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Jeff Bezos Wants to Give More Money to Charity. He Should Pay His Workers First

69 points by binarray2000 9y ago

maerF0x0 9y ago
If he pays them more he also pays payroll taxes. If he donates to charity he gets a tax credit. Am I missing something? Else seems logical to me.
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  Charity also has higher PR value for each dollar.
  - dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
    And that's exactly this approach that is criticized in the article.
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  > If he donates to charity he gets a tax credit. A tax deduction + PR.
- matt4077 9y ago
  No, that doesn't make sense. Both types of expenses are fully tax-deductible. Technically, payroll taxes are paid by the employee, even if–even more technically–the money itself goes directly from employer to Government. To the employer, it's just part of the employees' wages. Of course neither option means that it's a net positive for him (or anyone) to spend money. If he pays 1 Million more in wages, or gives that same million to a recognized charity: in both cases he save only the taxes he would have paid on that million, i. e. something around 25%-35%, depending on the source of that money. And taxes aren't just a black hole that swallows money. The marginal utility can be extremely high. Because so much of the budget is tied up in long-term obligations, administrative wages etc, any additional money has an outsized impact when it comes to the discretionary budget, where politics is actually able to shape communities. The government is also much better at allocating funds where they're needed, compared to most charity work. Trying to replace government with benevolent giving just leads to every stray puppy on earth being pampered, but nobody is going to finance reintegration efforts for convicted sex offenders.
- mankash666 9y ago
  Less payroll = lower costs = higher profits = higher stock price = greater wealth for Besos & investors.
- prostoalex 9y ago
  The tax situation is a bit more complex. Jeff Bezos and Amazon.com are separate entities. Transfer of assets, whether shares or cash, would have to be recognized somehow on the corporate side, possibly triggering other tax events.
iopq 9y ago
Why should he pay them more than market value? As a shareholder, I definitely don't want this to happen. It's not Bezos' company, it's a public company.
- sp332 9y ago
  What's market value? Seems like a better description would be "as little as you can get away with".
  - artursapek 9y ago
    If he pays his workers too little, they will go work elsewhere. Nobody is forcing anyone to work for Amazon.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - jsmeaton 9y ago
      That makes sense in an economy where supply (jobs) is greater than demand. If there are no other jobs then your choice becomes work for as little as offered or starve.
    - sp332 9y ago
      If Amazon pushes out other businesses in an area, there might not be an "elsewhere" nearby. How are they going to move across the country for a job when they don't have any money? If they're having a hard time making rent, how do they take time off to do interviews?
  - _sentient 9y ago
    Yes, that's exactly how markets work.
dceddia 9y ago
Off topic, but did anyone else notice the sneaky back-button highjacking? I don't know if there's a better word for it. Open the article in a new tab, and instead of the back button being greyed-out, it is functional -- when clicked, it redirects to the home page with a full-screen headline.
- nayuki 9y ago
  Nope - the back button is grayed out for me on Firefox 56 on desktop - which is the normal behavior.
  - slowmovintarget 9y ago
    But Chrome swallows the hijack whole.
- RossM 9y ago
  I see this behaviour in Chrome as well. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work, as the common name for the certificate is a *.edgecastcdn.net, which doesn't match up with huffingtonpost.co.uk. There's a ton of SAN in there, including: DNS:gp1.adn.edgecastcdn.net, DNS:gs1.adn.edgecastcdn.net, DNS:ne1.adn.edgecastcdn.net, DNS:www.uship.com, DNS:www.bluefly.com, DNS:www.belleandclive.com, DNS:is.belleandclive.com, DNS:connections.cochlear.com, DNS:assets.pokemon.com, DNS:www.shopperschoice.com, DNS:www.biznessapps.com, DNS:cdn.shocho.co, DNS:secure.hibustudio.com, DNS:www.stardoll.com, DNS:adn.wiredrive.com, DNS:www.speedtest.net, DNS:www.cduniverse.com, DNS:ak-site-origin-cover.cduniverse.com, DNS:cover.cduniverse.com, DNS:g.cduniverse.com, DNS:www.renttherunway.com, DNS:cdn2.navexglobal.com, DNS:www.chdist.com, DNS:www.thefanorama.com, DNS:cdn2.mediasilo.com, DNS:cdn.citadoncw.com, DNS:www.woodcraft.com, DNS:marketing-admin.upsight-api.com, DNS:www.edgecast.com
ithilglin909 9y ago
Amazon often pays its workers top dollar. The problem is what is expected in exchange...
- vorotato 9y ago
  They pay their software developers top dollar because if they weren't they'd work elsewhere, but everyone else....
MikeTaylor 9y ago
What does the "[flagged]" mean in the title?
- marak830 9y ago
  It means someone flagged the article as not suitable for hn. You can [vouch] for it in the hn area at the top (I think it's called vouch, and I'm not sure the reputation requirement)
forkLding 9y ago
Dont understand why this was flagged, read the article and they werent making wild claims without citations. Payroll and charity issues aside which is up to interpretation, I dont understand why HN can not take the article. Maybe HuffPost isnt a credible source?
- mustacheemperor 9y ago
  Could be flagged because of the back button hijack? Can someone find an alternate source to resubmit? As you said the citations are valid and this is a discussion I'd like to see develop here.
  - krapp 9y ago
    >Could be flagged because of the back button hijack? If so, that's not a valid reason for flagging an article. It's particularly odd because as far as I know, none of the articles about Amazon's search for a new headquarters have been flagged.
deanCommie 9y ago
Bezos's wealth is based on Amazon stock value. Amazon the company pays salaries, not Bezos. An increase in X$ to warehouse workers may mean a decrease of X*Y$ in Bezos's wealth. It's not so simple. Also, the workers that everyone feels bad for are less than a decade from being entirely replaced with robots. It's sad but if your entire job consists of walking around a warehouse picking up objects and putting them into boxes because you have thumbs and robotic ones are not good enough yet, I don't see why you should expect anything more than minimum wage.
shakestheclown 9y ago
The workers are just going to waste it on stuff like food and shelter.
- krapp 9y ago
  I work at an Amazon fulfillment center, and I've asked my managers to just let me live in the Kiva field because the cost of living is so much higher here than what they pay, but they keep refusing.
vorotato 9y ago
This is the truest article I have ever read.
devy 9y ago
On the footnote: Fredrick Kunkle is a staff writer on The Washington Post’s Metro desk and co-chair of the Washington-Baltimore News Guild’s bargaining unit at the Post. The views stated here are his own. It looks like WaPo labor union leader is trying to bargain a better labor contract with their employer/WaPo owner with this piece.
Tomminn 9y ago
To a first order approximation, every $3500 he donates the against malaria foundation would save a life. I'm all for Jeff Bezos operating as a more ethical businessman. And you can criticize him for that till the cows come home with no objection from me. But lets not criticize his plans for charitable giving. Lets not discourage that. Because at the end of the day, billions of dollars to effective charities will save millions of lives. I live in NZ, which has a population of 5 millions or so. It doesn't feel like a small country at all. And yet Jeff Bezos could probably save that many people from dying if he wanted to. He could literally create another NZ worth of people in the world. It wouldn't quite be as cheap as $18B, but I suspect it could be done for less than $40B. So he would still have another $40B left to fix those worker-welfare issues.

