Amazon is not paying taxes, according to accusing statements made by 2016 Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump. Amazon owns Washington Post and the newspaper has not endorsed his candidacy.
Inquiries have been made by media on the truth or accuracy of the allegation by Trump who also said that department store sales have been affected because online businesses like Amazon are not paying taxes.
Not so long ago, there were numerous complaints that online retailers were getting away with non-payment of sales and income taxes. Sales taxes were only imposed on sales made on location or where the sales were made.
Online businesses, whose sales do not originate in the local stores but in the internet, were not covered by sales taxes. This situation has since been clarified and sales taxes are now being collected from online stores.
Several State laws have been passed statutes covering the imposition of sales tax and income tax for online businesses. Actual stores are usually referred to as "brick and mortar" businesses as differentiated to online businesses in the internet.
Most states that require sales on online business classify internet sales as mail order transactions which are usually not imposed with sales tax.
With regards to Amazon, the company is currently paying sales in 29 major states where they are selling their wares. These sales account for almost 90% of their total sales volume if the figures from states not imposing sale taxes are included.
With regards to income tax, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) can always investigate the revenues of companies whether online businesses or "brick and mortar" stores.
Amazon has countered against the complaint that online businesses, by not paying taxes, are severely affecting of "brick and mortar" sales. Studies have shown that when Amazon started paying taxes, its sales volume decreased by 9.5% while sales of location stores increased by only 2%.
