Joe Biden: Amazon is one of the several Fortune 500 companies that utilized loopholes and did not pay a single penny in federal income taxes.

Amazon did not pay corporate taxes in 2017 and 2018 after Trump's tax cut was signed into law.

Amazon did not pay corporate taxes in 2017 and 2018 after Trump's tax cut was signed into law.The subject of tax avoidance by corporate giant companies has been a hot topic in the US. President Joe Biden singled out Amazon for not paying federal taxes during his recent address in Pittsburgh. Biden referred to a report that said that 91 profitable Fortune 500 companies paid $0 in taxes on U.S. income in 2018. Critics say that Amazon’s accounting is so complicated there was no way to discern how much tax Amazon should be paying or is paying.

President Trump’s 2017 tax bill expanded corporate tax breaks and reduced the tax rate on corporate income from 35 percent to 21 percent.

Amazon, Netflix, and dozens of major corporations paid nothing in federal taxes due to Trump's policies. In fact, Amazon did not owe any taxes for two straight years. However, the company said that it owes $162 million in 2019 after adjusting various tax credits and deductions.

Though Amazon posted an income of $11 billion in 2018, it paid $0 in federal taxes and received a federal tax refund of $129 million. Likewise, it got a $137 million refund from the federal government for 2017.

A report by transparency campaign group Fair Tax Mark has singled out Amazon as the worst offender by shifting revenue and profits through tax havens. Amazon's effective tax rate was 12.7% over the decade, whereas the US's tax rate has been 35% for most of that period.