re: #588 Weaselone

I’m not sure I even get the point here.
1. Bezos also lost something like 10 billion over a few days earlier this year when Trump’s Post Office comments drove down the price of the stock. These are all unrealized stock gains and losses.
2. Although he own’s the company, I’m not sure what Amazon paying taxes or not paying taxes has to do with Bezos’ taxes and increase in net worth. If we’re concerned about that we need to restructure the tax code so that capital gains and dividends are taxed at a higher rate and more difficult to offset with losses and other accounting gimmicks.
3. Amazon hemorrhaged money for years, so they have to be sitting on an ungodly amount of loss carry forwards. We can argue about whether those need to be made less generous, but the did lose a metric fuckton of cash in their early years and the profit margins indicate they aren’t exactly making out like bandits now.

Bezos net worth is based primarily on stock ownership, so if the stock price slumps, his net worth slumps with it. The company’s actual profit margin and GAAP accounting is separate and distinct as is its tax strategy to minimize its tax burden via legal methodologies (NOLs, capital losses offsetting cap gains, etc.)

The current position re: NOLs has made it easy for any company to take prior year losses and reduce current year tax burdens. It’s become even easier since the 2001 and 2003 tax acts.