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Keeping Microsoft Happy
Jeff writes "In Citizen Microsoft, I report on Microsoft's use of Nevada corporations to avoid approximately $327 million in Washington state taxes while telling voters they need to pay more to fund education. I also contrast Microsoft's attacks on the open source community with its in-state lobbying efforts and its recent promise to get more involved in local politics. The cover has Gates in a gorilla suit."
Keeping Microsoft Happy ... The cover has Gates in a gorilla suit.
Lots and lots of bananas.
I report on Microsoft's use of Nevada corporations to avoid approximately $327 million in Washington state taxes while telling voters they need to pay more to fund education.
Now that's a monkey business!
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
MS is trying to devour our government, good god! There already swimming in cast, they could afford to pay it to the government
I must say no willing gorilla would allow its body to be used in such a photography. It's an outrage!
"I don't mind God, it's his fan club I can't stand!" E8
SW Logo
September 29 - October 5, 2004
Citizen Microsoft
It's time we stopped acquiescing to the behemoth in Redmond, because what's good for big business isn't necessarily good for Washington.
by Jeff Reifman
By any measure, Microsoft is capitalism's greatest success. In July, the company announced plans to distribute $75 billion in dividends to shareholders over the next four years. One executive, in a morale-boosting internal e-mail, recently called Windows the most successful product in history. Even Googling "corporation" returns Microsoft at the top of the search results. But what has been best for Microsoft's shareholders has not always been best for Washington taxpayers and our community.
Every time Microsoft hires someone in Washington, it creates 3.5 new jobs here. According to the company, Microsoft created an estimated 117,620 new jobs in Washington between 1990 and 2001. But while Microsoft promotes the positive impact of success, all this growth has placed a heavy burden on our schools, roads, and overall livability.
Recently, Forbes ranked Seattle as the most overpriced city in the country. Our school class sizes are the fourth largest in the nation. Washington's percentage of residents enrolled in college ranks 46th out of 50 states. Seattle teacher salaries rank 97th out of 100 major cities. Our traffic is the 17th worst in the country. And let's not forget more than 167,000 Washington children without health care and the growing ranks of homeless citizens staking out highway off-ramps in search of handouts.
Most of us accept on faith that what's good for business is good for our state. Our Legislature spends much of its time trying to make Washington a competitive choice for businesses. But it's about time we started asking hard questions about where our competitiveness is taking us and who is pushing the agenda. How is it that with one of the richest corporations in the world in our backyard, our state has become less livable?
Tax exemptions are the mantra of Washington's Legislature. As Seattle Weekly reported earlier (see "$64 Billion Falls Through the Tax Cracks," Feb. 18), the state has amassed 503 business tax breaks valued at $64 billion per biennium budget. Cheered on by corporate lobbyists, including Microsoft's, Gov. Gary Locke and lawmakers implemented $20 billion of those exemptions in just the past four years. Last year, the state granted an additional $3.2 billion in breaks over the next 20 years to entice Boeing to locate the 7E7 assembly plant in Everett instead of some other state. Meanwhile, Forbes reports, Seattle ranks in the bottom fifth of major cities in job growth, income growth, cost of living, and housing affordability. And the state is predicting a $3 billion deficit by the end of the decade. As Microsoft's shareholders begin to reap their $75 billion dividend, they leave a growing infrastructure deficit in Washington.
That's the result of good times. Until now, Microsoft has enjoyed tremendous financial success. But it's entering a new era of software competition. It won't be able to rely on the dominance of the Windows operating system to be profitable. In fact, Microsoft's dependence on revenue from Windows and its other flagship product, the Office suite of applications, makes it vulnerable to new and increasingly popular alternatives to those now-ubiquitous programs. The free market is responding to the monopoly in Redmond. It's going to get tough. Meantime, last week the company said it plans to become far more active in Washington politics than in the past, citing the business climate, education funding, and transportation as areas where the state can do better. These aren't improvements with which Microsoft wishes to help. These are areas of concern the company wants remedied at taxpayer expense. If you want to anticipate how Microsoft might approach these and other local issues as the software business becomes more challenging, you need to study the company's track record with competitors
The cover has Gates in a gorilla suit....
:D
As opposed to Steve Balmer who just jumps and dances around like one.
Join the TWIT army now!
Seven years ago, Microsoft opened a small office in Reno, Nev., to collect the money it got from PC manufacturers that installed Windows and Office on the computers they sold. In the years since, Microsoft has sheltered more than $60 billion in royalty revenue in Nevada, a state with no corporate income tax, costing Washington an estimated $327 million in unrealized tax revenue.
That should be easy to verify, contact the SecState of Nevada
And in other news, the sky is blue, and the sun rises in the East and sets in the West.
all sorts of companies incorporate in Nevada not just Microsoft for this same purpose. In fact, while Delaware is the number one state to incorporate, Nevada follows up close behind because of the lax laws. Just like I'm sure you, your friends, and your family go down to Oregon to do your Christmas shopping so you don't have to pay state sales tax. If you want to close these loopholes then every state needs to have consistent incorporation statutues and laws. The only companies that incorporate in their own state are the ones who can't afford to incorporate in another and/or follow another state's governance laws and procedures .
