Re: Tax avoidance costs
"as i recall AMAZON spent many years trading at a loss"
Yes, they did. They are still taking write downs on "profits" from those years when they lost money. Amazon's margin's also suck and they have higher costs than many other businesses when you compare them to other consumer goods retailers. Your local independent hardware store likely only sees a lawsuit against them very rarely when Amazon may be having several a day filed against them as they are a huge target. All of that free and expedited shipping at a low cost comes from somewhere. In the US it's been on the back of the postal service. Amazon delivers to the easy addresses and has the post office deliver to the expensive out of the way places. Amazon does get a benefit from being able to work from warehouses at cents per unit area vs a retail store paying an order of magnitude more.
The problem isn't the people being taxed, it's the laws and the politicians that write them. So many people whine that so and so isn't paying their "fair share" when they are, in fact, paying what is required. They are just in a better position to hire accounts that can find deductions and make suggestions about where to spend, invest and store capital for the lowest tax exposure. Many of those shelters don't make sense for people with average salaries. It doesn't make sense to pay good financial advisors to sort out those advantages unless the sums are significant enough. The people to bitch at are the lawmakers. They should be working to simplify tax codes so it's easier to comply with lower tax rates coupled with fewer special interest loopholes. In the US, if you call the IRS for assistance, you can still be penalized if they give you incorrect information. They don't even have people that can give you definitive answers on the tax code it's so complicated.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
