Fortune: President Trump Claims Amazon Pays “Little or No Taxes.” Here’s Where He’s Wrong

Where Trump is correct: Amazon doesn’t collect taxes on behalf of third-party vendors, and it still may not collect some local taxes, giving it an advantage over some traditional retailers, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a think tank.

According to an analysis from the ITEP, the gap between the tax rate that some local tax jurisdictions impose and what Amazon collects can be as much as 7.5 percentage points in Homer, AK., for example.

“This analysis reveals that in seven states (Alabama, Alaska, Idaho, Iowa, Mississippi, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania), Amazon is either not collecting local taxes or is charging a lower tax rate than local retailers,” the ITEP found by entering dozens of shipping addresses into Amazon’s website. Some “localities, however, are not collecting tax from out-of-state or even out-of-town businesses because of problematic restrictions in state or local law.” Read more

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