69 points by binarray2000 9y ago

If he pays them more he also pays payroll taxes. If he donates to charity he gets a tax credit. Am I missing something? Else seems logical to me.

maxxxxx 9y ago
Charity also has higher PR value for each dollar.
- dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
  And that's exactly this approach that is criticized in the article.
toomuchtodo 9y ago
> If he donates to charity he gets a tax credit. A tax deduction + PR.
matt4077 9y ago
No, that doesn't make sense. Both types of expenses are fully tax-deductible. Technically, payroll taxes are paid by the employee, even if–even more technically–the money itself goes directly from employer to Government. To the employer, it's just part of the employees' wages. Of course neither option means that it's a net positive for him (or anyone) to spend money. If he pays 1 Million more in wages, or gives that same million to a recognized charity: in both cases he save only the taxes he would have paid on that million, i. e. something around 25%-35%, depending on the source of that money. And taxes aren't just a black hole that swallows money. The marginal utility can be extremely high. Because so much of the budget is tied up in long-term obligations, administrative wages etc, any additional money has an outsized impact when it comes to the discretionary budget, where politics is actually able to shape communities. The government is also much better at allocating funds where they're needed, compared to most charity work. Trying to replace government with benevolent giving just leads to every stray puppy on earth being pampered, but nobody is going to finance reintegration efforts for convicted sex offenders.
mankash666 9y ago
Less payroll = lower costs = higher profits = higher stock price = greater wealth for Besos & investors.
prostoalex 9y ago
The tax situation is a bit more complex. Jeff Bezos and Amazon.com are separate entities. Transfer of assets, whether shares or cash, would have to be recognized somehow on the corporate side, possibly triggering other tax events.

iopq 9y ago

Why should he pay them more than market value? As a shareholder, I definitely don't want this to happen. It's not Bezos' company, it's a public company.

sp332 9y ago
What's market value? Seems like a better description would be "as little as you can get away with".
- artursapek 9y ago
  If he pays his workers too little, they will go work elsewhere. Nobody is forcing anyone to work for Amazon.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - jsmeaton 9y ago
    That makes sense in an economy where supply (jobs) is greater than demand. If there are no other jobs then your choice becomes work for as little as offered or starve.
  - sp332 9y ago
    If Amazon pushes out other businesses in an area, there might not be an "elsewhere" nearby. How are they going to move across the country for a job when they don't have any money? If they're having a hard time making rent, how do they take time off to do interviews?
- _sentient 9y ago
  Yes, that's exactly how markets work.