If they wanted to evade $350 million in taxes, all they had to do was threaten to leave the state. It worked for Boeing. In fairness, WA state has a very, very messed up B&O tax... In fact they maintain the most regressive tax structure in the nation.
I hope your resume is up2date. Even writers in offbeat weekly get their chains yanked...
No more Micro$oft bashing from me. Its like bashing at the special olympics.
From the article:
"Every time Microsoft hires someone in Washington, it creates 3.5 new jobs here. According to the company, Microsoft created an estimated 117,620 new jobs in Washington between 1990 and 2001. But while Microsoft promotes the positive impact of success, all this growth has placed a heavy burden on our schools, roads, and overall livability."
Wow - How could Microsoft be so insensitive as to create jobs.
However, this also raises the BS meter. I always love when I hear "We create xx jobs for every one we hire". Sounds good... but it doesn't add up. To even out, there has to be a job somewhere that causes -1.5 people to be hired. Other than the 435 CongressPricks, and the one in the Oval Office, there aren't too many jobs like that.
that story was porrly written.
Even if it was true, you can't state such things if you can't spell or use proper capitalization. Troll post. *sigh*
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
mod parent down, i already replied, otherwise would
...here's a link to the actual article.
I use CP/M, you insensitive clod!
submitter WROTE the article. you are the one who didn't read.
Slashdot in 5 Paragraphs
From http://www.stileproject.com/nullo.html
Bill McHenry is a 26-year old white male with a stocky build and a beard. His head is shaved. He responded to my ad to be interviewed for this article wearing only leather pants, leather boots and a leather vest. I could see that both of his nipples were pierced with large-gauge silver rings.
Questioner: I hope you won't be offended if I ask you to prove to me that you're a nullo. Just so that my readers will know that this isn't a fake.
Bill: Sure, no problem. (stands and unbuckles pants and drops them to his ankles, revealing a smooth, shaven crotch with only a thin scar to show where his genitals once were).
Q: Thank you. That's a remarkable sight.
(laughs and pulls pants back up). Most people think so.
Q: What made you decide to become a nullo?
(pauses). Well, it really wasn't entirely my decision.
Q: Excuse me?
The idea wasn't mine. It was my lover's idea.
Q: Please explain what you mean.
Okay, it's a long story. You have to understand my relationship with Michael before you'll know what happened.
Q: We have plenty of time. Please go on.
Both of us were into the leather lifestyle when we met through a personal ad. Michael's ad was very specific: he was looking for someone to completely dominate and modify to his pleasure. In other word, a slave.
The ad intrigued me. I had been in a number of B&D scenes and also some S&M, but I found them unsatisfying because they were all temporary. After the fun was over, everybody went on with life as usual.
I was looking for a complete life change. I wanted to meet someone who would be part of my life forever. Someone who would control me and change me at his whim.
Q: In other words, you're a true masochist.
Oh yes, no doubt about that. I've always been totally passive in my sexual relationships.
Anyway, we met and there was instant chemistry. Michael is a few years older than me and very good looking. Our personalities meshed totally. He's very dominant.
I went back to his place after drinks and had the best sex of my life. That's when I knew I was going to be with Michael for a long, long time.
Q: What sort of things did you two do?
It was very heavy right away. He restrained me and whipped me for quite awhile. He put clamps on my nipples and a ball gag in my mouth. And he hung a ball bag on my sack with some very heavy weights. That bag really bounced around when Michael fucked me from behind.
Q: Ouch.
(laughs) Yeah, no kidding. At first I didn't think I could take the pain, but Michael worked me through it and after awhile I was flying. I was sorry when it was over.
Michael enjoyed it as much as I did. Afterwards he talked about what kind of a commitment I'd have to make if I wanted to stay with him.
Q: What did he say exactly?
Well, besides agreeing to be his slave in every way, I'd have to be ready to be modified. To have my body modified.
Q: Did he explain what he meant by that?
Not specifically, but I got the general idea. I guessed that something like castration might be part of it.
Q: How did that make you feel?
(laughs) I think it would make any guy a little hesitant.
Q: But it didn't stop you from agreeing to Michael's terms?
No it didn't. I was totally hooked on this man. I knew that I was willing to pay any price to be with him.
Anyway, a few days later I moved in with Michael. He gave me the rules right away: I'd have to be naked at all times while we were indoors, except for a leather dog collar that I could never take off. I had to keep my head shaved. And I had to wear a butt
Companies do everything they can do to minimize their taxes. P.R. folks can make any corporate behavior sound like God would have done no differently. Corporate executives like Balmer can come to believe that every thought they have is pure visionary genius and should be shared (i.e. education spending). People will learn these things and become indignant and outraged. Nothing, however, tends to change.
http://www.busyweather.com/
This is not one of them. Giving money to governments is like giving whiskey and car keys to adolescents.
Check out the testimony of Paul Misener, Amazon's VP of Global Public Policy, as he reminds Nevada legislators who questioned Amazon's failure to pay sales tax that Amazon solved its Washington and Georgia tax problems by closing fulfillment centers in the two states.
