New York (CNN Business)Joe Biden jumped into the debate over corporate taxes with a jab at Amazon on Thursday, and Amazon jabbed back.
"I have nothing against Amazon, but no company pulling in billions of dollars of profits should pay a lower tax rate than firefighters and teachers. We need to reward work, not just wealth," the former Vice President tweeted, linking to a New York Times story from April about how Amazon got a rebate on its corporate taxes in 2018.
In the early evening, Amazon responded:
"We've paid $2.6B in corporate taxes since 2016. We pay every penny we owe. Congress designed tax laws to encourage companies to reinvest in the American economy. We have. $200B in investments since 2011 & 300K US jobs. Assume VP Biden's complaint is w/ the tax code, not Amazon."
According to the left leaning Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy, Amazon got a $129 million refund on its $11.2 billion in profits in 2018 because of various tax credits. Taking out state taxes, the last time the company paid federal taxes was in 2016, according to the group's analysis of regulatory filings.