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Comment by munk-a | Hacker News Reader

I know it's hard to do when you're making good money and would be going against co-workers.

But, if you see something, say something. This crap continues because there are too many folks that are happy to help support immoral business practices for some extra scratch. This isn't all on you in particular but when google folks started raising hell about Chinese censorship the company was forced to move. We all have the power to withdraw consent over how our labour will be used and, as software developers, we've got a strong enough employment market that we have real power to help make companies behave better - power that folks working in the warehouse are absolutely deprived of.

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I mean the problem is corruption begets corruption. They WANT do to these things because you're going to get a massive bonus when the product you 'invented' does well because you stole the idea from an Amazon customer.

Amazon needs to be properly taxed so that this crap doesn't happen anymore.

The idea that they shouldn't pay taxes simply because they're large should absolutely enrage everyone.

This topic has nothing to do with taxes. They will always be trying to increase their bottom line whether that line is before or after taxes makes no difference. What is needed is a whistleblower. Not just a “when I worked for Amazon we did bad stuff”. We need that person to contact startup X, whose software and customer list was compromised. And then, this is key, share knowledge and proof of these accusations. Hell, do so through an attorney where you negotiate x% of resulting litigation proceeds of you’re worried about your privacy and financial situation. I’m pretty sure this would play out badly for Amazon in court.

Here's the thing it's not just Amazon they're just the biggest fish in the manufacturing pond in NA. Who's fault is it exactly? The system is designed to MAKE SHARKS LIKE THIS.

You're a fish, eat other fish and evolve into a shark, you eat other sharks and become a whale shark, you start eating everything and then become godzilla.

A whistle blower isn't going to fix this. This is the system. The system MAKES godzilla sharks like this.

Oh yeah sure a whistle blower will do what? Get amazon fined for how much? Then they just change tactics. Outsource. Make agreements and partnerships and farm out doing the same thing just with different proxies. I mean come on man this is a company that can buy other countries.

And let's not forget Microsoft was pulling the same shit until they got put under the same charges and then all of a sudden years later after Bill got tired of stabilizing his empire and making sure it would live without him he became a saint all of a sudden. Cuz like yeah if I was richer than 99% of the people on the planet yeah I could start being a nicer person and shit too.

The current zeitgiest is that taxes are Unamerican and tax evasion is American. Until that is fixed proposing solving problems with taxes is a pretty empty approach since people are happy to elect tax evaders to the highest office in the country and joyfully utilize services that are offered by companies that are famous for their tax evasion (Apple, Amazon, everyone honestly).

I think taxes aren't really a solution anyways - fines might be but taxes would hurt honest players just as much as dishonest ones. What they did is (AFAIK) illegal and needs to be punished, if it isn't then there is no incentive for them to correct their action.

Who is saying they shouldn't be taxed because they are large? There's no 'large company' tax break.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/03/why-amazon-paid-no-federal-i...

There's specific credits/exemptions in the tax code that they are able to exploit (and perhaps they can only exploit some of them _because_ they are a big company), but it really isn't about their size.

What you say is openly contradictory. They receive certain exemptions due to their size, but their tax bill has nothing to do with their size. ???

No, I said quite clearly there are no exemptions due to their size. There's a difference between an exemption for companies with N+ employees and tax credits/exemptions you can capitalize on because you are a company that makes billions of dollars and can afford to take on different behaviors to take advantage of them. That's not the same thing at all.

I see what you are saying, but I think that if things exist in the tax code that can only be taken advantage of by large companies, it is -effectively- the same thing as a big company exemption.

He’s not talking about effectively what happens. He’s saying textually there is no “large company tax break” and if you tell legislators to repeal “large company tax breaks” they’d all give you confused looks. Textual precision is important if you want to start fixing the problem. What exactly are the test breaks that work for big companies and not small ones? Why do they exist? What was the original intent? What are the side effects?

Nobody said that there is a tax exemption for companies over N+ employees. The OP said that amazon doesn't have to pay taxes.

Can we please stop arguing like influencing is only true if it is done in the most direct way (similar to the quid pro quo debate). Obviously if big company lobbyists try to get tax law in their favour they are not pushing for "please write a law which exempts companies over N employees from taxes." They push for laws that sound innocent but only they will be able to take advantage of, just like it is at the moment. The outcome is still the same they pay less or zero taxes.

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