Since Amazon decimates local shopping, small mom and pop stores and whole shopping malls, not to mention the entire shopping experience, it ought to give something back to the community!
@tsarstepan,
Sheer ungrateful sh!theads win the unnecessary war against Amazon.
BREAKING: Amazon Cancels Plan To Open NYC Campus In Queens
@tsarstepan,
Quote:The company announced the stunning reversal in a press release on Thursday. "After much thought and deliberation, we’ve decided not to move forward with our plans to build a headquarters for Amazon in Long Island City, Queens," the statement read.
It continued: "For Amazon, the commitment to build a new headquarters requires positive, collaborative relationships with state and local elected officials who will be supportive over the long-term. While polls show that 70% of New Yorkers support our plans and investment, a number of state and local politicians have made it clear that they oppose our presence and will not work with us to build the type of relationships that are required to go forward with the project we and many others envisioned in Long Island City."
While several members of the City Council had opposed the deal, the body had no actual authority over the plan. State Senator Michael Gianaris, an Amazon critic who was chosen last month to lead a public authorities board with veto power over the deal, had said he was open to renegotiating the terms of Amazon's move, provided they didn't receive any tax breaks.
“Like a petulant child, Amazon insists on getting its way or takes its ball and leaves," Gainaris said in a statement to the Times. “The only thing that happened here is that a community that was going to be profoundly affected by their presence started asking questions.’"
So 70% of people were supportive and that wasn't enough? Getting 70% support for just about anything is near on impossible these days. I feel for those businesses that invested money in the area based on Amazon's announcement.
@McGentrix,
I believe he's blaming the residents of Long Island City, Queens for protesting too much ... forcing the hand of Amazon to cancel the move into NYC.
@tsarstepan,
No, I was blaming Amazon. As a corporation, you can't turn around these days without finding someone who doesn't approve of you. Amazon had a 70% approval rate. That's absurdly high and they still weren't happy? Is their top criteria for finding a new location that every single resident be deliriously happy to have them? Good luck with that. Amazon is going to bring in lots of jobs, money, etc but they are also going to bring in traffic and gentrification and drive out all the older residents of wherever they move into. It's change and some people are going to complain no matter where they go. They could buy a completely empty piece of land off an interstate in the middle of nowhere and there would be some Internet forum dedicated to how awful they are. I think it's either all an excuse (they found out it wasn't such a great place after all) or they are so thin skinned that this is going to happen wherever they go and they just made it worse by emboldening the protesters of the world. The thing is they made an announcement and small businesses out there started making plans, expanding, hiring, etc. It's pretty lame that they would take their ball and go home the second someone asked them to start negotiating the hard details.
@engineer,
I heard Amazon said they are not looking for a new location, so I guess it was they decided this HQ was not a good idea after all.
@engineer,
I don't think you are reading good sources. One thing Amazon holds above all else, even profit, is face. The Liberal politicians in and around New York State and City decided to make their careers on Amazon's back. Cursing the tax breaks they received and other breaks they were perceived to have gotten behind closed doors.
They made them appear to be just another greedy corporation, as it has had that effect on you. Amazon doesn't need that albatross around it's neck for thirty years so they said "**** you and have a nice day" to NY politics.
Approval ratings have nothing to do with it.
Heaves a huge sigh.......
@McGentrix,
Perhaps, but that is going to happen wherever Amazon goes, and not just with liberal politicians. Giving giant tax breaks to corporations is an issue on the right as well (especially in my state where the Republican controlled legislature eliminated tax breaks for the film industry pretty much gutting local movie projects.) You are
always going to have detractors. If Amazon is going to pout and go home every time some group holds a protest, they are never going to get anything done. They are already not the most beloved of companies. That they have no plans to restart the search says more about their real plans than anything else.
@McGentrix,
McGentrix wrote:
I don't think you are reading good sources. One thing Amazon holds above all else, even profit, is face. The Liberal politicians in and around New York State and City decided to make their careers on Amazon's back.
Bill De Blasio and Andrew Cuomo (mayor and governor respectively... both Democrats; the former being more liberal than the latter) both were on Team Amazon. A lowly (and idiotic Dem) State Senator was the loudest opponent to the move. He was doing it for the approval ratings of his ... local constituents.
