Jeff Bezos: Good or bad for America
Many people are under the false impression that the richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos, is a good man and a charitable man. However, after extensive research, I learned that Bezos became a billionaire and the richest man in the world by conning the system and American government, attacking smaller companies and industries, and then exploiting every loophole that he could find to avoid paying American taxes.
He conned the system and the American government in 2017 by reportedly paying zero dollars in American Federal Taxes. He did so by establishing his headquarters in Luxemburg, not in the United States like many may believe. Recently, Amazon has been accused of avoiding Federal Taxes and they said: ‘Our provision for income taxes in 2017 was lower than in 2016 primarily due to excess tax benefits from stock-based compensation and the provisional favorable effect of the 2017 Tax Act.’
So essentially what Bezos’ is saying is that he will find any loophole that he can to give back to the great country that has given him the opportunity to obtain the wealth that he has because paying his ‘fair share of taxes’ is not part of his company’s plan.
Many may assume that Bezos is doing this because every other large company tries to avoid taxes to maximize profit and to grow their company, but Bezos has been attempting to avoid paying taxes since the birth of the company.
In the company’s early years, Bezos wanted to avoid taxes by building Amazon’s headquarters on a Native American Reservation near San Fransisco because of the tax breaks that were offered. However, the State of California soon realized just how much money they would lose out on, so they did not allow the deal to go through.
Even though Bezos has been under the scrutiny of the government and the American people for so long, he continues to execute his intolerable actions of conning the government. He has been doing so more recently by looking for a new area for Amazon’s second headquarters. Many believe that he is doing this to provide jobs to an area and to help out the local economy, but Bezos ultimately is looking for a city within the US that would offer him the greatest tax break so that he can attempt to heal this black eye with minimal loss.
Many would think that because of all the money that Bezos is saving by avoiding US taxes, he would be able to pay his employees good wages and give them a very good working environment. However, your thinking would be false due to the fact that 1 in 10 employees in Ohio that work for Amazon are on the food stamp program, which is funded by… yes you guessed it… by federal taxes.
Lastly, you would assume that the richest man in the world would have one of the largest charity funds out of all billionaires. Yet again, your assumption would be wrong because Bezos has not established his own charity or partnered with another charity like many other billionaires such as Warren Buffet and Bill Gates have. In my opinion, if Bezos wanted to be a true American, he would move his headquarters to the United States where it belongs, pay his taxes, and do what every other billionaire does by establishing a charity and using it as a tax write off.
However, Bezos is a greedy American oligarch that will do anything to save a dime, so do not expect him to change anytime soon. Even though it is at the cost of the American people to which he claims to love.
Senior planning to attend Ohio University.
"There's no nobility in poverty." -Jordan Belfort
Jim Martin • Dec 1, 2020 at 3:37 pm
What nonsense. The contribution of Jeff Bezos to the USA economy at the macro level and individual citizens through lowest prices is incalculable. Our little nonprofit organization, for example, has been able to acquire supplies and equipment over the years that it otherwise could not have afforded. If he uses tax breaks to reduce or eliminate taxes all the better because the money he savest permits him to continue building Amazon and providing ever more products and services at lowest prices and fastest delivery. Clearly the author has zero understanding of the free enterprise system and would benefit from reading “Atlas Shrugged” as a hypothetical example of what would happen to the US economy if socialism (falsely labeled progressivism) became dominant. I saw a purely socialist society many years ago when visiting New Zealand, a country that shortly thereafter became almost literally bankrupt. New Zealanders fortunately elected a hardscrabble man who reintroduced free enterprise to the country and within a few years turned it into a very prosperous country. Similarly I visted India when it was a socialist country with almost no middle class and with most of its population at the poverty level. I revisted twice after socialism was replaced with capitalism and saw how the middle class burgeoned by hundreds of millions of people who were raised out of poverty. My advice to the author is to get his head on straight and support those financial leaders that create entire industries and thereby create massive employment with the ability to buy goods and services and thereby support the creation of other industries and more jobs.
Myrna Faria • Oct 23, 2019 at 12:14 am
We can’t impeach tax evader president but we can boycott Amazon.
Jack • Nov 16, 2018 at 7:18 am
How can we expect better behavior from Mr. Bezos, when the leaders of our country behave even worse? Almost half the American people seem to have no problem with our leaders behaving so badly. Which is ironic, since they complain of those very people taking advantage of them. The world seems upside-down and inside-out. Like we’re actually living inside an episode of The Twilight Zone or something!!