the 30's. When the US adopted ultra high taxes on vert high income, their reason was that they wanted the owners to reinvest in their businesses to keep growing them. THAT is what Amazon has been doing and why they don't have much taxable income. If people really understood that, they'd quit bitchin.

Just like how I don't get how a non-profit that pays its board members millions a year is a non-profit.

To me, if people are pocketing millions and even billions from the proceeds of an organization, that is profit.

They have spent more than they have received. That's not sustainable. Same problem with Uber, AirBnB, in fact all these "disruptive" companies: they aren't actually sustainable. They don't make more money than they spend.

Of course, it is fair to count salaries as expenses, but when the payout to a single person is billions, that to me is not an 'expense", it is a profit. Net income is profit. Dividend payouts to investors is profit.

And Amazon's net income to date is below $0. That's my point.

The problem is not that Amazon pays no taxes; the problem is that we all pretend it is a trillion dollar company.

It shouldn't be possible for the owners, board members, CEOs to earn millions, while their companies are losing billions. Another example is Elon Musk and Tesla (total debt over 13 billions by now).

He gets his money because people are willing to pay an absurd price for a share of a company that still hasn't managed to earn more than it has spent.

It doesn't really matter how he gets his millions/billions, as long as he gets it. Isn't he the richest person in the world?

He's the richest person in the world if you multiply the number of Amazon shares he owns by the price somebody paid for a share yesterday. But that's not how shares actually work.

After deducting expenses from income, if there is no profit, the business is unprofitable.

Your last line is actually true too. If the owner doesn't take a high salary, all that $$ goes to profit which is taxable as well as the $$ taken by the stockholders.

Amazon today reported earnings for its fourth fiscal quarter of 2018, including revenue of $72.4 billion, net income of $3.0 billion, and earnings per share of $6.04 (compared to revenue of $60.5 billion, net income of $1.86 billion, and earnings per share of $3.75 in Q4 2017). The fourth quarter is the biggest and most important for Amazon because of holiday sales.

Crazy, isn't it?

but that should be done as part of the net profit calculation.

Sure, if you take my lifetime earnings and divide it by the number of years I've been alive, it would be a smaller number! But the clincher that this is not a serious piece is the statement, "Amazon is still not profitable."

Here are Amazon's financials for the year 2018: (all figures in thousands)

Total Revenue 232,887,000
Total Operating Expenses 220,466,000
Operating Income or Loss 12,421,000
Net Income From Continuing Ops 10,073,000

Amazon made $10 billion in net profit in 2018

That's exactly my point: even making $10B this year they still aren't "profitable" because they spent more than $10B to get where they are.

Bezos has received precisely $0 in dividends from owning Amazon stock. Because Amazon is still not making money.

It's a dividend when they cut a check to shareholders. Which they have never done.

You have to have made more money than you have spent to pay dividends, and Amazon has not made more money than it has spent.

Many companies have lean years when they're starting up. Amazon is well beyond that now. It's just silly to say a company "is not profitable" by defining that as all the income it has ever taken in minus the money is has ever paid out. It doesn't work that way.

No matter long they have been in business and no matter how many years they have been making a yearly profit, if there overall income remains less than overall expenditures, then, for tax purposes, they are not taxable.

All profits appear to be reinvested at this point. The company has not paid a dividend yet.

Bezos paid himself about $80K last year. How does he live his lifestyle. Apparently their is a category called Security costs. I wonder how this get taxed. I sure bet their is no SS and Medicare withholding and the marginal rate is far lower than normal income.

https://observer.com/2019/04/jeff-bezos-amazon-2018-ceo-salary/

Bezos had been paid the same cash salary for 20 years without ever getting a raise, according to Amazon’s historical filings. For comparison, his CFO Brian Olsavsky, sales chief Jeff Blackburn, consumer CEO Jeff Wilke and Amazon Web Services CEO Andrew Jassy all made more than $150,000, plus generous stock awards, last year.

But there’s no need to worry about how Bezos can pay for his luxurious homes across the country, his private jet and his swanky vacations. Most of these expense were covered by Amazon under a category called “security costs” specifically for Bezos. For the past three years, Amazon has spent $1.6 million annually in this category.

Amazon is making lots of money. It doesn't pay dividends to any of its stockholders. Why? Because it would be income to Bezos, who is the largest shareholder.

That's literally why they don't pay taxes.

Operating income is from the current period. If Amazon had past losses that far exceed the operating income, it pays no taxes.

as do most other shareholders who convert their paper profits to cash.

But what I mean is that none of his fortune has come from Amazon being profitable and funneling that profit to him. He has received literally $0 in dividends from AMZN. All of his fortune has come from his holding a bunch of baseball cards with the word "AMZN" on them, and finding other collectors who are willing to pay for that.

That's actually a good thing, if you survive by working for companies, or you want to start one.

My comments about Bezos paying taxes were aimed at those who think Amazon -- or other companies -- do not generate a lot of tax payments, directly or indirectly.

Why are individuals, sole proprietors and individual owned LLCs treated differently from C-Corps like Amazon when it comes to past loss carryforwards. The tax code is rigged in favor of C-Corps in so many ways, from loss carryforwards to depreciation of assets.

are bogus paper loses that involve shuffling money around between various countries with more favorable tax laws, tax shelters etc.

According to Hollywood accountants, the following movies never turned a profit:

Return of the Jedi
Alien
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Coming to America
Batman
The Lord of the Rings trilogy
Goodfellas
Forrest Gump
Spiderman
Gone in 60 Seconds
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
JFK

So, your premise only works when the books are honest.

And the accountants that do are prohibited by law from making public such tax returns.

So I'm guessing he pays basically nothing in taxes. Amazon doesn't pay a divided so no taxes there. Yet he has mansions and fancy apartments and flies to any exotic spot he wants and goes to fancy parties, which is fine EXCEPT he pays almost nothing in taxes (him personally not Amazon)

But on the other hand they aren't shielded from creditors if things go bad for Amazon (though it made it harder for his ex-wife to get them, so there's that).

... by selling below cost price for years, and thus driving out of competition retailers who are running their business in a normal way and thus paying tax on profits, then eventually, our money will have given us an outsize market share, and we can profit from the effective monopoly". Being able to carry losses forward indefinitely encourages the rich to push others out of the market, if they know in the long run it's tax-efficient.