Amazon will pay $0 in federal taxes this year — and it's partially thanks to Trump
Tom Huddleston Jr. 5 Hours Ago
Amazon is one of the world's most valuable companies, valued at nearly $800 million, and the e-commerce giant pulled in $232.9 billion in global revenue in 2018.
And yet, Amazon's federal tax bill this year: $0. For the second year in a row.
In fact, Amazon is actually getting a federal tax refund of $129 million this year, due in part to a combination of tax credits and deductions. This is despite the fact that Amazon nearly doubled its taxable income in 2018 to $11.2 billion, from $5.6 billion a year earlier.
In other words, Amazon is basically paying a -1 percent federal income tax rate this year after reportedly paying a federal rate of more than 11 percent between 2011 and 2016, according to The Week.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who has criticized Amazon in the past for not paying higher federal taxes, took to Twitter on Thursday to point out that any Amazon Prime member paid more for that program's annual fee ($119) than the company paid in federal taxes.
Bernie Sanders
✔
@SenSanders
If you paid the $119 annual fee to become an Amazon Prime member, you paid more to Amazon than it paid in taxes.
Our job: Repeal all of the Trump tax breaks for the top 1% and large corporations and demand that they pay their fair share in taxes.
FORTUNE
✔
@FortuneMagazine
Amazon will pay $0 in federal income taxes on $11.2 billion in profit.
8:36 PM - Feb 14, 2019
Prime has 100 million subscribers.
"Amazon pays all the taxes we are required to pay in the U.S. and every country where we operate, including paying $2.6 billion in corporate tax and reporting $3.4 billion in tax expense over the last three years," an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement provided to CNBC Make It.
Amazon reported its sizable federal refund in a recent corporate filing for the company's fourth-quarter earnings report. However, Amazon also notes in that filing that it will pay $756 million in total taxes this year, between state and international taxes.
A report this week from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, or ITEP, a nonpartisan and nonprofit tax policy think tank, pointed out the fact that Amazon will not pay federal taxes for the second year in a row. In fact, last year, Amazon received an even larger refund, getting $137 million from the federal government.
One reason for Amazon's nonexistent federal tax bill is the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that Congress enacted in 2017, which lowered the statutory corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. In addition to the lower tax rates for corporations, the new tax law also "failed to ... close a slew of tax loopholes that allow profitable companies to routinely avoid paying federal and state income taxes on almost half of their profits," ITEP senior fellow Matthew Gardner wrote in a report on Wednesday.
The fact that the new tax law, which was strongly backed by President Donald Trump and his administration, has helped Amazon and other companies lower their federal tax obligation is somewhat ironic considering that the president has railed against Amazon, in particular, for paying "little or no taxes to state and local governments."
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
I have stated my concerns with Amazon long before the Election. Unlike others, they pay little or no taxes to state & local governments, use our Postal System as their Delivery Boy (causing tremendous loss to the U.S.), and are putting many thousands of retailers out of business!
6:57 AM - Mar 29, 2018
Gardner's report also notes that Amazon's own income tax disclosure in its quarterly report shows that the company's lack of federal tax payment this year is at least partly owed to "various unspecified 'tax credits'" along with the fact that Amazon and other corporations are able to deduct the value of vested shares the company gives to its employees, including stock options given to executives.
Because Amazon's actual tax filings to the IRS are not public, there is no way to know exactly how large of a deduction the company gets from writing off those vested stock options, or the value of the tax credits it receives from the government, Gardner told CNBC Make It.
For what it's worth, Amazon said in its recent corporate filing that those federal tax credits "are primarily related to the U.S. federal research and development credit," a common tax credit for companies that spend money on research in the U.S. in order to grow their businesses.
Amazon famously went on the hunt for tax incentives in last year's search for sites for the massive company's second headquarters, or "HQ2," which initially led the company to announce plans to open large, new corporate locations in New York City and Virginia. However, Amazon this week canceled its plans for HQ2 in New York City due to local opposition.
@neptuneblue,
As an aside note, you apparently like to steal much deserved ad revenue from media sites by not linking to their respective sources and copying and pasting what may be entire articles as posts.
Thanks for helping gut the media landscape.
@tsarstepan,
Does saying I'm sorry help?
Does that soothe the click bait issue?
@neptuneblue,
neptuneblue wrote:
Does that soothe the click bait issue?
What click bait issue are you referring to?
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