Amazon Drivers Do you tip the contracted driver who delivers your Amazon Prime goodies? If so, chances are that the tip goes towards their base pay, the Los Angeles Times reports. Amazon emails say it adds "any supplemental earnings required to meet our commitment that delivery partners earn $18-$25 per hour." L.A. Times
Amazon and GM Amazon and GM are reportedly considering an investment in electric pickup startup Rivian, with a deal maybe coming this month (though maybe not at all.) Tesla CEO Elon Musk has talked about perhaps releasing a pickup next, but Rivian is already planning to release the first electric pickup next year. Reuters
Amazon and Eero Amazon's imminent purchase of Eero is freaking out many of the home Wi-Fi firm's customers, including Fortune's John Patrick Pullen: "Why should my personal data consumption be the business of the everything store?... Soon these devices will also send our information to Amazon's home in Seattle, or more likely one of their many data centers." Eero claims it won't start tracking Internet activity post-acquisition. Fortune Here's the scoop on Eero, the WiFi router company Amazon just bought Amazon announced its acquisition of a small company called Eero this week for an undisclosed amount. Eero makes mesh WiFi systems, which include devices that are designed to be placed throughout a user's home to deliver fast and strong WiFi, even in areas that typically have weak WiFi strength. (Business Insider)
Amazon Cancels HQ2 Plans in New York City Amazon will move forward with plans in Virginia and Nashville and will hire at other tech hubs https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-cancels-hq2-plans-in-new-york-city-11550163050?mod=hp_lead_pos1
New England Motor Freight declares bankruptcy. Is Amazon to blame? New England Motor Freight, the 19th-largest less-than-truckload trucking company in the US, filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday. Several top freight analysts say one of NEMF's challenges were its contract with Amazon, which tends to provide lots of packages that are relatively low value. (Business Insider)
maga! ___________________________ Amazon will pay $0 in taxes on $11,200,000,000 in profit for 2018 Thanks to the new Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), Amazon’s federal tax responsibility is 21% (down from 35% in previous years). But with the help of tax breaks, according to corporate filings, Amazon won’t be paying a dime to Uncle Sam despite posting more than $11.2 billion in profits in 2018. How is that possible? “It’s hard to know exactly what they’re doing,” said Steve Wamhoff, ITEP’s Director of Federal Tax Policy. “In their public documents they don’t lay out their tax strategy. So it’s unclear exactly which breaks [the company is taking advantage of]. They vaguely say tax credits. One could think of many different ways a corporation could do this, like the depreciation breaks which were expanded under TCJA.” View photos Jeff Bezos, founder and chief executive officer of Amazon.com Inc., listens during a discussion at the Air Force Association's Air, Space and Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, U.S., on Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2018. (Photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images) ‘It’s hard to tell’ last year as well." data-reactid="41">Though Amazon might have taken advantage of new breaks and loopholes available under TCJA, this isn’t the first year that Amazon has avoided paying federal tax. The company reported $5.6 billion in U.S. profits in 2017 and paid $0 last year as well. "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. According to Wamhoff, the company’s apparently nonexistent tax bill highlights that there have always been issues with corporate tax liability. “The thing we would need to know is would they have had positive corporate income tax liability were it not for TCJA?” Wamhoff asked. “Maybe. It’s hard to tell.” View photos (Source: Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy analysis of SEC filings) “This is another situation where the rhetoric from President Trump is completely divorced from what he does and what his policies do,” explained Wamhoff. “The part about cutting corporate tax rate was true. And they eliminated some corporate tax rates but not all.” He added: “The corporate tax revenue was a big loser. We aren’t going to see corporations suddenly paying more. We see that in the case of Amazon.” View photos Amazon briefly touched $1 trillion in market cap on September 4, 2018. (Chart: Yahoo Finance)
Amazon’s winner-take-all approach to small business A recent paper by economists Feng Zhu and Qihong Liu observed Amazon’s behavior over time, and found that it tends to introduce proprietary products in niches that smaller merchants did the work of discovering by finding out what consumers like. Amazon then piggybacks on their efforts. (Washington Post)