This is more an indictment of the various tax laws and the shenanigans of the legislative bodies that enact them than of any company or individual that might take "advantage" of them.
Legislators, state and federal, have no incentive to make straight-forward, logical, honest tax laws. They get too much gain from making the laws obstuse and full of holes, for special friends.
Oh, and if you look at any statistics, poor people don't pay enough taxes.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
If you haven't paid sales tax while being in another state you have to pay "use" tax in your home state. This tax is equal to the amount of sales tax you'd have to pay if you made the same purchase in your home state. For someone in WA this means that if they went down to Oregon and spent $1K on merchandise taxable in WA, they owe the state $88 in taxes or whatever they pay in their county.
This is very easy to circumvent. You set up a company where all your employees are located. You set up another company in the tax shelter state. You have the taxed company do business with the untaxed company. Maybe the taxed company pays a consulting fee to the untaxed company. The taxed company suddenly shows no profit, therefore it pays no income tax. The untaxed company shows a huge profit but it pays no income tax anyway so it doesn't matter. There are a million other ways to legally get around paying taxes.
Is more than one million dollars (pink in mouth) which saves our PI from floating into infinitium, but how trusts numbers?
The article starts with percentages and positions. Suddenly you read an absolute number, ONE THOUSAND AND SEVENTY HUNDRED, which I am supposed to believe is a lot. But smaller than %? Who knows? The author used an old technique, and I stopped reading it there.
Like I said, my circle is more powerful than yours. So Washington cares about money? Printed magazines are awful anyway.
Enough is enough! I can't take any more of this animal mistreatment! Call the SPCA; call the Friends of Animals; call the gorilla a lawyer!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Would this get posted to Slashdot? I highly doubt it. Seriously, who can blame MS for this one? Raise your hand if you enjoy paying taxes. Hell, the majority of you guys probably wouldn't support piracy if it wasn't a way to skive out of spending your hard earned cash.
Give the microsoft bashing a break already, it's beyond despicable.
We already have multi-state tax codes, maybe the states should get together to work on closing the "Nevada" tax gap.
BTW, if Microsoft didnt get tax breaks here, I'm sure some other state would gladly offer it. Corporations are already playing states against each other, really shows you how much power Corporations have.
So, while there are answers, nothing will change.
Business as usual. [pun intended]
I have written a story about an embittered ex-Microsoft employee who now works for a company related to raising funds for non-profit organisations and complains about the fact that his job is made harder by his ex-bosses not contributing enough! Oh ... you beat me to it.
Probably a more realistic system would be to require a corporation to state its "home turf" (much as a ship states its home nationality). The corporation would then have to obey the laws (including tax laws) of its home turf AS WELL AS the laws of wherever any outposts were.
So having a branch in Nevada would mean Microsoft had to pay Nevada taxes AND Washington taxes.
This isn't unusual, and is how many countries elsewhere work income tax. Those from Britain will remember the Ken Dodd trial, where the British Government successfully argued that overseas earnings - even those where he had paid tax overseas - were ALSO taxable in the UK.
Yeah, you could argue that this is unfair, but the problem is that a lot of big-name celebrities and corporations have moved to tax havens. As tax exiles, they get to keep all of their money. The consequence of that is that, in order to maintain any kind of level of service, everyone else has to pay more.
Eventually, what you end up with is the very rich being wholly and completely subsidized by the very poor. Welfare in reverse. Such a system is inherently unstable. The poor - by definition - don't have much in the way of resources, so the greater their burden, the greater the chances of the system collapsing.
Let's take an admittedly extreme example. Let's say that the economy rested virtually entirely on the shoulders of minimum wage workers. It is physically impossible to work more than 3 shifts in a day. Given all that, and given the State and Federal income taxes at that level of income, how many minimum wage workers would you need to cover the average State budget and a typical Federal budget?
If the answer exceeds the population of the US, then neither the States NOR the Federal Government can afford to support tax exiles.
(In an ironic twist, those who do live in tax exile are often the most influential in Government, inverting the age-old critisism that there should be no taxation without representation. Here, they have no taxation, but often all the representation.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Sure. Maybe they owe the use tax, if Washington has a use tax, but quite frankly, how can it be enforced? I can imagine Washington being able to successfully collect use tax on new automobiles, which have to be registered with the state, but there's no way they can determine what a Washington resident bought in another state without a full-on anal probe audit. Does the California Franchise Tax Board know about the brand new Ecco europeon-size 46 boots I bought for 35 bucks on eBay from a seller back east? Nope. Maybe John Ashcroft does, but he's not telling.
144l. ph34r my 133t l3g4l 5k1lz!
To keep Mircosoft happy, you give them a big blue button that says "SCREW SOMEONE OVER" in big bold letters. As long as they can keep pressing it, they'll never lose their errections.
Microsoft represents the very worst, most pathological elements of corporations in general.
Microsoft takes standard coporate psychopathy, and amplifies it.
This situation is a perfect case in point. They ask for more from more from governments, pay less, and rationalize this greedy behaviour by arguing they "create jobs".
