Walmart trolls Amazon over not paying taxes after Bezos challenges rivals to hike minimum wage
Retail giants and fierce competitors, Amazon and Walmart, traded barbs after Amazon boss Jeff Bezos called on retailers to increase workers’ minimum hourly wages. Walmart was quick to gently remind Amazon of its tax avoidance.
In his annual letter to shareholders Bezos, still the richest person in the world thanks to his almost trillion-dollar-valued company, boasted about Amazon’s employee benefits and challenged other firms to follow its lead or beat it.
“Today I challenge our top retail competitors (you know who you are!) to match our employee benefits and our $15 minimum wage,” the billionaire wrote. “Do it! Better yet, go to $16 and throw the gauntlet back at us.”
Walmart’s executive vice president of corporate affairs, Dan Bartlett, was quick to respond. He attached an article to his post, reminding how Amazon managed to avoid paying a dime in taxes last year.
Hey retail competitors out there (you know who you are 😉) how about paying your taxes? https://t.co/Rmh3VZOHsG@JeffBezos
— Dan Bartlett (@danbartlett6) 11 апреля 2019 г.
Walmart’s Bartlett was not the only person to respond to Bezos. CEO of another rival, eBay, took to Twitter to defend his company. Unlike Walmart, eBay was directly mentioned in the Amazon chief’s letter, boasting of his company’s accomplishments over the rival.
While I appreciate the ink dedicated to @ebay from the ceo of the company not focused on competition, think I”ll dedicate my letter to customers, purpose and strategy. We don’t compete with our sellers. We don’t bundle endless services to create barriers to competition.
— Devin Wenig (@devinwenig) 11 апреля 2019 г.
Last November, Amazon raised its minimum wage to $15 per hour. It happened amid long-running scrutiny over how the company treated and paid its workers. However, the generous move failed to stop the employees from further protests, slamming the company for low wages and poor treatment.
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