Assuming that the numbers in that chart on page 30 (not 17, learn to read page numbers) Are in fact in the billions, which is a reasonable assumption, though in my perusal of the document I did not find specific information saying so, Walmart paid 304.657 billion as 'Cost of sales' (in other words, incoming goods.) Actual numbers are moot, however, since we're dealing with percentages here. Expressed as a percentage of cost of incoming goods, Walmart paid 2.44% in taxes. If you include operating costs (since walmart doesn't split off numbers for their shipping arm in this document, we'll have to) That adds another 79 billion, bringing the total percentage down to 1.9% But even that's not exactly accurate, since for it to be accurate, the tax has to be considered a part of that operating expense, so we have to add that in, bringing the percentage down to 1.8%
LOLOLOLOL At you not knowing how to read financial statements. Let me learn you a little something...
First off, page 30 is about uncertain tax positions, which are exactly what their name implies. haha
Anyway, page 17 is the income statement, if you look 1/3 of the way down you'll see "provisions for income taxes". "Current" is the amount the company has set aside to pay taxes for the fiscal year indicated. "Deferred" is what's left over (or extra owed) from whether the estimate was too high/too low from last fiscal year.
Furthermore, there's small text at the top left of almost every statement that says "amounts in millions except share date" or "amounts in millions unless otherwise indicated".
As for the rest of it...
Income tax is NOT part of operating expenses, property taxes are though, something you're failing to factor into the taxes they paid.
How on earth do you find it logical to use cost of goods sold AND operating expenses to show... the cost of shipping goods? LOLOLOLOL Do you realize how much stuff is included in operating expenses? Do you realize that cost of goods sold is NOT just tranporation costs, but also the actual
cost of the goods?
But ALL of this is irrelevant, since the specific taxes I was speaking about was the GAS tax which is what actually goes to fund the roads, and the number you quoted above was the INCOME tax.
I don't need to do any math at all to show that carrying 16 pallets in a semi is more fuel-efficient than carrying 1 pallet's worth of individual items in a small diesel truck. Proportional to the cost of one shipment, Walmart pays less in GAS TAX per shipment than does the Mom & Pop. In a free market system, Mom & Pops who sell locally produced items would handily be able to compete with the 'big box' stores which ship their goods in from all over, since the actual cost of shipping that banana in from Peru would be reflected in the price, and not externalized to the taxpayers via trade subsidies, gas taxes, and other factors.
See, you NEED to provide EVIDENCE and NUMBERS to back up those kind of bullshit claims... otherwise they'll remain bullshit claims.