Amazon tax avoidance
avoidance of tax payment by Amazon
The tax behaviors of the American corporation Amazon have been investigated in China, Germany, Mongolia, Sweden, South Korea, France, Japan, Ireland, Singapore, Luxembourg, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, multiple states in the United States, and Portugal. According to a report released by Fair Tax Mark in 2019, Amazon is the best actor of tax avoidance, having paid a 12% effective tax rate between 2010 and 2018, in contrast with 35% corporate tax rate in the US during the same period. Amazon countered that it had an 24% effective tax rate during the same period. The Fair Tax Foundation released a follow up report in 2025, and this again listed Amazon as 'the worst'.
Background
Proponents of forcing Amazon.com to collect sales tax—at least in states where it maintains a physical presence—argue the corporation wields an anti-competitive advantage over storefront businesses forced to collect sales tax. Amazon is under increasing legal and political pressure from state governments, traditional retailers and other groups because of its refusal to collect sales tax in 41 of the 45 states with a statewide sales tax (as of March 2017). Those states include several where Amazon has a clear physical presence via distribution centers and wholly owned subsidiaries.
Amazon says it would support a federal solution to the sales tax problem as long as such legislation was fair and simple. As of May 2011 legislation has been introduced in Congress to allow states to impose sales taxes on sales to their residents from out-of-state. Amazon has not stated a public position on the bill.
“Amazon tax avoidance” enters the record as avoidance of tax payment by Amazon. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Amazon, avoidance and payment can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Amazon tax avoidance” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.