Tag Archives: House Panel Calls for DOJ Probe of Amazon Over Alleged Obstruction of Congress

Business, Economics, News, Observation, Politics

700 US Billionaires Got $1.7 Trillion Richer During Two Years of Pandemic

A new analysis finds that the 704 billionaires in the U.S. now own more wealth than the bottom half of Americans—roughly 165 million people.

During the first two years of the coronavirus pandemic, the collective wealth of billionaires in the United States grew by a staggering $1.7 trillion as Covid-19 killed millions of people across the globe and threw entire nations into turmoil, worsening extreme poverty, hunger, and other preexisting crises.

“We can’t accept an economy and tax code that allows billionaires to hoard trillions while working families struggle.”

Released Friday to coincide with the second anniversary of the World Health Organization’s official pandemic declaration for Covid-19, the latest billionaire fortune analysis by Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) finds that the 704 billionaires in the U.S. now own more combined wealth than the 165 million people in the bottom half of the country’s wealth distribution.

“For billionaires, it’s been two years of raking in the riches, while for most families it’s been two years of fear, frustration, and financial worry,” ATF executive director Frank Clemente said in a statement.

The new analysis stresses that billionaires’ pandemic windfall “may never be taxed” because it consists of unrealized capital gains, which are not subject to taxation under current U.S. law. As one possible solution, ATF voices support for Sen. Ron Wyden’s (D-Ore.) proposed Billionaires Income Tax, legislation that would impose an annual levy on ultra-wealthy Americans’ unrealized gains from tradable assets such as stocks.

“The rising asset values billionaires have enjoyed over the past two years are not taxable unless the assets are sold,” ATF explains. “But billionaires don’t need to sell assets to benefit from their increased value: they can live off money borrowed at cheap rates secured against their rising fortunes. And when all those wealth gains are passed along to the next generation, they entirely disappear for tax purposes.”

While Democrats in Congress considered a tax on billionaires as part of their Build Back Better package, that legislation was tanked by a handful of corporate Democrats—including Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.)—and a unified Republican caucus.

“Why should our economic system allow billionaires to hoard wealth unchecked, letting almost all of it go tax-free?”

Earlier this month, Manchin floated a further watered-down version of the Build Back Better proposal that calls for tax reforms targeting the wealthy and corporations, but it’s unclear whether the West Virginia Democrat would accept a tax on billionaires.

“Working families pay what they owe in taxes each paycheck. Billionaires generally pay little or nothing in taxes on these extraordinary gains in wealth,” Clemente said Friday. “Congress should enact a Billionaires Income Tax to directly tax these wealth gains as income each year, so that billionaires begin to pay their fair share of taxes. Such a reform is not yet part of President Biden’s investment and tax legislation now being revised by Congress, but it should be.”

According to ATF’s new analysis, the biggest billionaire winners during the coronavirus pandemic’s first two years were:

  • Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who saw his net worth skyrocket by $209 billion;
  • Google co-founder Larry Page, whose fortune grew by $63 billion; and
  • Google co-founder Sergey Brin, whose wealth increased by $60 billion.

“Not one of the 15 richest U.S. billionaires gained less than $10 billion,” ATF noted on Twitter, pointing out that during the same two-year period 80 million Americans were infected by Covid-19 and nearly a million were killed by the virus.

“We can’t accept an economy and tax code that allows billionaires to hoard trillions while working families struggle to afford healthcare, childcare, education, and housing,” the group added. “It’s wrong, and we can do better.”

Originally published on Common Dreams by JAKE JOHNSON and republished under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0

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Business, News, Observation, Politics, Tech

House Panel Calls for DOJ Probe of Amazon Over Alleged Obstruction of Congress

Above: Photo Collage / Lynxotic / Adobe Stock

“Amazon repeatedly endeavored to thwart the committee’s efforts to uncover the truth about Amazon’s business practices,” the House Judiciary Committee wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland. “For this, it must be held accountable.”

A U.S. House committee on Wednesday asked the Department of Justice to investigate Amazon and some of its executives for possible criminal obstruction of Congress, accusing the e-commerce giant of lying under oath and refusing to provide certain information requested by lawmakers during an antitrust probe.

That’s according to The Wall Street Journal, which first obtained a letter sent to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland by Democratic and Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee. Signatories said they are alerting the DOJ to “potentially criminal conduct” by Amazon and some of its executives, though the letter doesn’t name specific individuals.

As the Journal reported:

The letter accuses the Seattle-based tech giant of refusing to provide information that lawmakers sought as part of an investigation by the body’s Antitrust Subcommittee into Amazon’s competitive practices. The letter alleges that the refusal was an attempt to cover up what it calls a lie that the company told lawmakers about its treatment of outside sellers on its platform.

The alleged lie came, according to the Washington Post, during “sworn testimony to the committee in 2019 about whether it uses data that it collects from third-party sellers to compete with them.”

The newspaper, which is owned by Amazon founder and ex-CEO Jeff Bezos, continued:

“[C]redible investigative reporting” and the committee’s investigation showed the company was engaging in the practice despite its denial, the letter said.

Subsequently, as the investigation continued, Amazon tried to “cover up its lie by offering ever-shifting explanations” of its policies, the letter said.

Furthermore, “after Amazon was caught in a lie and repeated misrepresentations, it stonewalled the committee’s efforts to uncover the truth,” according to the letter.

Throughout the investigation, “Amazon repeatedly endeavored to thwart the committee’s efforts to uncover the truth about Amazon’s business practices,” states the panel’s letter. “For this, it must be held accountable.”

The Judiciary Committee, chaired by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), conducted a 16-month antitrust investigation into Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook. The probe resulted in an October 2020 report that criticized all four tech giants and stimulated legislative proposals designed to limit their power.

However, the Journal noted that “lawmakers’ interaction with Amazon has been particularly contentious, according to people involved, and the new letter makes it the only one of the four companies that Judiciary Committee members have accused of illegal obstruction.”

Reuters reported that Wednesday’s “referral to the DOJ follows a previous warning from members of the U.S. committee in October in which they accused Amazon’s top executives, including founder Jeff Bezos, of either misleading Congress or possibly lying to it about Amazon’s business practices.”

According to the Journal, committee members at the time “sent a letter to Amazon Chief Executive Andy Jassy urging the company to provide ‘exculpatory evidence’ surrounding its private-label business practices. Lawyers representing Amazon met with legal counsel for the committee following the letter but didn’t produce the requested evidence, saying the investigation Amazon had conducted was privileged information between attorney and client, according to people familiar with the matter.”

Wednesday’s letter, the newspaper reported, says that Amazon “has refused to turn over business documents or communications that would either corroborate its claims or correct the record.”

“It appears to have done so to conceal the truth about its use of third-party sellers’ data to advantage its private-label business and its preferencing of private-label products in search results—subjects of the committee’s investigation,” the letter continues.

“As a result, we have no choice but to refer this matter to the Department of Justice to investigate whether Amazon and its executives obstructed Congress in violation of applicable federal law,” adds the letter.

It was signed by Nadler; Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), chair of the panel’s subcommittee on antitrust, commercial, and administrative law; and subcommittee members Reps. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), Pramilia Jayapal (D-Wash.), and Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.).

Originally published on Common Dreams by KENNY STANCIL and republished under  a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

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