And if you know absolutely nothing about taxes, you shouldn't complain about businesses paying no taxes when the inherent cause is generally carry forward losses.
It's really a pretty simple concept, but many people struggle to grasp it (as they only look at current numbers).
If Amazon lost $10B in 2015 (fictitious number), and then makes $2.5B in 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019. They've made in total $0 (therefore should pay $0 in taxes or else they would be getting punished by the government for not even making an overall profit). They, however, will pay $0 in taxes in 2016-2019.
They don't receive a gigantic refund from the federal government for losing $10B in 2015. Instead they get to carry these losses forward to offset gains in future years. It overall nets to where the company only pays taxes on true total cumulative income.
The news articles etc that want to completely misinform the population generally fail to explain this concept to people (which is a concept that makes perfect sense).
Amazon hasn't cheated on their taxes at all. They've simply followed the tax law as it was appropriately written.
Money can't buy happiness. Just video games, which make me happy.
