President Donald Trump is renewing his attacks on e-commerce giant Amazon, and he says the company is “doing great damage to tax paying retailers.”
Trump tweets that “towns, cities and states throughout the U.S. are being hurt – many jobs being lost!”
The president has often criticized the company and CEO Jeff Bezos (BAY’-zohs), who also owns The Washington Post.
Many traditional retailers are closing stores and blaming Amazon for a shift to buying goods online. But the company has been hiring thousands of warehouse workers on the spot at job fairs across the country. Amazon has announced goal of adding 100,000 full-time workers by the middle of next year.
Trump has in the past tweeted that Amazon was not paying “Internet taxes.” But it’s unclear what he meant by that. Amazon.com collects state sales taxes in all 45 states with a sales tax and the District of Columbia, according to their website. State governments have sought to capture sales taxes lost to internet retailers, though they have struggled with a 1992 Supreme Court ruling that retailers must have a physical presence in a state before officials can make them collect sales tax.
Amazon did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
Amazon is doing great damage to tax paying retailers. Towns, cities and states throughout the U.S. are being hurt – many jobs being lost!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 16, 2017
(AP)
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5 Responses
That’s cute.
Aside from his ownership of The Washington Post, Jeff Bezos and his company, Amazon, are a threat to the real estate business, to the extent that Amazon makes brick-and-mortar retailers obsolete, which means they don’t need real estate for their stores. And a threat to the real estate business is a threat to Trump. I do not know whether he is invested in retail store space, but any material reduction in the need for real estate weakens the market, and the value of Trump’s assets.
If Amazon is not properly collecting sales taxes, the state taxing authorities have power to fix that. But this is probably one of those instances where Trump forgot to check the facts.
The Bigger they are, the harder they fall
Could you imagine one day a world without Amazon? I see a day of Mom & Pop Stores coming back somehow – probably through Amazon.
What kind of insane idiot president of the United States criticizes a major American company that employs people and helps drive the economy?