The bitcoin and amazon merger

[notig]

How much money....... would amazon make if it secretly bought up loads of bitcoins.......... then suddenly announced it accepted bitcoins for everything on all of their sites?
Let's say they managed to buy a million bitcoins.
It seems that amazon might have a problem.......... with states wanting to enforce taxing. I wonder if bitcoin would help solve amazon's problem by making any such laws unenforceable?
discuss.

[bg002h]

It would be a non-starter. Amazing isn't going to use Bitcoin as a tax evasion mechanism. It's a real company.

[Stephen Gornick]

I wonder if bitcoin would help solve amazon's problem by making any such laws unenforceable?

Amazon voluntarily entered agreements with the states to collect state sales taxes.  Whether they accept for payment dollars or bananas (or bitcoins) wouldn't change the agreement they entered into.

[Sukrim]

In the EU for example, most big US (especially internet) companies pay low single digit taxes by structuring their companie(s) in a way that one is in a place with low/zero taxes for intellectual property, another is licensing the "IP" to them and does not make a taxable profit by that etc. (quick google: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/dec/03/amazon-google-starbucks-tax-avoidance)

All in all Amazon pays <12% tax. I don't think switching fully or partly to Bitcoin would even remotely pay off evading these. Other internet companies have even less incentive.

Sorry, but Bitcoin might work for you as tax evasion instrument, but not for a big company that can afford just building itself around tax evasion in the first place.

[thoughtfan]

...a big company that can afford just building itself around tax evasion avoidance in the first place.

FTFY

It's the means of paying so little without breaking tax laws that they all that money for.  Evasion is illegal.  Avoidance is smart (or inconsiderate/cheating, depending on your perspective).

[grantbdev]

How much money....... would amazon make if it secretly bought up loads of bitcoins.......... then suddenly announced it accepted bitcoins for everything on all of their sites?

Why would they buy bitcoins before they started accepting them?

[TierNolan]

Why would they buy bitcoins before they started accepting them?

If they bought 1 million bitcoins at $20 (and somehow prevented that causing a price spike) and then announced they would accept them, then the price might jump to $100.  Then they could sell their coins for $80 million in profits.

There is some risk about it though and it might not really be worth their while.

[notig]

How much money....... would amazon make if it secretly bought up loads of bitcoins.......... then suddenly announced it accepted bitcoins for everything on all of their sites?

Why would they buy bitcoins before they started accepting them?

That's actually my main point... the tax issue was just a side question.
If bitcoins went "mainstream" what single better way could it than if amazon did so? And They would make millions of dollars if they bought some before they did it. I would hope.

ignoring tax issues.... wouldn't bitcoin still be a good thing for amazon as far as credit card fees are concerned? I know they have their own credit card but wouldn't they get a better deal using bitcoin than if they accepted credit cards (other than their own? )

[nobbynobbynoob]

I don't think one could buy BTC1 million at $20 each, somehow! $250 maybe...

[Zomdifros]

Well obviously it would make sense to buy some bitcoins before announcing you're going to accept them. 1 million BTC might be a bit too much, but Amazon or some other big online retailer could always put in something like 10 million USD (and receive perhaps 200k - 400k BTC in return) to anticipate a rise in prices. I wonder if laws considering insider trading would apply, though they can always say the bought bitcoins to have some change at hand.

[Zomdifros]

How much money....... would amazon make if it secretly bought up loads of bitcoins.......... then suddenly announced it accepted bitcoins for everything on all of their sites?
Let's say they managed to buy a million bitcoins.
It seems that amazon might have a problem.......... with states wanting to enforce taxing. I wonder if bitcoin would help solve amazon's problem by making any such laws unenforceable?
discuss.

I think Bitcoin is not up to the job there because of the volume of Amazon transactions.

Shouldn't be a problem once there is a solution for the 1MB block size limit. Bitcoin wouldn't as decentralized as it is today since older computers or people with slow connections won't be able to act as a node, but the network as a whole should be able to handle this perfectly.

[mjc]

They would still have to pay taxes.  At some point they would have to convert back to USD to pay their suppliers.

Even so, lets say they found a way to force all their suppliers to accept BTC, so their revenue and expenses were BTC only, they still have to follow General Account practices as they are a public company.  They are beholden to their share holders, so no matter what the vehicle is for value transfer they are still going to show a profit and that is taxable.

[Vince Torres]

Why would they buy bitcoins before they started accepting them?

