It’s hard to have sympathy with Walmart or Home Depot or the other big-box stores. They hardly pay the largest tax rates in the nation. Still, they cough up a reasonable sum. Over the last decade, Walmart, the supposed Beast of Bentonville, handed over about 30 percent of its income in taxes; Home Depot paid 38 percent. We can bemoan the fact that they don’t pay more, yet it seems reasonable to note that their prime competitor isn’t paying even half that rate. Amazon averaged an effective tax rate of 13 percent—that includes taxes owed to states and localities, as well as the feds and foreign
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