Microsoft To Get $100M Annual Tax Cut and Amnesty 406
reifman writes "Despite a $2.8 billion deficit, Washington State's House Bill 3176 would provide Microsoft with an effective $100 million tax cut annually and possible amnesty on its $1.27 billion Nevada tax maneuverings. Under current law, all of Microsoft's worldwide licensing revenues of approximately $20.7 billion annually are taxable at .484 percent. Under the new law, only the portion of software licenses sold to Washington state customers would be taxable. Ironically, after slashing Microsoft's tax burden, HB3176 directs the Department of Revenue to crack down on 'abusive tax transactions' like those in Nevada — except for a loophole that may provide Microsoft amnesty on its twelve year practice. The bill's lead sponsor is Ross Hunter of Medina, home to Bill Gates and a number of current and former Microsoft billionaires and multi-millionaires, and other areas around Microsoft's corporate campus."
Re:Bill's Sponsor Also Ex-Microsoft Employee (Score:5, Interesting)
As a Washington state resident who also considers the amount of the state's budget deficit, I can't figure out how even a representative with MS ties could figure that this move should be viewed favorably. Let's shoot this down folks.
Re:Bill's Sponsor Also Ex-Microsoft Employee (Score:5, Interesting)
just a proposal (Score:4, Interesting)
Or is this a proposal that us Washingtonians get a chance to contact our representatives about and make sure they understand how important it is to us?
I like representative democracy. It sometimes works.
Re:every state does this? (Score:4, Interesting)
Ok, I can get how tech companies can relocate if they don't like your local taxes, but home contractors?
If you want a home built in California, you're going to have to have somebody do the work under California law. So, how would home contractors have any leverage, unless CA wanted to impose regulations on their activities out-of-state?
Sure, maybe some would choose not to do business there any longer, but I doubt that in a recession that anybody is going to have trouble finding somebody to take their money to build a house.
Its welfare (Score:2, Interesting)
Corporate Welfare (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:$100 million? Shit, The Fed Doesnt need my TAXE (Score:3, Interesting)
Or, get rid of the income tax, increase sales tax, and add a fed sales tax. Necessities wouldn't be taxes, as they are now, so for those of you who say a sales tax-only system would hurt the poor too much, tell them to stop buying things they don't need and they wouldn't have to pay any taxes.
Re:Geese and golden eggs (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh I see. Government financial mismanagement, corruption and ineptitude is actually the CITIZEN's fault, not the fault of the people actually doing the financial mismanagement, corruption and ineptitude. I get it now.
I'm happy to have given this simple civics lesson - when citizens don't vote, they get what's coming to them.
Please remove yourself from the population so that you can do your part to help curb the deficit!
The times I consider removing myself from the population is more centered around having to live in a world with assholes like you.
Re:Bill's Sponsor Also Ex-Microsoft Employee (Score:3, Interesting)
If corporate taxes were such a crushing burden, you'd see a lot fewer LLCs. Apparently, though, limited liability is quite valuable.
Banks: too big to fail (Score:5, Interesting)
red and blue (Score:4, Interesting)
You are seeing the red state/blue state sort-of lie. We don't really have that division as much as we have red areas, primarily rural and suburban, and blue areas, primarily major metropolitan areas. You can see it on the larger election maps, most fixate on the entire statewide breakdown and how the vote went in total there, but if you look at it state by state by state, the same red/blue split shows up, and it is primarily urban versus "other".
So what happens is the metro areas in most of the states dominate politics, they have the edge in population a little bit, in most states now, and institute policies and laws that never really fit their *entire* respective states. What you said about Illinois and Chicago is true facts, the same applies to like NYC and the rest of NY, or here where I am, Atlanta versus the rest of the state.
Here is an interesting site that breaks this political split down more with various maps and corrected projections. It is quite interesting and there are links to more detailed analysis. The gist of it is, in the big elections and the general political pull of the nation, it is urban versus everyone else all the time. It fluctuates a little bit, but not much really.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2008/ [umich.edu]
The quickest way to see it on that page is first look at the normal state by state red/blue split (this is a look at the 2008 election), then scroll down to the first "Election results by county" map. The differences are very easy to see there and profoundly obvious.
