In 2018, Amazon paid $0 in U.S. federal income tax on $11 billion in profits. The company also received a $129 million tax rebate from the federal government. Which some people aren't too happy about. Kevin Robinson is one of them. And he wants to make the company regret it. One way or the other.
Recently, Kevin made a Facebook post, describing how he went about it. In just a little over a week, it has received over 46K reactions and 43K shares. However, probably the most interesting responses to the viral text are the comments. People are talking about corporate greed, who's responsible for it and what part the employees play in all of this.
More info: Facebook
Image credits: Portal Abras
Truth of Fiction were able to contact the Whole Foods in Redwood City, the area where Robinson lives, to see if the store was hosting a food drive. An employee did confirm that the store was collecting donations of food items for local charities, and that shoppers were also able to make a monetary donation at checkout.
However, the claim in the post that others could also move items not purchased into the donations area because it's “a zero-risk maneuver, as you haven’t stolen anything, simply placed items in a different location in the store” is quite complicated. For starters, different stores have different loss prevention policies. Secondly, laws may vary between jurisdictions in the same states or across states, making it hard to determine whether this action is actually a crime or not.
As for Amazon’s low tax bill, one could trace its roots to the Republican tax cuts of 2017, carryforward losses from years when the company was not profitable, tax credits for massive investments in research and development and stock-based employee compensation.
“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 to CNBC.
The viral post started a heated discussion and while some were praising him as a hero
Other's were saying this could seriously harm the employees
While there were some that suggested boycotting the store altogether