If they bought 1 million bitcoins at $20 (and somehow prevented that causing a price spike) and then announced they would accept them, then the price might jump to $100.  Then they could sell their coins for $80 million in profits.

There is some risk about it though and it might not really be worth their while.

Lol $80 million in profits is nothing to a company the size of Amazon. One of their shipping facilities probably costs that much a month to maintain. This idea would be stupid and a complete waste of time. And them buying up a virtual currency with only intrinsic value would probably cause their stock price to drop; based on the fact that Jeff Bezos would have to had developed a severe case of autism to have done something this stupid.

[Vince Torres]

Why would they buy bitcoins before they started accepting them?

If they bought 1 million bitcoins at $20 (and somehow prevented that causing a price spike) and then announced they would accept them, then the price might jump to $100.  Then they could sell their coins for $80 million in profits.

There is some risk about it though and it might not really be worth their while.

Lol $80 million in profits is nothing to a company the size of Amazon. One of their shipping facilities probably costs that much a month to maintain. This idea would be stupid and a complete waste of time. And them buying up a virtual currency with only intrinsic value would probably cause their stock price to drop; based on the fact that Jeff Bezos would have to had developed a severe case of autism to have done something this stupid.

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/01/29/amazon-profits-take-a-dive/

They reinvest all their profits, that's why their stock price remains so high even with terrible fundamentals. Shit source, shit article.

[notig]

what if that conjectured 80 million profit is a gross underestimation? What if it was in the billions?  couldn't amazon still work out tax issues with bitcoins and pay taxes normally?

[Vince Torres]

what if that conjectured 80 million profit is a gross underestimation? What if it was in the billions?  couldn't amazon still work out tax issues with bitcoins and pay taxes normally?

Great argument for Bitcoin. Have large corporations use it to launder money.

Even then its a stupid argument, because the corporations still have tax obligations. Bitcoin is still irrelevant.

[urwhatuknow]

Amazon will never accept Bitcoins.
Neither will Google or Apple.
Those big corporations have an ego problem and also they will never go for something that doesn't belong to them.
Last but not least the entire current Bitcoin capitalization (250 mio $)  is a grain of sand for them.
Less than a day worth of their turnover.
Bitcoin is still a colibrì, it wouldn't be wise to try to copulate with an elephant.
Never forget: size matters!
;-)

[Piper67]

Amazon will never accept Bitcoins.
Neither will Google or Apple.
Those big corporations have an ego problem and also they will never go for something that doesn't belong to them.
Last but not least the entire current Bitcoin capitalization (250 mio $)  is a grain of sand for them.
Less than a day worth of their turnover.
Bitcoin is still a colibrì, it wouldn't be wise to try to copulate with an elephant.
Never forget: size matters!
;-)

They probably will accept BTC, some day, but only after many others already have, and only because they'll have no choice.

[thoughtfan]

Amazon will never accept Bitcoins.
Neither will Google or Apple.
Those big corporations have an ego problem and also they will never go for something that doesn't belong to them.

I'm still finding it funny that the big IT monster everyone was scared of only a few years back was Microsoft -who don't even feature on many of these lists anymore.  Never is a big word to use for markets as dynamic as these where everything can change so quickly.  Remember Microsoft had bet against the internet ever becoming big and were latecomers to that scene.  But you're right about bitcoin being waaay too small now with the significant but still tiny money supply at a quarter billion USD.

[urwhatuknow]

Amazon will never accept Bitcoins.
Neither will Google or Apple.
Those big corporations have an ego problem and also they will never go for something that doesn't belong to them.

I'm still finding it funny that the big IT monster everyone was scared of only a few years back was Microsoft -who don't even feature on many of these lists anymore.  Never is a big word to use for markets as dynamic as these where everything can change so quickly.  Remember Microsoft had bet against the internet ever becoming big and were latecomers to that scene.  But you're right about bitcoin being waaay too small now with the significant but still tiny money supply at a quarter billion USD.

Just to put things into the right perspective the total value of all the bitcoins equals about 3 hours of the US deficit.
This means that the USA lose every 3 hours about a quarter billion dollars.
For the moment being adopted as a form of payment by any of these 800 pound gorillas will mean the end of bitcoin, as it doesn't have the infrastructure in place to bear the weight.
Bitcoin is already showing signs of stress, with daily oscillations of about 3/4%...

Be careful folks what you are wishing for.....
;-)