By Aaron Kesel
The Washington Post, owned by the same man who owns Amazon, Jeff Bezos, failed to cover the recent nearly $300 million dollar fine against the corporate retail giant, blacking out the story that its boss’s other organization reaped illegal tax benefits for 8 long years.
Amazon was ordered by the European Commission to pay the fine after it was found to have received illegal tax benefits.
The commission stated that Amazon received the illegal benefits between 2006 and 2014 in the country without any “valid justification.”
“Luxembourg gave illegal tax benefits to Amazon. As a result, almost three-quarters of Amazon’s profits were not taxed,” Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s commissioner for competition, said in a statement.
“In other words, Amazon was allowed to pay four times less tax than other local companies subject to the same national tax rules. This is illegal under EU state aid rules. Member states cannot give selective tax benefits to multinational groups that are not available to others,” she added.
.@amazon tax benefits in Luxembourg are illegal under our common European rules on state aid. Amazon to repay benefits worth around €250 mio
— Margrethe Vestager (@vestager) October 4, 2017
“$300 million fine against AMAZON for tax dodge in EU…nothing on Washington Post front page?” Matt Drudge tweeted Wednesday, adding a mocking comment of WAPO’s catchphrase “Democracy dies in darkness.”
“Democracy dies…with monopolistic Bezos!!,” Drudge tweeted.
$300M fine against AMAZON for tax dodge in EU… Nothing on https://t.co/XoVevZ1tgf front page? Democracy Dies… with monopolistic Bezos!!
— MATT DRUDGE (@DRUDGE) October 4, 2017
Amazon said in response to the commission’s decision that it believes it did not receive any special treatment from Luxembourg, that it paid tax in “full accordance with both Luxembourg and international tax law” and was considering an appeal:
“We will study the Commission’s ruling and consider our legal options, including an appeal. Our 50,000 employees across Europe remain heads-down focused on serving our customers and the hundreds of thousands of small businesses who work with us,” the online retailing giant said in a statement to Bloomberg.
U.S. President Donald Trump has previously accused Bezos of tax dodging in several tweets and while on Fox during his run for the presidency last year.
“He thinks I’ll go after him for antitrust,” Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity last year. “Because he’s got a huge antitrust problem because he’s controlling so much, Amazon is controlling so much of what they are doing.”
“He’s using the Washington Post, which is peanuts, he’s using that for political purposes to save Amazon in terms of taxes and in terms of antitrust,” he added.
The #AmazonWashingtonPost, sometimes referred to as the guardian of Amazon not paying internet taxes (which they should) is FAKE NEWS!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 28, 2017
The @washingtonpost, which loses a fortune, is owned by @JeffBezos for purposes of keeping taxes down at his no profit company, @amazon.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 7, 2015
Trump’s claim that Amazon pays no “internet taxes,” is partially true and is therefore “fake news.”
While it’s true that the online retailer built its huge market share via tax avoidance, Amazon began collecting sales tax nationwide on April 1st earlier this year.
The Luxembourg government stated it “considers that the company has not been granted incompatible State aid.”
The ruling is further indication that the EU is finally going after big corporations for tax dodging.
Last year, Apple was ordered to pay $14.5 billion in back taxes, just like Amazon.
The EU authority further announced that it was suing Ireland for failing to recover any money from that fine from Apple Inc.
“Ireland has to recover up to 13 billion euros in illegal State aid from Apple. However, more than one year after the Commission adopted this decision, Ireland has still not recovered the money, also not in part,” said Vestager in a statement.
She added: “We of course understand that recovery in certain cases may be more complex than in others, and we are always ready to assist. But Member States need to make sufficient progress to restore competition. That is why we have today decided to refer Ireland to the EU Court for failing to implement our decision.”
Additionally, earlier this year Google was ordered to pay $2.7 billion dollars by Vestager earlier this year in an antitrust lawsuit for promoting its own shopping service over rivals.
While Google also faced a 170 million dollar fine last year from British tax authorities and agreed to pay that lump sum in back taxes for all the years the company under paid.
Aaron Kesel writes for Activist Post and is Director of Content for Coinivore. Follow Aaron at Twitter and Steemit.
This article is Creative Commons and can be republished in full with attribution. Like Activist Post on Facebook, subscribe on YouTube, follow on Twitter and at Steemit.
Washington COMPost
You dont get it do you, according to the new way of doing bizzenizze, skipping anything and everything, anywhere, is been hailed as an goooood thing, yeah, tax sucks dont it, and while you whine on an personal level, you whine for them to, yeah, taxs kills us all, but the problem is reality, they avoid it, you dont.
Yeah, and to then explain Catalonia and other regions whom is going thru that, competition on an base that is created for the mega corps, whom have locations everywhere, lawyers whom is able to pulverize everything this days, with hole created for that purpose only, to avoid paying corporate tax.
Switching addresses, yeah, an god old mafia trick, made legal, thats what it really is, nothing else, and when the top of the scam chain, demands an ever increasing revenue flow, linear to kingdom comes, is the same philosophy as cancer cells have, period.
I simply would ban them from my country, entirely, by chopping of access thru internet and other ways, total blocking, and give then one choice, pay to play, if not, f… of, since I know, the marked is big anuf, others can make it and break thru the monopolize that is soaking the neo liberal, f…. know what corporate policy’s any given country have, what I see is an steady increasing dominion of an entire globe by fewer and fewer hands.
All wealth is simply sucked out, into few, and people whine about our economic downfall, are you blind.
I will give you an ex. since those few, owns everything from the recourse base/region, to what eventually ends up in the table, and the price we pay for that, is theirs to, have from,just an ex. from fresh fish, to frozen into containers, then sent to China or lord know where, to be handled and made to whatever product they need, like Cod (fish and ships) and this takes 2 weeks of transport by sea, and finally ends up, as “fresh fish” on your table, I know most of you have never eaten fresh cod, its something completely different than the shit in the store, its like chicken (firm), and I boil it every-time in sea water, no spice needed other than liver, etc, and drink bear/booze( I agrees with my brother, single malt whiskey witch dont taste and smell to much burned marshlands/mires is of course, like drinking “cream” and I never drink it other than straight from the bottle or glass, never add anything, throw the bottle in the freezer, but never use ice, ugh).
That is what is where everything went wrong, the Scots as others have an never ending recourse, right outside their doors, now its systematically destroyed for feeding the large international corps, whom is getting bigger and bigger as we speak.
WE need an revolution.
wake up
peace