Amazon did not pay taxes on $ 11.2 billion last year. This is the result of an analysis by the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), according to the Washington Post. The newspaper belongs to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Like many other large companies, Amazon cuts its taxes every year through a variety of loopholes. The procedure: The Group uses a large number of tax credits and relies on a significant tax exemption through payment in the form of shares.

In this way, the company received a tax allowance of $ 129 million last year. That led to an effective tax rate of about one percent, according to the Washington Post.

It's the second year in a row that Amazon receives a negative tax rate on a multi-billion dollar profit. The average tax rate paid by the poorest 20 percent of American households was 1.5 percent in 2015, according to the Tax Policy Center.

Amazon argues with investments

"Amazon pays all the taxes that we have to pay in the US and in all the countries in which we operate," said Amazon spokeswoman Jodi Seth in a statement. "We have invested more than $ 160 billion in the US since 2011, building a network of more than 125 fulfillment and sorting centers, hubs and delivery stations, as well as cloud computing infrastructure and wind and solar farms," ​​Seth continued.

Listed companies like Amazon are responsible for acting in the interests of shareholders. Many companies interpret this as an invitation to maximize their enterprise value through tax reduction.

Matthew Gardner, senior ITEP employee, described the situation as a failure of US tax policy. "Amazon's profits in the US have doubled in the last year, and if anyone were subject to corporation tax, everyone would hope it was Amazon," he said.

From 2009 to 2018, the company reportedly generated a profit of approximately $ 26.5 billion and paid $ 791 million in taxes for an effective federal tax rate of 3.0 percent for that period, the company said Analysis of the ITEP. This is well below the statutory corporate tax rate of 35 percent that applies for most of this period.

Amazon acts like most major corporations

Amazon does not only use the extensive legal tax loopholes. Earlier ITEP analysis, the Washinton Post said, showed that the most profitable 500 companies on the Fortune list paid an average effective federal tax rate of 21.2 percent between 2008 and 2015, far below the legal rate of 35 percent. One hundred of the companies had paid zero or negative taxes for at least one profitable year, 58 of them had several zero tax years and were profitable.

Amazon has recently abandoned the plans to build a campus in New York City. Local activists, unions and politicians have opposed the more than $ 3 billion in subsidies promised to the company to settle in New York. "Instead of seriously looking at the society they wanted to change profoundly, Amazon continued its efforts to pressure governments to reach their goal," New York State Senator Michael N. Gianaris said in a statement ,

In the end, however, the company gave up unnerved.