazon to pay $0 in federal income taxes: report

by Chris Mills Rodrigo - 02/14/19 5:16 PM ET

Amazon will not pay any federal income taxes for the second year in a row, according to a report released Wednesday

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that the online retailer, which reported $11.2 billion in profits in 2018, did not pay income tax because of unnamed “tax credits” in their disclosure.

{mosads}The company will reportedly receive a $129 million federal income tax rebate, effectively making their tax rate -1 percent.

The company also reportedly paid zero federal income taxes for 2017, when it made $5.6 billion in U.S. income.

A spokesperson from Amazon challenged this week’s report, saying the company did in fact specify what tax credits they used and that the report made mistakes in calculating 2016 tax expenses.

“Amazon pays all the taxes we are required to pay in the U.S. and every country where we operate, including paying $2.6 billion in corporate tax and reporting $3.4 billion in tax expense over the last three years,” they said. “Corporate tax is based on profits, not revenues, and our profits remain modest given retail is a highly competitive, low-margin business and our continued heavy investment.”

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a liberal think tank, says that the Trump administration’s 2017 tax plan is partially responsible by failing to “broaden the tax base or close a slew of tax loopholes that allow profitable companies to routinely avoid paying federal and state income taxes on almost half of their profit.”

The think tank calculated, using Securities and Exchange Commission filings, that Amazon had an effective tax rate of 5.9 percent in 2015 and 10 percent in 2016.

Several lawmakers, including President Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-N.Y.) have criticized Amazon’s low tax rates.

“I have stated my concerns with Amazon long before the Election,” the president tweeted in 2018. “Unlike others, they pay little or no taxes to state & local governments, use our Postal System as their Delivery Boy (causing tremendous loss to the U.S.), and are putting many thousands of retailers out of business!”

“You know what Amazon paid in federal income taxes last year? Zero,” Sanders tweeted last year, along with an article about Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos getting $9 billion richer in two days.