Trump Again Goes After Amazon on Taxes

President Trump renewed his attack on Amazon.com Wednesday, tweeting that the e-commerce giant is "doing great damage to tax-paying retailers" and removing jobs in cities. Trump's blistering tweet was issued hours after The Washington Post — the newspaper owned by Amazon chairman Jeff Bezos — ran an editorial with the headline, "Mr. Trump gives comfort to racists."

Total Retail's Take: The feud between Trump and Bezos seems to be intensifying. Bezos has been an outspoken critic of Trump's political views, while Trump has gone after Bezos for Amazon's tax collection practices. It's true that Amazon is disrupting the retail industry, but the assertion that it's not paying taxes is not. Amazon paid $879 million in income taxes in the 12 months that ended in June, according to its latest quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In that filing, Amazon also indicated that it expected its future taxes to increase. As for removing jobs, Trump would appear to be partially correct. There are a number of retailers that have shuttered stores this year (The Limited, Wet Seal, Payless, hhgregg), but overall the industry gained 8,100 jobs according to the latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.