This is the same kind of arrogance demonstrated by companies that outsource IT jobs. Corporations are mere guests of the jurisdictions in which they operate. If they no longer make their fair contribution to society, then they should be forced to pony up their share.
We have to pay our share of taxes, despite the skills and labour we offer society. Why shouldn't corporations be held to the same standards and given the same societal responsibilities as individuals?
This space left intentionally blank.
There is a serious question of how to regulate companies like Microsoft when they have such concentration of wealth they can basically afford to buy congress and the leadership of major political parties. It really does sound like these companies are destroying the very people and institutions that allowed them to become successful.
I've a father that is a CPA, but don't take tax advise from me, hire a CPA.
Tax law isn't something that is consistent and fair. It's a hodgepodge of well meaning laws all intended to do various things which will provide the goverment funding while not trying to destroy the economy at the same time.
That means a person may legally owe (depending on how he files) a whole range of taxes. If you choose to pay more, you're not a single bit more "legal" than if you pay the minimum. Add a few states into the mix, and some off-shore holdings, and I can mentally visualize the complexity of the problem growing.
As for the poor not paying enough taxes, well that's an opinion. But the lower taxing of the poor is a philosophical argument encoded in tax law. The argument is something along the lines of, well, if we tax them, then they'll never make it to middle class which is where we really make our money. Other arguements like, "big business is really what drives the economy, so they should get a tax break so they can do more business" are also philosophical in nature, but people tend to forget this.
As a result, you've got a lot of conflicting ideas on what is taxable, what is not, and how much. Just look at the relatively simple tax laws for food. There's literally cases where you can't know if an item is taxable until you lay down some sort of priority on which way you're going to interpert the laws.
Food is not taxable. Some snacks and candies are. Prepackaged food being consumed on the premises is. Beef jerky is a snack, yet it has a history of being a real food staple. Chewbacca lives on Endor. That means if the stop-and-go has a food court, then the beef jerky should be taxed, but if it lacks one, then no. It's not confusing because of political kick-backs, but because of political do-gooders who really tried to fix it on a case-by-case basis over the last 200 years.
>The cover has Gates in a gorilla suit.
Tells a lot about their objective approach!
What's the big deal? Imagine - they're trying to make money.
They busted Oracle in California two years ago, others haven't been busted big time yet.
What the hell does the author expect - to see IBM's sales reps running around explaining customers how to buy white boxes, install Debian Linux and save the government a pretty penny?
Fucking nonsense.
I usually just sacrifice a medium sized animal during the feast of luprecal.... so far it seems to be working.
IMHO, Microsoft is doing exactly what they are supposed to do as a corporation: limit costs, and increase profit. That's what capitalism is all about. Unless I misunderstood that part of economics.
Hmm, maybe that's why their software sucks so bad. They don't care about making good software, they only care about making good money.
Not so much that the cheated on taxes. More that they should either stay out of local politics, or, if they are going to be critical and put their nose in, that they should not be hypo-critical and keep the tax revenue here.
emt 377 emt 4
For some reason Nevada will not play along ;->
But hell, if WashState gives MSFT too much trouble they are welcome to more to Texas.
I think it's time to point out Super Obvious Tax Fact #1-- 99% of tax loopholes AREN'T. They are specifically written into law in order to promote free enterprise health, the backbone of this country lest everybody have a lobotomy at the mention of Microsoft. I find it amazing how the submitter portrays this story as MS being above the law and commiting tax evasion when they are doing no such thing. Infact, the submitter (and half yas out there) should be looking at Nevada, who specifically wrote their tax code to encourage companies to set up shop in their state. Companies like -gasp- Mircrosoft. I'm sure you'll be seeing huge crocodile tears shed by the Nevada state government for having to host one of the richest companies in the world.
Looks like those 'loopholes' worked out pretty well for them.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
No, he didn't.
I know, and I don't really care.. I am kind of board.
You sez:
Lets hope that they take the money and
use it to make Windows better instead of
using it to fund SCO.
I hope MS will use the money to make SCO even more crazier, and make Windows as clueless as SCO.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Having dug up some info on the California Secretary of State's website at http://kepler.ss.ca.gov/, I discovered the following:
1. Apple Computer is incorporated in California, but owns subsidiaries, such as "Apple Computer Peripherals, Inc." that are incorporated in Delaware. Apple even owned "Apple Computer Domestic Subsidiary No. 4", incorporated in Delaware - I guess that ACDS No's 1-3 were too old to be on the Sec. of State's online records.
2. Sun Microsystems: Almost entirely Californian, but there was a Delaware corporation, Sun Microsystems, Inc. that was created in 1987.
3. HP? Well, there is a Hewlett Packard Retiree's Club incorporated in California. Agilent? Delaware. The old HP was in California. The new one? I couldn't find it.
4. Novell? Incorporated in Delaware.
5. eMachines? Delaware.
6. IBM? Seems to be in Delaware, but there's a "IBM Global Services India Private Limited" in India. Wonder how much IBM phone support comes from there? (Seriously - I don't know).
