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Microsoft does it (and other dodgy things) too: http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2006/07/10/microsoft-does-tax-avoidance-in-secret/

So, if you're some kind of MS fan-boy wanting to see Google on the end of a beating, you'll have to find a different topic to claim the high-ground. I don't think anyone's going to get really outraged against Google when a) it's not illegal, and b) all their competitors did it first.

Shame you got modded troll. This is pretty insightful, though it should say "Outsource your work to a country which has lax tax laws."

One of the most unintentionally hilarious points in TFA is Steve Ballmer's comment;

Users such as the Government of the Isle of Man are already saving up to £120 per year using the beta version of Windows 7

The Isle of Man is largely an offshore tax haven with around 1,350 desktop computers for the entire government. If all of the promised "£100 per desktop per year" savings materialise, the IoM government will have saved a grand total of £135,000 by using beta software. So why would Ballmer be so interested in such a small deployment?

Accounts for Microsoft Ireland Research, an Irish subsidiary of the global software giant, show that the company paid just €460,000 in tax, on profits of more than €1.2 billion last year.
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/category/microsoft/

That's 0.04% tax.

Still wondering why Microsoft is heavily involved in an offshore tax haven?

Even funnier, the IoM Government was an early supporter of Windows Vista, and claimed savings switching to that OS. Though only completing their rollout in October 2009, they were just in time to save even more money changing to Windows 7. If they keep making savings upgrading like that, pretty soon Microsoft'll be paying them for installing Windows.

Both U2 and the Stones evade their respective taxes through the Netherlands, making Bono quite the hypocrite. Details on the tax changes that motivated the switch out of Ireland.

Google and Apple also make use of Ireland to avoid paying taxes.

Ireland's taxes are lower than most of the rest of the EU, so it makes sense for any company doing pan-EU business to be based there.

In other words it is a tax haven within the EU.

It also has had a number of years where it was a cheap place to get labor, and had workers that were educated and spoke English, though there's recently been a lot of business moving to Eastern Europe, especially Poland, where the labor's cheaper.

Eastern European competition would not hurt them anything like as much - the whole of Western Europe has to cope with that.

For more about Ireland and how companies (especially MS) use it to dodge tax, read:

1. http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/category/ireland/
2. http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/category/microsoft/
3. http://moneyterms.co.uk/blog/200811-irish-economic-problem

Ireland's taxes are lower than most of the rest of the EU, so it makes sense for any company doing pan-EU business to be based there.

In other words it is a tax haven within the EU.

It also has had a number of years where it was a cheap place to get labor, and had workers that were educated and spoke English, though there's recently been a lot of business moving to Eastern Europe, especially Poland, where the labor's cheaper.

Eastern European competition would not hurt them anything like as much - the whole of Western Europe has to cope with that.

For more about Ireland and how companies (especially MS) use it to dodge tax, read:

1. http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/category/ireland/
2. http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/category/microsoft/
3. http://moneyterms.co.uk/blog/200811-irish-economic-problem

As one person put it, Bill Gate's philanthropy is financed by Microsoft's cheating of the American Tax payer.

Stop Tax Piracy!

Hey. Ease up with the slurs against the US. MS is not a US corporation any more than it is a European, African, East Asian or Indian. Though one could make a case for each based on how much taxes are dodged in each region. But if you want to split hairs about what MS is, you can see that it is more about power and isolation than about profit. Notice how many divisions are failing to run a profit. You can can also look at the behavior of its employees and large numbers of minions and come quickly to the conclusion that it is more of a cult.

Also look at how much damage MS has caused not just the IT sector, and not just the private sector, but also the public sector. Notice as desktop usage OS X and Linux, among others, increase the overall cost goes down.

As far as the Kubuntu CDs go, that's a great idea. Just be sure you are doing it for the right reasons.

Hey. Ease up with the slurs against the US. MS is not a US corporation any more than it is a European, African, East Asian or Indian. Though one could make a case for each based on how much taxes are dodged in each region. But if you want to split hairs about what MS is, you can see that it is more about power and isolation than about profit. Notice how many divisions are failing to run a profit. You can can also look at the behavior of its employees and large numbers of minions and come quickly to the conclusion that it is more of a cult.

Also look at how much damage MS has caused not just the IT sector, and not just the private sector, but also the public sector. Notice as desktop usage OS X and Linux, among others, increase the overall cost goes down.

As far as the Kubuntu CDs go, that's a great idea. Just be sure you are doing it for the right reasons.

They are doing the same thing in Europe. Microsoft uses its Irish subsidiary to shift profits within the EU in the same way.