President Joe Biden on Wednesday singled out the tech giant Amazon accusing it of not paying federal taxes during his address in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he talked about raising the tax burden of multinational companies and hiking company tax rates.
The Biden infrastructure plan launched the previous day increased the company’s tax rates to 28% from 21% and changed the tax code to close the gap that enabled the company to move profits abroad, according to a 25-page briefing paper released by the White House.
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Biden said Amazon was one of the 91 Fortune 500 companies that “use various gaps where they pay not one solitary pen in a federal income tax,” in sharp contrast with the middle-class family pay more than 20% of tax rates.
“I don’t want to punish them, but it’s wrong,” he said. In response, the Amazon spokesman referred to the Tweet on the Research and Development Tax Credit by Jay Carney, the Head of the Company’s Public Policy and Communication and former Press Secretary of the White House under former President Barack Obama.
“If the R&D tax credit is ‘gap,’ of course, it’s the one Congress is really interested in. R&D Tax Credit has been around 1981, extended 15 times with the support of bi-partisan and made permanent in 2015 in the law signed by President Obama, “Carney tweeted.
If the R&D Tax Credit is a “loophole," it's certainly one Congress strongly intended. The R&D Tax credit has existed since 1981, was extended 15 times with bi-partisan support and was made permanent in 2015 in a law signed by President Obama.
— Jay Carney (@JayCarney) March 31, 2021
After paying $ 0 in federal tax for two years, Amazon began paying federal income tax in 2019. This was not the first time Biden came to Amazon. In June 2019, he named Amazon and said no company that made billions of profits had to pay a lower tax rate than firefighters and teachers.