I'm tired and I'm going to sleep, so I leave additional research as an exercise for the interested. The point here is that most of the big corporations seem to be incorporated in "friendly" states like Delaware, or at least have subsidiaries in Delaware the way Apple Computer seems to have, apparently for the purpose of minimizing tax liability and taking advantage of other laws benefiting corporations.
So is MS ripping off the good people of the State of Washington? Sure. But it's only par for the course, and it's what the other corporations are doing and will keep doing until we amend the constitution, repeal dual soverignty, and eliminate the states as entities with the power to legislate (ie, it ain't going to happen). It's the same thing as "forum shopping" (filing lawsuits in the jurisdiction with the most favorable law, if you can), or even some advanced estate planning techinques (some states have completely repealed the Rule Against Perpetutities, which allows people to create trusts domiciled in those states that can, literally, last forever).
Hell, want to know the biggest corporate scam?
1. Buy an asset owned by a municipality - a bus, subway car, sewer system, for an example.
2. Lease it back to the municipality for an amount roughly equivalent for what you paid for it amortized over a few years.
3. Depreciate the hell out of it and pay little or no corporate taxes, ever.
4. Once you've milked the depreciation, sell the asset back to the municipality for a nominal value.
5. Lather, rinse, and repeat.
6. ??? (couldn't resist)
7. Profit.
The loopholes exist, and corporations (and people) take advantage of them. And when they don't exist, lobbyists convince legislatures to create them. Are we doomed? Not really. Washington may be whining over a few hundred million bucks, but it's not as if the state government has collapsed. Yet...
144l. ph34r my 133t l3g4l 5k1lz!
Since when has it been illegal to legally make money?
I was recently involved in setting up a corporation and rather than set it up in my own state, there were advantages, other than taxes, for setting it up in Nevada. You will notice, for example, that many companies are incorporated in Deleware or elsewhere, often for the better legal protection provided by that state's laws. For example, trying to sue a Nevada corporation may be more difficult than many other states.
In our case, taxes were not the intent at all. We still pay local state taxes as well, so the savings are not that significant. There is some tax savings since some of the taxes are paid to Nevada instead, but nothing significant.
Now what I do feel bad about is how some companies set up their offices offshore in places like the Caymen islands to avoid federal income taxes or other federal laws. If a US based company does this, then they should not get the benefits of being a US company. I also feel that the federal government should not be allowed to sign contracts with companies that do this. I.e. why should my tax dollars go to Haliburton when the company sets up offices (usually just a mail stop) in places like the Caymen islands or elsewhere to not only avoid paying US taxes, but to also circumvent US laws and do business in places like Iran.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
Just because, in the opinions of other /. posters, every other corporation is slanted and corrupt does not make the crimes of Microsoft any more legal.
There are much worse companies out there.
A software company that plays comtemptuous games with the court system which does nasty takeovers and may or may not have stolen its flagship product from a dentist and bought him out afterwards doesn't rate on the scale of international corporate nastyness.
You like jumping right in there and being an asshole. This is Slashdot, its a community that does tend to support OSS *anything* and has a bit of a fuck you attitude towards big corporations. But we don't support piracy any more then your most rabid, Microsoft fawning, neo conservative community business leader. But heres a fact, republicans steal software too. The difference is when liberals do it its called piracy, when republicans do its called unlicensed software.
Personally I support both commercial software and OSS software. I like choices.
Quack, quack.
Yep, for this Linux home user only 15 miles from Redmond, the writer is sure right on. MS and BillyG sure are 800 pound gorillas, not only in Washington State, but all world wide. Rob
Go take an economics class! Learn about things you only think you know. You'll be suprised at how little you know. Education- the key weapon in the fight against arogant ignorance!
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
For all you brainless posters who are sarcastically dismissing M$'s actions as acceptable corporate strategy - you are missing the whole *POINT* of the article!
The problem is not ONLY with M$ avoiding taxes, but their HYPOCRISY, since at the same time they are spouting out of their backend about how the residents are not paying enough and trying to get the people to pay even MORE taxes.
What a bunch of BS! If I were a resident of WA, I'd want to kick them out.
Why is it that the Shashdot crowd is always bashing Microsoft? I think that the answer lies in the root of the "American way", which happens to also be the topic Microsoft is criticized on so often. Money.
Once you get past the deep morality and social agenda behind it all, it comes down to a simple fact:
It is a heck of alot easier to become rich selling writing software that sells to Microsoft users, than it is to write software that sells on any other platform.
Yes, I know, money isn't everything, it can't buy happiness, and it is the root of all evil.
Nothing, however, can refute the fact that money buys you opportunities.
So, is it really such a bad thing that Bill Gates just happens to be a damn smart guy who found a way to, you guessed it, make a ton of money?
I haven't read any Shashdot articles lately applauding Bill Gates for donating hundreds of millions of dollars to charity, or how he is one of the leading authorities on curving world hunger.
Yes, Microsoft is "abusing the system", and, "taking advantage of loopholes". So what? Have you never tried to "beat the system"?
I got a $500 speeding ticket dismissed because the officer checked a wrong box. Are you going to write up an essay on how I am crushing society?