Causes all sorts of problems all the time, and will continue to do so. And it isn't fair either way you look at it, from either perspective. There really needs to be a different political arrangement, so the major urban areas can have various laws that fit them much better, but without insisting on the same exact laws in the rural areas, and vice versa. As in maybe drop the notion of the political boundaries we have now and switch to what the boundaries really are, smallish city-states and huge "other than that" states as separate political entities.
We have federal and state governments that keep trying to hammer square pegs into round holes and it just doesn't work very well, there is no real compromise even possible that would work and be more acceptable to all concerned.
And it's not like this wasn't anticipated back at the beginning of our Union, this was the original idea with having both senators and representatives, instead of just representatives...That fix didn't last long, primarily I think because they didn't think it through far enough ahead in time to the point where there would be so many multi million person large cities, inside virtually every state in the nation. They thought it would remain like less populated states versus more populated, not realizing the political split would fall inside every single state for the same reasons, that urban realities are just different from the rural and suburban.
Re:Bill's Sponsor Also Ex-Microsoft Employee (Score:5, Interesting)
That is complete nonsense. If their primary base is in Washington State (it is), the state has every legal right to tax them on their total revenue (known in Washington as the "B&O tax"). This tax has been active in Washington for many years now. If it were illegal, someone would have challenged it long since. (Actually it has been challenged, and it's still there.) If you think they "cannot really" do that, I suggest you talk with a Washington State tax attorney and find out why you are wrong. Here are some hints:
Again, complete nonsense. What is prohibited by the Constitution is charging sales tax for sales in other states. The B&O tax is neither a sales tax or an income tax.
Also, Washington State probably would NOT lose if that were taken to court, because again B&O is not a sales tax, and Microsoft's primary base of operations is in Washington State, regardless of where they are incorporated. The B&O tax is not an income tax either. You are mixing apples and oranges.
That may be so, but that is not the case here. Corporations (including some large corporations) have already challenged in courts, and the B&O tax has been upheld. It is not bound by the laws regarding either income or sales taxes, since it is neither. I strongly suggest you do a little research about the subject before expounding on it so "authoritatively". It is obvious that you know very little about the real situation.
Re:Bill's Sponsor Also Ex-Microsoft Employee (Score:3, Interesting)
Product prices will be the highest the market can bear, regardless of expenses. Software already has massive profit margins, so taxes merely eat into those profits, thus depriving the company from money they can use to buy other companies, run ad campaigns, pay bribes and manipulate market in other ways.
Which costs more, $9.99 worth of gas, or a video game priced at $9.99 on the shelf? The video game, of course, because tax is included in the price of gas but not the price of software. You're not wrong, but perception is key. There's a reason that game doesn't cost $10.00; it's the same reason that $999 is a magical price point for many desktop/notebook makers.
Let's go to a different world for a minute, where all sales prices include tax... do you think a laptop would still go for $1078? Probably not. Maybe $1049, but $999 would draw enough attention to be worth the loss of some per-unit profit. In either case, there is an overall loss of some profit.
So, taxes really don't eat into profits as much as you seem to suggest by asserting that the corporations directly pay them. In other words, the market can "bear" the taxes a little more simply because perception of the pricing structure tends to pass more of that burden on to the naive consumer.
Re:Geese and golden eggs (Score:3, Interesting)
Please explain your rationale? Considering the sample size of a vote, it's fair to say that the proportion of votes is going to be similar no matter how many voters you pull at random out of the total. If there were more voters, the election result would probably be the same to within a few decimal places.
Rationale is simple - voter abstinence is a symptom of voter apathy and apathy is a symptom of political ignorance.
Your argument is cogent and correct if the assumption holds true that with higher voter turnout, there would be no change in that ignorance.
I would argue that higher turnout would be a symptom contrary to apathy.
Today, people look at shenanigans and say, in essence, "See? That's why I don't vote!" - or- the ones that do vote can't get anywhere with a representative because the representative knows that apathy rules; you can't threaten to not vote for a politician when his going in position is that you might not vote next time anyway.
Were there a high turnout, that situation would necessarily change. Instead of "that's why I don't vote" politicians might then care if votes were threatened.
