I think a tax lawyer would have to answer this, and that it probably depends on the country.
In my country, I (even if "I" means a company) can receive a business gift with a maximum value of 42eur, twice per tax year from one company - everything above that is taxed.
Let's say i did some work for a local store and charged them 2000eur for my work. To do my work, I had 1000eur of expenses. I pay tax on 1000eur difference. With eg. 20% income tax, I'd have 800eur of profit. (yes, a bit simplified, I know)
Then they decide to give me a 200eur coupon for their store and give it to me (to my company), and this is counted towards my income (2200eur now). If i actually need stuff from their store, I use it, so now I earned 2200eur gross, spent a 200eur coupon in their store and 800eur anywhere, I have 1200eur of profits, and even after tax I earn more than I did before - with 20% income tax, I'd have 960eur of profit in cash form.
On the other hand, if I don't need their services, and can't sell the coupon to someone else, the situation is different. I still got 2200eur of income (2k+200eur coupon), spent 1000eur in other stores, get taxed on the 1200eur, technically still have 960eur of profit, but 200 of those are in a form of a worthless coupon, and only 760 in cash - so their usless coupon is actually costing me 40eur.
AWS gives out thousands of service credits to new US-based startups for free, so I'd find it hard to believe that those companies would be getting taxed for such a thing. I don't think those credits are taxable, in the US at least, because they are non-transferable, i.e. you can't redeem them for fiat currency.
The way I’d understand it is you should claim the income but only the portion that offset your expenses thus a net zero and no tax liability.
For example, Amazon give you $100,000. When you use only $1,000 you claim $1,000 income and $1,000 of expense. The other $99,000 is like a loan balance that hasn’t transferred to you or been “realized” and is therefore not taxable and shouldn’t even be reported afaik
Yeah, but this looks like turning actual money that they have in their hands into a "credit", and it's conditional on money changing hands and some of that actual money going to both parties involved, not a promotional credit generated out of thin air and offered to anyone who signs up. This looks an awful lot like payment-in-kind.
it's not a payment. you and the other poster are confused because in both cases yes your gross profit is higher and you do indeed need to pay taxes on that.
but in no way did AWS provide you with a source of income. they mearly decreased your expenses.
If it's taxed, and you don't actually use it, you'll be paying tax on something that you don't need.