Jeff Bezos Meets With Boris Johnson on Sidelines of UN

Political leaders from around the globe are assembly this week on the United Nations in New York. And whereas there are many vital issues on the official agenda, arguably essentially the most attention-grabbing conferences are occurring on the sidelines, like UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s assembly on Monday with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Bezos and his girlfriend, Lauren Sanchez, met with Prime Minister Johnson on the UK diplomatic residence on Monday, the place the group reportedly mentioned the billionaire’s current pledge to provide $1 billion in the direction of environmental conservation.

Amazon’s tax dodging and shitty report on staff’ rights had been additionally reportedly on the agenda, and whereas Bezos is now not CEO of the web retailing large, he’s nonetheless on the board of administrators. Amazon reportedly paid simply £492 million ($673 million US) in taxes to the UK in 2020 on a reported £4.85 billion ($6.6 billion US) in gross sales.

“The prime minister raised the issue of taxation, and hoped progress could be in implementing the G7 agreement on tax,” an unnamed spokesperson from Downing Street advised Yahoo News UK.

The G7 settlement on taxes is an effort to arrange a sort of minimal company tax fee among wealthy countries so that massive corporations aren’t purchasing round to get the very best tax charges. Apple, for instance, has its European headquarters in Ireland merely on paper in an effort to keep away from taxes. Meanwhile, Ireland doesn’t even have an Apple Store.

“The prime minister welcomed the Bezos Earth Fund’s commitment, announced tonight, to give $1 billion to protect forests and remove carbon from the air. The prime minister and Mr Bezos agreed to work together to see what more could be done in the run up to and at COP26,” the Downing Street spokesperson continued.

Domestically, the UK press made a giant deal a couple of days in the past that Johnson was going to demand that Amazon begin paying its fair proportion in taxes. But even conservative information retailers couldn’t ignore that Johnson was planning to “congratulate” Bezos for his current dedication of $1 billion to local weather change initiatives by means of his personal charity, the Bezos Earth Fund. Bezos, who’s value an estimated $200.6 billion and is the world’s wealthiest man, will get to put in writing off these sorts of contributions on his taxes by means of extremely complex schemes.

In reality, even Johnson used the phrase “congratulate” on his journey over to New York whereas discussing his agenda with the press. This was removed from a hostile assembly, from outward appearances, irrespective of how Johnson boosters needed to play it.

Other attention-grabbing conferences occurring on the sidelines this week embody the conservative Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison assembly with Rupert Murdoch, the top of News Corp., which owns Fox News, together with different far-right media retailers around the globe. Morrison and Murdoch reportedly had dinner last night.

President Joe Biden is scheduled to deal with the UN meeting this morning at 10:00 a.m. ET, after which assembly with Prime Minister Morrison at midday. Biden leaves New York to go again to the White House at 2:15 p.m. ET, based on his official schedule.

But like we stated, preserve your eyes open for these conferences on the sidelines. No matter who’s in cost at any given second, these are the place the true attention-grabbing stuff is occurring.