For some reason Nevada will not play along ;->
Exactly, thats why its a multistate, not including Nevada.
Unless the corporation will move its entire business to nevada, it still has to have employees and buildings in other states. It also has to sell products in other states.
Its going to get cut throat someday, expect to see states start legal processes soon. They already sue each other over power and water.
Even if it was true
I'm sure you meant 'Even if it were true'...
Try not to fuck up when you're correcting others' errors, ok? Thanks.
Ok MS is evil but to blame them on seattle's ills is obsured...you should know that the head of boing has been quoted as saying that it was easier to design and build a new boing 777 then it is to get a permit to build a house in seattle...also you should know that the seattle city commision once cast a vote to remove the dams in eastern washington...the vote passed then in relpy eastern washington counties and cities made similar resolutions to remove tha ballard locks...needless to say the locks and the dams still remain, but what this does show is the complete lack of resposibility king county and the city seattle has demonstraited in the afairs of running thier city...oh yeah did i mention the mariners stadium mess in which the mariners threated to leave unles they got a new stadium, it went to a public ballet twice which was struck down twice then going past the voters the city made it anyway but it doesn't stop there they wrote the contract so badly and ineptly that they ended up being sued by the mariners....so much for the democrates who run seattle being democratic.
this new article by the seattle weekly is just another atempt by the inept local media to blame the city's problems on outside forces instead of its inept government.
Seattle's problems are becouse of its government who choose to focus on dams, baseball stadiums, and MS rather then cutting waste and taxes, fixing pot holes and implementing sane land planning that encurages development rather then scares it away.
I left seattle 4 years ago becouse it was unlivable...and i see no reason to move back.
stendec@gmail.com
1. Write inflamitory story
2. Put picture of Gates in gorilla suit
3. Advertise to flamers on slashdot
4. Profit!
0110100100100000011000010110110100100000011000100
As for India, Another British East India Company is
in the making. I Bet. How similar are the ways
of business people - from the days of Portugese
invasion to the British Raj.
Are we taxing sales revenue, or net income (revenue - costs), because I didn't see much in the article about income, just revenue.
"See my vest, see my vest made with real gorilla chest"
Meh
Shouldn't there be an economy of taxes, so that the most efficient state gets the corporations and the workers?
I am kind of board.
Pine? Beechwood? Balsa?
Who knows? I have a hard time reading Engrish anyway.
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
The Demise of Microsoft
In the long saga of the battle between the world and its detested adversary,
the Microsoft corporation, everybody is dying to see how the movie end.
Everybody also knows that in the movie the antagonist always dies at the end,
but the question is how? To most who detest Microsoft vehemently they would
like to see a quick and horrid death and those who detest even more so would
only find a sadistic pleasure in seeing nothing less than having Microsoft being
slowly skinned alive on a burning stake.
An IT Fairy Tale
Once upon the time, there was a computer software company named Microsoft,
whose craftiness in marketing made it become one of the most popular software company
on the planet. However, once that company attained its dominant position
in the marketplace, greed and fear filled the unsettled soul of Microsoft.
The company then aggressively pursued and eliminated almost all of its contenders,
names that once were legends one by one fell to Microsoft's sword, WordPerfect,
Borland, Novell, Netscape, Corel and more. Soon, people saw Microsoft for what
it was, a cunning roguish company that had no conscience to stop itself doing whatever
it needs to achieve its ambitions. All the other software companies
realized that there will be no end to Microsoft's unquenchable thirst for power but
none dared to challenge Microsoft until one day a young knight developed an operating
system called Linux. Linux came with a license called Open Source, which represented
to all the other companies a platform from which they can rally together in a
silent treaty to overthrow the software tyrant. One day, Microsoft woke up
and saw a huge army amassed upon the hills, companies that once were shot, wounded,
cheated and humiliated now all carry the same banner, the flag of Linux. Amongst
the valiant warriors, were IBM, Novell, Sun, Oracle, Sony, Fujitsu, Red Hat and CA and
amongst the catapults and shields they used were forged from the power of Open Source,
Apache, OpenOffice, Mozilla, PosgreSQL, MySql, Python, PHP, Samba and much
more. What Microsoft saw shook its heart, however its power to control the market
is still immense and with 56 billion dollars in the vault, its going to put up a very
good fight. This is the year 2004 and the battle has just begun.
The Crystal Ball
So my young seer, you wish to see how this battle unfold? First, you have to understand
how unlike previous battles where the companies were easily and ruthlessly cut down
by Microsoft, this time the catapults and shields that the Allies formed from Open Source
were impenetrable, in fact, the more Microsoft attacked the slowly advancing catapults and
shields,
the stronger the catapults and shields became. How can that be? The magic of Open Source.
All artifacts created from Open Source do not obey the laws of the jungle, first of all
artifacts are immortalized by having the source code freely distributed across the
earth, as Microsoft attacks one point more heads would sprout from different places.
Another power of Open Source is leverage, in the old times when a developer was to
write a software, he practically has to write most of the libraries himself/herself or
purchase or license expensive code sets from other companies like Microsoft. Nowadays,
these libraries are all available freely from Open Source, graphics libraries,
network libraries, XML libraries, parsers, compilers, were all there for all to share.
