Amazon Chides Biden On Tax Comment: ‘We Pay Every Cent’

eCommerce giant Amazon and presidential candidate Joe Biden have taken to Twitter in a squabble over taxes.

On Friday (May 22), Biden told CNBC that Amazon “should start paying their taxes.”

“I don’t think any company, I don’t give a damn how big they are, the Lord Almighty, should absolutely be in a position where they pay no tax and make billions and billions and billions of dollars, No. 1,” Biden said in the interview.

Amazon, in turn, took to Twitter and told Biden the company pays all the taxes it is supposed to pay.

“We pay every cent owed,” Amazon tweeted. “You spent 3 decades in the Senate & know that Congress wrote these tax laws to encourage companies to invest in the U.S. economy. We have. 500k jobs w/ a min wage of $15/hr across 40 states. Assume your complaint is w/ the tax code, not Amazon.”

.@JoeBiden We pay every cent owed. You spent 3 decades in the Senate & know that Congress wrote these tax laws to encourage companies to invest in the US economy. We have. 500k jobs w/ a min wage of $15/hr across 40 states. Assume your complaint is w/ the tax code, not Amazon. https://t.co/bKV4Hy4Ma8

— Amazon Policy (@amazon_policy) May 22, 2020

Biden tweeted back, “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: No company pulling in billions of dollars in profits should pay a lower tax rate than firefighters and teachers. It’s time for Amazon to pay its fair share.”

An Amazon spokesperson told CNBC that a January company blog post explains what Amazon paid in taxes in 2019. It also outlines the company’s reinvestment in the economy, noting that “over the last decade, no other U.S.-based company has created more jobs than Amazon.”

The Tax Foundation said in April that Biden favors raising the corporate income tax to 28 percent, per a Fox News report on Sunday (May 24). The corporate tax rate is currently 21 percent.

As the U.S. starts the reopening process, the biggest consumer behavior that will likely stick is the digital shift, according to recent PYMNTS data.

Consumers will also stick with big retail, like Amazon and Walmart. As quoted in the PYMNTS Whole Paycheck Tracker, Walmart is ready to keep gaining share online, even though it has shuttered Jet.com after its high-profile acquisition of the company in 2016. Walmart’s earnings announcement last week showed that its same-store sales increased by 10 percent and online sales soared more than 74 percent year on year.