One thing no one would expect Donald Trump to want to discuss right now is a business owner paying more in taxes than they do. Trump’s infamous refusal to release his own tax returns raised suspicions about his foreign business ties, his alleged violation of the emoluments clause, and his business dealings in Russia and how that may have affected their willingness to help him get elected.
However, Trump was at it again on Thursday morning with an attack on Amazon. The owner, Jeff Bezos, is a particular favorite whipping boy of Trump’s on Twitter because of his ownership of The Washington Post, a publication not afraid to report Trump’s missteps, his failures, or his repeated lies.
Congress is currently deciding on the issue of how sales tax should be levied for online retailers. At this point, there is no indication that Amazon or Jeff Bezos himself has paid anything less than the law has required them to pay. The Supreme Court is also currently hearing arguments in a case regarding how sales taxes that should be calculated for internet-based companies. It’s an issue under debate and one that American taxpayers should be aware of and forming an understanding about, but that’s difficult to do when they are also bombarded with Trump’s inaccuracies and hypocrisy on the subject.
Trump has repeatedly accused Amazon of hurting the U.S. Postal Service. The truth is quite the opposite. While first-class mail pricing, which is the “biggest source of revenue” for the government agency, has caused them to lose money, their package delivery for companies like Amazon at a time when online sales purchases are becoming more the norm, has helped offset some of the losses. is According to Vox:
‘Delivering packages, it turns out, is a growth business, and it actually makes the Postal Service money: The revenue from package increased $2.1 billion, and was up 11.8 percent for fiscal year 2017.’
What’s worse, sources say that Trump has been told this repeatedly to no avail, as he persists in spreading the lies anyway.
‘The whole post office thing, that’s very much a perception he has. It’s been explained to him in multiple meetings that his perception is inaccurate and that the post office actually makes a ton of money from Amazon.’
In addition to misinforming the public, there’s also the issue of Trump talking out of both sides of his face. His only real legislative achievement after a year in office is signing a massive tax cut for large corporations that he promised would stimulate the economy as that money trickles down to the middle class. While it was touted as a tax cut for the middle class, it has so far been mostly the wealthy who have benefited.
Additionally, who can forget that moment during the 2016 presidential debates when Trump told challenger Hillary Clinton that he saw no problem with avoiding paying as many tax dollars as he could, and that it was a sign of intelligence to do so?
Twitter wasn’t fooled, and users made their thoughts on the subject known. See some of their responses below:
Featured image via Getty/Mark Wilson
