Seattle Taxed Amazon in 2020 — Their Profits Tripled
Long Nguyen
The Amazon Tax was a hard-won victory by the working class in Seattle. Every year it raises over $400 million by taxing the richest corporations in the city, originally intended to pay for affordable housing and public services.
This is a tax of 2.4% or less on big business. This is not nearly as much as ordinary working people pay in taxes. Workers pay crippling amounts between income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, sugar taxes, and other excise taxes. Amazon enjoys our labor, our public infrastructure, our knowledge and everything Seattle has to offer and yet has fought viciously against any increase in their own taxes.
Instead of contributing to Seattle, Amazon has turned parts of the city into food deserts. It has put in its grocery stores and convenience stores, like Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go, just to take them away and leave working people stranded. In February of this year, Amazon abruptly closed six of these stores in Seattle, with just a few days notice. This is a common play by big business to crowd out small players only to leave when they find more profitable fields. This is not behavior of an entity that believes in building the community. It is a purely profit-driven machine.
Now, Seattle’s Democratic Party is threatening to cut public services, crying about a “budget crisis.” But since the Amazon Tax went into effect in 2021, Amazon’s profits have tripled to $77 billion— so why not triple the Amazon Tax?
Tripling the Amazon Tax in Seattle would bring in $820 million a year. We could use those extra hundreds of millions of dollars not only to pay for the public services being cut by the Seattle City Council members, but to expand them.
We know the Republican Party would certainly love to cut public services in Seattle too. But they have no power here. All the power is in the Democratic Party! They could easily give working people a relief on our taxes, but they would prefer the big companies get that relief.
The Amazon Tax was won through the George Floyd movement and the credible threat of a ballot petition, which was signed by 30,000 people. Amazon and the Democratic Party fought it every step of the way. It will require the power of the working class to get even a penny more out of these big corporations.
We have seen that the Amazon Tax and other such reforms are not enough. Over the last five years, the Democratic Party has drained more than $200 million from the Amazon Tax to solve their growing budget crisis, including diverting funds to the police. Ultimately, we need to fight to nationalize these massive companies like Amazon and bring them under workers’ control.
In the course of every movement, socialists must build our own organizations. We have to create lasting structures that can take on capital. This is why we are building United Front for a Workers’ Party
We need to build a socialist party that can crush the Democratic and Republican Party. The current fight over the budget in Seattle can be a step towards building our forces.
This Seattle fight can also serve as a model for what can be done around the country. Socialists around the country must link up to coordinate action and to keep each other informed about best strategies and tactics.
What Could We Get by Tripling the Amazon Tax?
Amazon’s 2025 profits: $77 billion
Estimated annual revenue from tripling the Amazon Tax: $820 million
- Free universal childcare ($600 million)
- 50 subsidized public grocery stores, including free produce ($500 million)
- 40 free public health clinics, serving 500,000 people annually ($600 million)
- One free public hospital, serving 300,000 people annually ($560 million)
- Free transit throughout King County ($160 million)
- Restoration of canceled & delayed light rail extensions, including Ballard, West Seattle, and Everett ($500 million)
- Build 100 new public housing developments in the next decade, with 16,000 permanently affordable units($650 million)
- Covering the budget deficit ($175 million)