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A comment on Some voters are sick of companies like Amazon paying no corporate tax. Parent comment

Re:Some voters are sick of companies like Amazon paying no c... by lugg on Tuesday April 30, 2019 @06:39AM (#19786718)
It does actually. Cost of doing business includes all costs.

If amazon believes they need to spend money on R&D then that R&D is a cost of doing business, if its not turning a profit with that R&D spending then the business is not sustainable by definition.

Amazon was not doing R&D for shits and giggles. Just because the time horizon was long doesn't mean it wasn't any less of a requirement for their success. Amazon would not be in the same place it is today if not for that expenditure so claiming it wasn't a "cost" is just disingenuous.

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Re:Some voters are sick of companies like Amazon paying no c... by formercoder on Tuesday April 30, 2019 @08:29AM (#19787289)
Should we have been allowing amazon to capitalize that R&D though? It creates one of their largest assets and yet is not reflected on the balance sheet and is expensed immediately.
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Re:Some voters are sick of companies like Amazon paying no c... by icebraining on Tuesday April 30, 2019 @09:59AM (#19787955)
> if its not turning a profit with that R&D spending then the business is not sustainable by definition.

Why? If the revenue perfectly matches the expenses (including R&D), it won't turn a profit, but it can be sustained indefinitely.

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Re:Some voters are sick of companies like Amazon paying no c... by TomMarius on Wednesday May 01, 2019 @04:50AM (#19795512)
It doesn't actually. When we're talking about taxes, we have specific timeframes in mind, that is one year. You don't have to turn a profit at year 1 or even year 100 in order to be profitable.
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