Amazon on Thursday engaged in a heated Twitter exchange with Sen.
Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) after the lawmaker claimed that it and other
large corporations “exploit loopholes and tax havens to pay close to
nothing in taxes.” To get more
twitter news, you can visit shine news official website.
The
exchange began after Warren tweeted a clip from Thursday’s Senate
Finance Committee hearing, in which she accused Amazon and other
companies of “manipulating the tax code to avoid paying their fair
share.”
Hours later, the Amazon News Twitter account responded
with, “You make the tax laws SenWarren; we just follow them.”If you
don’t like the laws you’ve created, by all means, change them,” Amazon
tweeted, adding that the tech giant “has paid billions of dollars in
corporate taxes over the past few years alone.”
Amazon went on to
say, “In 2020, we had another $1.7B in federal tax expense and that’s
on top of the $18 billion we generated in sales taxes for states and
localities in the U.S. Congress designed tax laws to encourage
investment in the economy.”
The company added that since 2010,
it has invested $350 billion in the U.S. economy and in 2020, added
400,000 new jobs across the country. “And while you’re working on
changing the tax code, can we please raise the federal minimum wage to
$15?” Amazon asked Warren. Warren later Thursday evening hit back at
Amazon, tweeting, “I didn’t write the loopholes you exploit … your
armies of lawyers and lobbyists did.”
“But you bet I’ll fight to
make you pay your fair share,” she continued. “And fight your
union-busting. And fight to break up Big Tech so you’re not powerful
enough to heckle senators with snotty tweets.”
In a final message
to the senator, Amazon responded to Warren’s tweet Friday afternoon,
arguing that “one of the most powerful politicians in the United States
just said she’s going to break up an American company so that they can’t
criticize her anymore.”
Warren has repeatedly aimed criticism at
Amazon and other corporations for having overwhelming power in the U.S.
economy. A wealth tax proposed by the Democratic lawmaker late last
month would result in the 100 richest Americans paying more than $78
billion in taxes annually, according to an analysis by Bloomberg News.
Under
the bill, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who is currently the richest
person in the world, would face an additional $5.4 billion in taxes.