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Comment by propman | Hacker News Reader

Let’s say $11 was the previous avg wage for let’s say 300k employees (250k full and 100k part time avg). $4 increase is $8000 more a year. That’s $2.4B yearly transfer to workers which is honestly really really amazing, props to Bezos.

$8000 means 15.3% in payroll taxes so this wage increase will result in $367.2M in additional payroll taxes.

12% federal income tax as well for that $8000 is $288M per year.

So amazon is paying $655M more in taxes with a stroke of a pen and raising wages by $2.4B for those who make near minimum wage. In terms of taxes, this is equivalent to the US adding 48,000 high paying 50k a year jobs to the economy.

Who says Amazon doesn’t pay taxes? It’s much better for the economy if companies higher more people than higher fewer and pay the equivalent in taxes.

Great job Bezos and Amazon!

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> Who says Amazon doesn’t pay taxes?

A lot of people!

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/10/amazon-uk...

https://itep.org/amazon-inc-paid-zero-in-federal-taxes-in-20...

Amazon deserves credit for raising pay before it needed to, but to sell this as a justification for their tax avoidance everywhere else is absurd.

>Who says Amazon doesn’t pay taxes?

Can we do away with this now please. Amazon paying the taxes it can't avoid doesn't act as an excuse for avoiding the taxes that they do avoid. In fact, excusing Amazon's tax avoidance with the income tax it's employees pay is even worse. It's still a problem. We still need to tackle it, and if this pay rise acts to dissuade people from real tax reform and real workers rights then forget the 2.4B this move is probably profitable for Amazon.

Jeff Bezos paying sales tax on his morning coffee is enough for the people looking for an extra dopamine hit by rah rahing Amazon. $15/hour still isn’t enough to live on in many cities and large scale tax evasion by corporations is one of the single most insidious epidemics in our society today.

I agree that corporations are evading taxes on a massive scale, but can we also applaud them for taking steps in the right direction when they do?

You can applaud them for what they actually do without delving into apologism (“who says Amazon doesn’t pay taxes”)

Why not specifically enumerate the taxes that Amazon is avoiding? Sales tax is the only one I'm aware of, and that seems to be dramatically lessened nowadays as they build out more warehouses for faster shipping.

You need to look up the difference between tax evasion and tax avoidance. If Amazon was evading taxes and there was any evidence of it, they would be hit hard by the IRS.

I don’t say ‘evasion’. I say ‘avoision’.

>Can we do away with this now please. Amazon paying the taxes it can't avoid doesn't act as an excuse for avoiding the taxes that they do avoid.

Can we do away with the notion that companies shouldn't pay the amount of taxes required by the law? What should Bezos tell the accountants? Pay 15% above whatever the required amount is? 20%?

And you’re right. It’s a tax problem that needs to be solved, not a company dodging problem.

Either way, a mom and pop store is not going to get anywhere near the same tax rate. Amazon is not paying their share even if they aren’t to blame.

> Amazon paying the taxes it can't avoid doesn't act as an excuse for avoiding the taxes that they do avoid.

Blaming companies for doing something the law allows them to do is ridiculous. If you don't think they should be allowed to do that, why do you have a law that allows them to? Fix the law, e.g. by replacing corporate income tax with VAT, so they can't avoid it, and then they won't.

That's a toxic behavior not just in part of the amazon but as whole on the part of big businesses. And yes it's legal so we can't fault them except for sure collectively they lobby and influence the law making to make sure these loophole remains.

A lot of the laws are bought and sold for. That's not just true for US but for most of the world I think.

> A lot of the laws are bought and sold for. That's not just true for US but for most of the world I think.

That's the point. The problem is the content of the laws. Their consequence is an inevitability that follows from their content.

What taxes are they avoiding? Are you referring to sales tax or something else?

I like the idea of roughing out the overall cost, but lets see if we can get the numbers a bit more precise. Looking up pay rates on Indeed, here's what Amazon currently is offering: Florence KY, warehouse fulfillment associate: $12.80/hour Las Vegas NV, $12+/hour; Ashland VA: $12.50; Florida: $11.30 estimate; Joliet IL: $13.10; Irvine CA: $13.35; Lancaster NY: $12.25; Wilmer TX: $12.85

Let's call it $12.50 for average starting pay across the United States. That would be $5,000 more/worker, or a $1.5 billion yearly transfer. Still a big number, but not quite as big.

Also, experienced workers likely are making a little more. Let's assume that half the workforce is new or high turnover that's still very close to starting pay. And let's assume that the other half is getting paid $1/hour more on the basis of seniority or slight bumps up in job descriptions/responsibilities, etc. In that case, the average yearly pay increase drops to $4,000, or a $1.2 billion total.

It's still a big number, but not quite as dramatic as the first pass might suggest.

Amazon is not paying that income tax. The workers are.

I'm happy with this story too, but that's going way too far.

Your math works out if they don't layoff a ton of people through automation. Let's see what happens.

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