You may go back to Plato for supporting examples of human nature, but more telling is the early American history - or the early history of any country adopting representative government. People jealously guarded and protected the franchise they fought for. It's not straightforward enough to explain by simple example alone.
Bloodshed is almost never the answer to anything except to answer if you want more bloodshed.
Recalling Churchill, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
Anything further would entail hypotheticals of utopianism, on both our parts.
But sure, be short-sighted and continue to think that you are the ONE TRUE VOTER, and everyone else is against you voting for the "wrong" people all the time.
I could not follow your point there, neither taking it personally, nor rhetorically. Kindly clarify, and if personal, OK, but thanks in advance for telling me how that applied to me or what I said.
Re:Bill's Sponsor Also Ex-Microsoft Employee (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Bill's Sponsor Also Ex-Microsoft Employee (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hardly Surprising (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually we (The United States) are not a Democracy (the closest thing we have, that comes close to it are New England Town-hall Meetings.) Instead we have a representative republic, whose underlying ideal is that everyone get's represented, and that representatives, (wo)men of education and wisdom, manage the gap between mob rule, and sane, prudent and morally just government. As well, our founding fathers in their great wisdom, built a form of government that should have been well hamstrung by checks and balances. The belief being, that this would keep power-hungry monomaniacs from attempting coups.
The problem is, that in the first half of the nineteenth century, a bunch of power hungry, greedy, industrialists, ramrodded laws through our government, creating a new entity, with for all intents and purposes, all the rights and powers of a human being (and our Supreme court just decided this entity has full first amendment rights including the unabridged right to give as much money to politician as sanity or the lack thereof will allow), however, this entity could live virtually forever, amass endless billions of dollars, use that money to fundamentally alter laws, governments, even the fundamental ways that people can raise their children, manage their lives and communicate with one another. That entity is "The Corporation".
Ever since that one decision, we've been struggling to manage the rights of human beings, vs. the rights of businesses to impact human beings. To date, we've done a pretty poor job creating a society that is conducive to the advancement of people. When the nerds among us are inspired by utopian societies portrayed by the likes of "StarTrek", what's present for us, is a society that ultimate put's people first, and human enterprise (pun intended) second. Until we do this, we cannot simply claim to be a civilized society.
A useful first step would be to separate Corporation and State in much the same way we should separate Church and State, and for pretty much the same reasons.
think more about this please (Score:2, Interesting)
And you have an irrational core assumption that people without land are even able to exist, let alone thrive or be "wealthy". That's scientifically impossible really. You have a lot of land per person, just it is removed a step. You don't have people existing totally on some teeny tiny piece of land, their "share" of the land is removed some geographical distance, but it is still necessary for them to exist. You aren't seeing the huge quantities of land that are necessary to keep big cities functional, and the people "out there" who need to do a lot of work out on that land to provide you with everything you need, nor attaching much importance to what those folks needs are.
Those people out there and the land out there provide you with 100% of your tangible human needs, all of it, every single bit of it.
If you keep politically marginalizing those people "out there", as I tried to point out with this red/blue conflict and split politically, eventually they are going to stop supplying you, either from desire to just stop, or because they won't be able to because of imposed political and economic realities. You can look in history books to see what this means exactly and here's a clue, it ain't pretty.
And this is what is happening today with the political emphasis being counter weighted heavily towards concentrated population centers, and the political minimizing of what the "other" areas really represent in terms of day to day importance, and what the people "out there" think is important and need. You can ignore it or claim it doesn't exist or just isn't that important, etc, but I think that's just silly. And those maps prove this major split exists, it shouldn't be ignored.
Go back again and read some more history, this problem, identified by some smart guys way way back, was addressed with the combination of both senators and representatives, but it isn't quite working any more, there's a *lot* of fail there and a lot of political disagreement and outright hostility that keeps growing.
I'm just proposing we take a new and more logical look-see at the situation and try to fix some problems before they hit harder, that's all. We have a necessary social and economic symbiosis that is fractured today, and badly, and that split is widening, and the historical parallel eventual outcome falls into the "this just totally sucks" category. For all of the above, everyone.