This is the leverage that hasn't been available to developers before, now all the
Davids have slingshots.
Rebellion of the Serfs
Back to that same once ancient period, almost all developers lived under the direction and
command of Microsoft. Their blind obedience contributed immensely to
the growth of Microsoft. They created applications of all sorts of shapes
and sizes which made the Microsoft platform very popular. All these t
bullcrap...
it is a 2.5 to 3 hour drive to oregon. If i am buying a laptop or a projector. it is certainly worth the drive. WHile i am there i can see some friends. or while i happen to be there sedeing some friends i might pick up an ipod or something of high, but lesser value than a laptop or something. I have done this a lot.
I like having 50 diff. tax structures.... it forces the states to compete to earn your business... I wouldnt start a business in Washington. why would i do that, if my chances of that business making it are less thatn they would be in another state. I dont fault Boeing for going to Chicago. If Wa could quit overtaxing businesses, maybe more businesses would stay in WA, and the unemployment wouldnt be such a problem. Washington has gotten itself into the predicament it is in by making entrepreneurs scared to invest in the state. I just started a business in idaho because it costs less to run it there, which means higher profit margins. people start businesses to make money, not out of altruism
"The clown can stay, but the Ferengi in the gorilla suit has to leave!" :-)
zWhat would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me
think about it, tax breaks are basically just giving money away. What if the state of Washington instead offers to invest money in the corporations that would otherwise get tax breaks? I know there are flaws with this idea, but in thinking about it...well, the shareholders are benefitting at the expense of the state, so if the state is a shareholder, then the state will benefit as well. Giving tax breaks just gives money away, and that money is never coming back, and they only get in return the fuzzy idea of job creation. I think that maybe a combination of investment and tax break may be even better. If Washinton state had been a shareholder of Microsoft, then it can possibly has more say in the company's action, and it benefits when the company does well. I guess the only problem is conflict of interest of some sort.
To even out, there has to be a job somewhere that causes -1.5 people to be hired.
Wrong! Wrong! WRONG!
That's zero-sum thinking, and life isn't really a zero-sum game. If Bill Gates gets richer, that doesn't actually mean that poor people get poorer. If you are well-fed, that doesn't actually mean that someone else has to be hungry.
Microsoft is claiming that for each person they hire in Washington state, the state gets extra jobs. This is because that extra MS employee gets paid, and spends money in the state (at Starbucks, for example, as some other posters said). The money can come from all over.
And guess what -- we are all richer than anyone was 50 years ago. What do I mean? For $200 I can buy a cool pocket computer on eBay, with colour display and everything. How much would that cost 50 years ago? Oh, they didn't have colour pocket computers, or eBay for that matter. Our health care is better, so our life expectancy is higher. And while pop music sucks now, the cool music from then is still available now, and we can buy cool TV shows on DVD.
What is the point of the above ramble? It's just this: when someone discovers something cool or invents something cool, the whole world gets a bit richer (at least if that person shares the discovery or the world at least finds out). There is no part of the world that has to get poorer when the rest of the world gets richer. We use money to keep score, sort of, but don't forget that even a billionaire 50 years ago couldn't buy an iPod, or modern health care.
People think there is a finite amount of good stuff, and the rich people hoard it somehow. That's not how it works.
If you are writing new tax laws, write them to maximize the benefit to society, not to punish the richest guys. If cutting the tax rate would encourage more spending and make more tax revenues, then do that. But some people will cry that it's unfair because it lets the rich keep more of their money. Because they are using zero-sum thinking to look at the world.
I really HATE zero-sum thinking.
" but, why would anyone pay taxes they could legally avoid?"
They'd be stupid.
But when Balmer is ducking taxes and then has a speech that *everybody else* needs to pay more in taxes, well, then, that kinda stinks.
Typical MS/Balmer BS, really.
They don't owe income tax (except if they make a profit) and they don't have to pay sales tax either. Paying "use" tax (and sale tax, too) is the responsibility of the buyer.
means death for us all
--
Simon
Acutally, that looks suspiciously like RIAA's new math.
Oh my god! They didn't give me money, that means it costed me money!
Like what I said? You might like my music
Apparently Bill Gates seeks hapinness in invisibility
Bored of Directors.
Here are some excerpts from the piece:
How can anyone call those things "facts"? Their opinion. Now, I don't mind op/ed pieces. But this is reported under the title of "News". If you want to express your opinions, that's fine. Just don't tell me you're trying to express fact when you're expressing opinions.
If we in the OSS world, want to beat Microsoft, we can't accuse them of FUD at the same time that we're practicing it.
$.02
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
Thanks to USA trade rules being smart, and Europe stupid, MS do very well on their 'exports' taxwise. This illegal subsidy was ruled so, but it may still be only in the phase in. British ISP's are pissed that they have to charge VAT, yet USA hosted services get untaxed, putting the natives at a 15% disadvantage. But it was good while they made hay.
