The Walmart executive asks Bezos to pay more taxes



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A senior Walmart executive has written off Amazon for its low tax contribution after Jeff Bezos called the retail giant for paying his workers a lower minimum wage than Amazon.

Dan Bartlett, Walmart's executive vice president of general affairs, said Thursday in Bezos in a tweet that said: "Hey retail competitors (you know who you are), what about the payment of your taxes? "

Bartlett responded Thursday to Bezos' challenge to retailers to raise their minimum wage and keep up with the pace of Amazon, which brought them $ 15 in October 2018.

"Today, I challenge our retail competitors (you know who you are!) To match our employee benefits with our minimum wage of $ 15," Bezos wrote in a letter to shareholders. .

"Do it! Better yet, go to $ 16 and throw away the glove.This is a kind of competition that will benefit everyone."

Dan Bartlett, when he was working as a presidential advisor in George W. Bush's administration.
AP Charles Dharapak

In 2018, Amazon paid $ 0 in federal income taxes for the second year in a row, despite a profit of $ 11.2 billion.

Critics say the company is exploiting legal loopholes to keep this figure low. Amazon says it pays all the required taxes and mentions other types of taxes that cost it billions of dollars a year.

Read more: Employees at Amazon warehouses talk about the "brutal" reality of work during the holidays, while 60-hour weeks are mandatory and ambulance calls are common.

In a separate tweet On Thursday, Barlett defended Walmart's pay policy.

"FWIW, the vast majority of our warehouse associates have earned more than $ 15 for a long time, and they still enjoy quarterly performance bonuses."

Read more: Jeff Bezos called on Amazon's competitors to increase their minimum wage. Here's how competitors like Walmart, Target and Costco are accumulating workers' wages.

Walmart 's minimum wage officially became $ 11 / hour in January 2018.

The Walmart logo is visible outside one of the shops in Chicago.
Reuters

In a recent report on Amazon's tax affairs, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) stated that it was using "tax loopholes that allow profitable businesses to make money." systematically avoid paying income taxes at the federal and state levels. "

She said that Amazon is able to pay so little tax because its finances are structured so as to avoid any liability.

The ITEP program highlighted Amazon's efforts to maximize tax credits and tax relief for executive stock options.

In a statement released Thursday, Amazon said:

"Amazon pays all the taxes we are required to pay in the United States and in all the countries in which we operate, including a $ 2.6 billion corporate tax and a $ 3.4 billion tax expenditure. in the last three years. "

"The corporate tax is based on profits, not revenues, and our profits are modest, with retail being a highly competitive, low-margin business, as well as our ever-increasing investments."

They also pointed to the large number of jobs created by the company.

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