dceddia 9y ago

Off topic, but did anyone else notice the sneaky back-button highjacking? I don't know if there's a better word for it. Open the article in a new tab, and instead of the back button being greyed-out, it is functional -- when clicked, it redirects to the home page with a full-screen headline.

nayuki 9y ago
Nope - the back button is grayed out for me on Firefox 56 on desktop - which is the normal behavior.
- slowmovintarget 9y ago
  But Chrome swallows the hijack whole.
RossM 9y ago
I see this behaviour in Chrome as well. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work, as the common name for the certificate is a *.edgecastcdn.net, which doesn't match up with huffingtonpost.co.uk. There's a ton of SAN in there, including: DNS:gp1.adn.edgecastcdn.net, DNS:gs1.adn.edgecastcdn.net, DNS:ne1.adn.edgecastcdn.net, DNS:www.uship.com, DNS:www.bluefly.com, DNS:www.belleandclive.com, DNS:is.belleandclive.com, DNS:connections.cochlear.com, DNS:assets.pokemon.com, DNS:www.shopperschoice.com, DNS:www.biznessapps.com, DNS:cdn.shocho.co, DNS:secure.hibustudio.com, DNS:www.stardoll.com, DNS:adn.wiredrive.com, DNS:www.speedtest.net, DNS:www.cduniverse.com, DNS:ak-site-origin-cover.cduniverse.com, DNS:cover.cduniverse.com, DNS:g.cduniverse.com, DNS:www.renttherunway.com, DNS:cdn2.navexglobal.com, DNS:www.chdist.com, DNS:www.thefanorama.com, DNS:cdn2.mediasilo.com, DNS:cdn.citadoncw.com, DNS:www.woodcraft.com, DNS:marketing-admin.upsight-api.com, DNS:www.edgecast.com

ithilglin909 9y ago

Amazon often pays its workers top dollar. The problem is what is expected in exchange...

vorotato 9y ago
They pay their software developers top dollar because if they weren't they'd work elsewhere, but everyone else....

MikeTaylor 9y ago

What does the "[flagged]" mean in the title?

marak830 9y ago
It means someone flagged the article as not suitable for hn. You can [vouch] for it in the hn area at the top (I think it's called vouch, and I'm not sure the reputation requirement)

forkLding 9y ago

Dont understand why this was flagged, read the article and they werent making wild claims without citations. Payroll and charity issues aside which is up to interpretation, I dont understand why HN can not take the article. Maybe HuffPost isnt a credible source?

mustacheemperor 9y ago
Could be flagged because of the back button hijack? Can someone find an alternate source to resubmit? As you said the citations are valid and this is a discussion I'd like to see develop here.
- krapp 9y ago
  >Could be flagged because of the back button hijack? If so, that's not a valid reason for flagging an article. It's particularly odd because as far as I know, none of the articles about Amazon's search for a new headquarters have been flagged.

deanCommie 9y ago

Bezos's wealth is based on Amazon stock value. Amazon the company pays salaries, not Bezos. An increase in X$ to warehouse workers may mean a decrease of X*Y$ in Bezos's wealth. It's not so simple. Also, the workers that everyone feels bad for are less than a decade from being entirely replaced with robots. It's sad but if your entire job consists of walking around a warehouse picking up objects and putting them into boxes because you have thumbs and robotic ones are not good enough yet, I don't see why you should expect anything more than minimum wage.

shakestheclown 9y ago

The workers are just going to waste it on stuff like food and shelter.

krapp 9y ago
I work at an Amazon fulfillment center, and I've asked my managers to just let me live in the Kiva field because the cost of living is so much higher here than what they pay, but they keep refusing.

vorotato 9y ago

This is the truest article I have ever read.

devy 9y ago

On the footnote: Fredrick Kunkle is a staff writer on The Washington Post’s Metro desk and co-chair of the Washington-Baltimore News Guild’s bargaining unit at the Post. The views stated here are his own. It looks like WaPo labor union leader is trying to bargain a better labor contract with their employer/WaPo owner with this piece.

Tomminn 9y ago

To a first order approximation, every $3500 he donates the against malaria foundation would save a life. I'm all for Jeff Bezos operating as a more ethical businessman. And you can criticize him for that till the cows come home with no objection from me. But lets not criticize his plans for charitable giving. Lets not discourage that. Because at the end of the day, billions of dollars to effective charities will save millions of lives. I live in NZ, which has a population of 5 millions or so. It doesn't feel like a small country at all. And yet Jeff Bezos could probably save that many people from dying if he wanted to. He could literally create another NZ worth of people in the world. It wouldn't quite be as cheap as $18B, but I suspect it could be done for less than $40B. So he would still have another $40B left to fix those worker-welfare issues.