Politifact: Fact-checking the Democratic claim that Amazon doesn’t pay taxes

Short answer: Amazon’s tax returns are private, so we don’t know for sure what Amazon pays in federal taxes. But Amazon’s estimates on its annual 10-K filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission are the closest information we have on this matter. They show mixed results for the past three years: no federal income tax payments for 2017 and 2018, but yes on payments for 2019.

“Amazon is off the hook in the narrow sense that you can no longer assert they are not paying federal income tax now,” said Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Still, Amazon’s financials indicate that in 2019 its effective tax rate was 1.2%, far below the 21% statutory corporate tax rate, he said. Read more

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