The United States government is currently undergoing a gigantic audit by Amazon, its corporate overlord, after the tech giant discovered today that the nation is attempting to tax them an entire $9.
“Everyone, especially the U.S. government, should know how ridiculous it is to charge a multi-billion-dollar behemoth like us anything in federal income taxes,” said Amazon spokesperson Jay Carney. “We already spend our fair share to create and maintain tax loopholes so that we don’t have to pay a single penny in federal taxes, which is usually the case. If we’re going to be taxed at such an egregious rate going forward, it’s only right that we are allowed to learn exactly where our hard-earned lobbying dollars would be going if we actually pay up.”
By the time a legion of corporate lawyers had reached Washington, D.C., news of the unprecedented corporate tax bill had reached the desk of outgoing Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
“What is the use of purchasing the unwavering fealty of these mewling political flatworms if I’m still going to be mildly inconvenienced by the incompetence of some bumbling financial janitor?” fumed Bezos, rolling a thousand dollars into a tight cigar and lighting it. “Do you have any idea how much it costs to exert this kind of influence? It’s actually amusingly low: I could pay a politician to poison the water supply of a major American city for $16,000—but that’s besides the point. The point is that I’ve spent a comically small percentage of Amazon’s revenue to cleave through political red tape so that I may step on the throats of America’s working cattle with impunity. I’m confident when this audit is complete, we’ll find the U.S. government actually owes us another multibillion-dollar Department of Defense contract.”
Following the unexpected tax scare, Washington state leaders assured local white-collar Amazon employees and all other high-income residents that they still won’t need to pay any state income taxes this year because funding public education even slightly adequately in one of the most tax-regressive states in the nation still won’t be happening any time soon.
