Jeff Bezos says Amazon supports a rise in the corporate tax rate and making bold investments in US infrastructure, but stops short of supporting Biden's plan
- Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on Tuesday voiced support for raising the corporate tax rate but stopped short of saying he supports President Joe Biden's plan for the increase. Source: About Amazon .
CNBCAnnie Palmer
Context & Ripple Effects
Days after Biden said Amazon used tax loopholes to avoid federal income taxes, Bezos put Amazon closer to the administration on the principle of a higher corporate rate while preserving distance from its specific proposal. That qualification matters because Amazon was already facing a wider Biden-era agenda of labor, antitrust, privacy and facial-recognition oversight.
Amazon had previously emphasized its job creation, social investments and support for smaller businesses in a House-facing defense of its economic role. Backing infrastructure investment extends that case for Amazon’s public-economic value, even as the company resists full alignment with Biden’s tax package.
First-order effects
Amazon publicly accepts a corporate tax increase as a policy direction, while withholding endorsement of Biden’s proposed rate increase and package.
Biden gains support from one of the companies he had singled out on tax treatment, but not validation for the plan’s precise terms.
Second-order effects
Amazon’s qualified position gives corporate-tax negotiators a clearer divide to work with: agreement on raising revenue from companies does not settle the rate or the accompanying infrastructure plan.
If large companies increasingly concede the case for a higher corporate rate while contesting implementation, tax lobbying is likely to shift from outright opposition toward bargaining over policy design and the use of revenue.
The episode fits a broader Biden-era pattern in which Amazon must engage policymakers across taxes and infrastructure while managing simultaneous scrutiny over its market and labor conduct.
The trend: Large technology companies are moving from categorical resistance to corporate-tax increases toward conditional support shaped by the details of broader economic policy.
Jeff Bezos: “we're supportive of a rise in the corporate tax rate [which we will avoid paying and which we know will harm our competitors more than us; we also hope backing tax hikes will buy us protection from any anti-trust nastiness.] https://twitter.com/...
Jeff Bezos says he supports Biden for a hike to corporate tax rate. #Amazon in 2019: - Pre-tax income: $13.9 billion - Fed tax paid: $162 Million - Rate paid: 1.2% Maybe Bezos wants to contribute back taxes for past 4 years? https://omny.fm/...
Easy to support increasing the corporate tax when you dont pay tax regardless. But yeah, higher corporate taxes are still good. We just need to close about a BILLION loopholes. https://www.cnbc.com/...
If you claim no taxable income then of course you're fine with an increased tax rate. That's just more taxes for companies that actually pay. https://twitter.com/...
What a joke! Bezos makes thousands of dollars a minute. He doesn't owe back taxes because of tax laws Bezos and other gazilionairez contribute to corrupt members of Congress. It's the poor who get screwed every time. https://twitter.com/...
Amazon said they're moving offices from Seattle to Bellevue because there was a relatively small tax passed to fund a response to homelessness https://twitter.com/...