It’s Amazon vs. Biden in Twitter land today.
After democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden tweeted Thursday morning about how much Amazon pays in corporate taxes, the Seattle tech giant fired back with a response on Thursday afternoon.
We’ve paid $2.6B in corporate taxes since 2016. We pay every penny we owe. Congress designed tax laws to encourage companies to reinvest in the American economy. We have. $200B in investments since 2011 & 300K US jobs. Assume VP Biden’s complaint is w/ the tax code, not Amazon. https://t.co/uPUv1Tzlma
— Amazon News (@amazonnews) June 13, 2019
Biden had tweeted that, “I have nothing against Amazon, but no company pulling in billions of dollars of profits should pay a lower tax rate than firefighters and teachers. We need to reward work, not just wealth.”
Amazon has taken heat for not paying federal income taxes in 2018 on its $11 billion-plus in profits. In his tweet, Biden linked to a New York Times article from April that reported on how Amazon “has become the poster child for corporate tax avoidance.”
A report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy revealed that 60 companies on the Fortune 500 did not pay income tax and instead earned corporate tax rebates of $4.3 billion.
Biden is not the first presidential candidate to take aim at Amazon on Twitter. Sen. Elizabeth Warren did the same in April, accusing Amazon of anti-competitive behavior. Amazon responded in a similar manner at the time.
We don’t use individual sellers’ data to launch private label products (which account for only about 1% of sales). And sellers aren’t being “knocked out” – they’re seeing record sales every year. Also, Walmart is much larger; Amazon is less than 4% of U.S. retail. https://t.co/5wXTfaAHuN
— Amazon News (@amazonnews) April 23, 2019
Warren also specifically called out Amazon in April when introducing her proposals for a new tax on corporate profits.
Biden is slated to speak in Seattle later this month.
