SEATTLE — A visibly nervous group of Democratic leaders held a closed door meeting today to discuss possible ways to ask mega-corporation Amazon to chip in to pay at least a small portion of their share in taxes, government interns reported while collectively rolling their eyes.
“I just don’t want to feel like I’m bothering them,” said Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff while sheepishly avoiding eye contact. “I have to admit, we liberals feel completely overwhelmed when we need to put our foot down for the benefit of the working class. Ideally, Amazon would just pay taxes out of the kindness of their own hearts, so we can avoid any confrontation altogether.”
“The only rational way we could think to ask Amazon to pay their share was to write an anonymous handwritten letter to Mr. Bezos himself,” Schiff continued. “We threw in a couple of smiley faces at the end to show that there were no hard feelings. Fingers crossed it works this time.”
Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has notably gamed the system for his own benefit.
“We’re just dodging an easily manipulated tax code is all,” said Bezos before cackling for several uninterrupted minutes. “I understand why some might be afraid to approach me, however. With my aggressive baldness and totally masculine energy, I like to think of myself as the Jason Statham of capitalism. Nevertheless, I’ll continue to ignore what’s good for the country because as a precious job creator, I simply deserve more than everyone else. Like a trillion tax-free dollars, for example.”
Tax experts wonder if Democratic leadership has what it takes to stand up to the corporate giant.
“Literally all they need to do is write the federal tax legislation,” CPA Jillian MacMellon said. “Historically, the Democratic strategy has been to publicly talk about an issue in hopes to raise awareness and empower someone else to handle it. Until they muster up some courage and address the broken tax system themselves, major corporations will continue to follow a ‘pay what you want’ structure, which for them is exactly zero dollars a year.”
At press time, Democrats were crafting a follow-up email to Bezos but abandoned it after being unable to think of anything to say after, “I hope this email finds you well.”