Prime is considered a marketing expense. Amazon absorbs hundreds of millions or even a billion dollars in shipping charges through prime. It's a huge reason they have a thin profit margin.
It's sad to see people propagate this crap. It's really about veiled protectionism. A big, efficient player comes in and is willing to forego profit indefinitely. Can't tax them legally, so shame them. Tax on 0 is 0. That's how it works for UK companies too. Try reading between the lines...
They run a business in the UK but pay almost nothing in tax, it should be fixed its not fair on small business owners who have to pay all of there tax and get hammered for it.
Can you not see how its a loop hole? It can so easily be fixed.
I'm sure we won't mind the income ;)
But actually, it's not different, because Amazon also subcontracts, the only difference is that the subcontracted delivery company is named... Amazon. So what they're doing is the same as any companies that ships products to the UK, except that they happen to own both companies and they have similar names.
I fail to see the reason why should Amazon UK pay for the profits earned by Amazon Luxembourg, when DHL or whoever don't pay for Etsy's profits that come from the UK.
According to this article[1], what they actually do is send the payments directly to the Luxembourg company, and Amazon UK is just classified as a delivery company. That makes sense, and frankly, it doesn't shock me. I'm from Portugal and I just bought some comics from an US company. Should they start paying Portuguese corporate taxes?
What percentage of your revenue do you pay in corporate taxes? None! You only pay a percentage of profit. (extremely thin for Amazon) They base in Luxembourg to benefit from UK laws and EU regulation. The UK media and government quoting billions in revenue is meaningless. They're trying to stir you up. They would relatively nothing in corp tax relative to their other tax footprint (payroll, vat, etc) and would absolutely spend it all to avoid doing so.