Democrats seem to be addicted to old age.

• Sen. Elizabeth Warren, 69, was one of this cycle's first to announce for president.
• Sen. Bernie Sanders, 77 (five years older than President Trump, a spry 72), jumped in yesterday.
• For some in the party, former Vice President Joe Biden, 76, is the savior.
• Speaker Pelosi is 78.
• Her #2, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, is 79.

Why it matters: Despite that lineup, today's Democratic Party is actually dominated by youthful energy.

• That's clear from all the young House members in the 2018 midterms, the activists pushing lawmakers farther to the left, and the fact that millennials are Democrats' strongest age group.

The big picture: The party is suffering from what Democratic strategist Doug Sosnik calls the "barbell effect."

• On one end are the seniors. On the other end are all the 40- and 50-somethings moving up in the ranks: Sens. Cory Booker (49), Kirsten Gillibrand (52), Kamala Harris (54) and Amy Klobuchar (58).
• Plus Pete Buttigieg (37), Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (37), Julián Castro (44) and Beto O'Rourke (46).

And we rarely elect oldsters: Since 1828, only three Democratic presidents have been in their 60s when inaugurated — and none came close to Sanders, who would be 79 if elected in 2020.

• The average age of every previous Democratic president in history on Inauguration Day is 52.

Be smart: If a 70-something is elected as president, it’s not going to stymie the grassroots generation of the Democratic Party. But it will throttle some of the younger activists' energy.

• If a 40- or 50-something is elected, there’s likely going to be an emerging generation pushing to take power. Expect the voices of millennials and activists to be even louder.
• If Democrats lose the 2020 election, "that’ll be a complete breaking of the wall and the dam, and this emerging generation will be completely in charge of the party going forward," said Sosnik, who was a senior adviser to Bill Clinton during his presidency. "We only have a leader if we have a president."

Sanders insists that age is just a number. "I think, you know, when we look at people, whether they're old or they're young, you've got to look at the totality of the person," Sanders said in an interview with CBS yesterday.

The backstory: The Democratic presidential nominees who ultimately lost the presidency skew a bit older than those who actually won: 13 Democratic nominees among the presidential losers have been over 54.

• Biden has been leading early polls by double digits, likely because of high name recognition. But Bill Whalen, a Hoover Institution research fellow, said Biden faces a similar problem that Hillary Clinton did in 2016: He represents the past more than the future.
• "The weakest argument to make for running for president is electability. Primary voters don’t want to hear that; they want passion and enthusiasm," Whalen said.

The bottom line: You don't have to be young to attract young voters — Sanders proved that in 2016. But now that there's a large group of younger candidates competing for their votes, that could all change in 2020.

• For years, tax hawks have railed about companies finagling statutes to whittle down their bill to Uncle Sam — to no effect.
• The difference now is the atmosphere of populist politics. "Rising global activism is forcing companies to reassess the balance of obligations between shareholders and stakeholder, and when highly profitable companies like Amazon pay zero taxes it undermines confidence in the broader system," Bruce Mehlman, a leading political and corporate lobbyist, tells Axios.  

No one suggests that anyone is violating tax laws. But paying or not paying taxes becomes an issue when few ordinary people are afforded the chance to escape taxes, and there is less and less money to fix crumbling infrastructure and struggling schools.

By the numbers:

• GM is claiming a $104 million refund on $11.8 billion in 2018 profit.
• Goodyear is seeking a $15 million refund on $693 million in profit.
• Halliburton will pay $19 million in U.S. income taxes on $1.6 billion in profit.
• Netflix filed for a $22.1 million refund on $845 million in profit.
• U.S. Steel is claiming a $303 million refund on $957 million in profit.

After its HQ2 debacle in New York, Amazon has been under the most intense scrutiny of all — and now over its tax bill. In a report last week, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy said the e-commerce giant is seeking a $129 million refund on $11.2 billion in profit.

• It's Amazon's second straight year owing no tax: In 2017, Amazon filed for a $137 million refund on $5.6 billion in profit.
• Amazon is not a passive player in tax law, says the institute's Matthew Gardner, who researched and wrote the Amazon report. "Amazon in particular has shaped tax law in its own image. They made the laws by lobbying so persistently and effectively," Gardner tells Axios.

How they are doing it: Companies already were able to chip away at their effective tax rate when the top rate was 35%. The new rate of 21% approved under the Trump-backed legislation got them much lower, and then loopholes take effect.

• One windfall for companies cited by the institute is a new provision allowing for the immediate expensing of capital investments.

Some say the issue is overblown. Chester Spatt, a finance professor at Carnegie Mellon, tells Axios, "I don't think a company should be paying more taxes than it owes and in fact it has an obligation to its shareholders not to pay taxes it doesn't owe."

• "Is there reputational risk? Would I advise a company to pay a bunch of taxes to avoid that? Probably not. But messaging is kind of important. Companies need to be more sensitive to explaining."

Yet the optics for Amazon may be brutal. Richard Edelman, CEO of the global Edelman public relations firm, points to a PR blow suffered by GE in 2011 when it reported $14.2 billion in profit for the prior year, and filed for a $3.2 billion federal income tax refund.

• "Part of trust is transparency in how you do what you do and understanding that you have certain societal obligations," says Edelman, whose consultancy produces the Edelman Trust Barometer.