Ya gotta remember Ford didn't invent the assembly line, his engineers did, and he only capitalized on it... And made a shitload. Rockefeller didn't invent drilling for oil, but HE certainly made a shitload... And the guys at redhat have been doing awright... Soo.. why you whining about a few hungry kids? The Microsoft Family grew up in abject poverty, so they know what's best, just ask 'em...
Think of that multiplied by one billion. That's the incentive for states and localities to devise sweetheart deals for corporations that employ large numbers of locals.
Why? Here's a mental exercise : try to think of something more important to voters than jobs.
Plus, a public corporation really has more of a duty to shareholders to pay as little taxes as legally possible than it does to a home state to pay as much taxes as possible.
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
World domination comes to mind.
Why else thy to enter media and entertainment?
the article is saying seattle has been screwed over already...what happens when MS actually has to COMPETE to make a profit?
...any income tax at the federal level. Zero. No graduated tax, no fair tax, no VAT tax no corporate tax. And the reason is almost absurdly simple. (and this applies to any other nation with a central bank and artifical fiat currency for their internal use)
We have a NON tangible, fiat cuurency based economic system. ALL the monies currently represented by the "income tax" are based on "money" that is artificially created inside computers and in accounting ledgers. ALL of it. They just decide how much of it to print up or to exist as bytes inside of computers. Our government, in it's non impressive wisdom, allowed a set of 12 private banks to have that power and immense control and opportunity, stripping it from the people in general through their government and treasury.
We could do the same exact thing, but have our own treasury instead of the fed do it, and run the same size government we have now, completely, merely by issuing our own money, and getting it into circulation through normal government business, and with a few more easy to pull off ways. It would require zero income taxes. It would eliminate the necessity of having a phony "debt" and "borrowing" to run government. It's trivially easy to "borrow" money when it's just artificially created, it's just entries on a screen basically, no work required, no tangibles required except as a way to determine amount created, through business productivity indexes which already exist. We can just skip the borrowing part and "interest"and just create it.
It's exactly what we do now, just eliminate two costly steps of gargantuan middlemen skimmers in the picture, the fed and smaller private bank "loans" that are currently allowed via fractional reserve "loaning". We also would eliminate the tax on people and businesses, allow the economy to expand with all the money, not just part of it. The only check needed to keep it under control is to not over inflate the total supply in circulation, just keep it in line with true indexes that represent the actual growth in business productivity.
This is the simple version, but it's an easy to understand concept. What is not easy to understand is why we put up with this convulted mess of a tax system that only goes for command and control of the population and for subsidising a few select private people for generations now.
"The market wanted personal computers, with an operating system that was readily available and ran on commodity hardware. He provided half of that equation." Other than some sort of sweetheart deal, I never understood why IBM chose MSDOS over CPM/86. CPM was far more versatile and powerful than MSDOS. Example: You could do a true wildcard search (*file*name.*) with CPM, but not with MSDOS. I guess Digital Research didn't know how to grease skids or who to blow.
Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
If the fine citizens of Washington state don't want evil ol' Microsoft around anymore, we'd be happy to have them move here. Of course so would 48 other states.
Your example has one huge misleading item in it.
The percentage of their income that 'Rich Boy' and 'Poor Boy' pay for their cars.
In your example, 'Rich Boy' pays $60k for the car and $3k for tax, which you say is 1%. That means that he earns $300k/yr, and just spent 20% of his annual income on a vehicle. So he pays 20% on the vehicle and 1% in taxes.
For 'Poor Boy', he's paying $20k on his car and $1k in taxes, which you say is 5% of his income. That means he earns $20k/yr, and just spent 100% of his annual income on a vehicle. No wonder he's poor.
If he spent the same percentage of his income on his vehicle (20%) that 'Rich Boy' did (which would be $4k) he'd be paying the same 1% of his income to taxes that 'Rich Boy' did.
Nathan Brazil?
I ENJOY paying my taxes...thats right ENJOY. I'm proud to pay my taxes because I enjoy driving on roads. I like that my kids go to a nice school. I'm also proud to help my community. These people that try to avoid taxes at all costs are very sickening to me. It seems like these people want to enjoy life in america, just so long as someone else pays for it.
I just tried to play that monkeyboy thing on my patched Win2k machine here, and Media Player wouldn't touch it. Just didn't play, full stop. Tried several versions, renaming the file, nothing. Ran it through winamp, ran without a hitch. And I don't think its a codec issue either, folks.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
Afrosheen,
:) Imitation is another form of flattery. :)
Just like you prefer linux and macosx, some of us geeks like to get real work done on winxp. Properly configured, XP is as stable as linux and macosx. You have to remember that linux does not give root access by default to users, whereas XP does. Simply changing user rights in XP to limited, and 99.9999% of spyware and various baddies can't run, install, or change the registry. Would you run in lunux/macosx as root mode all the time?
You are right, we like choice, and I have tried various linux distros and always find my way back to XP because of ease of use, driver support from most vendors, standardized OS, standardized control panel, standardized uninstall panel, standardized device manager, tons of great games and business software, standardized gui, and most important,lots and lots of great freeware apps.
Not all of us enjoy working with command line modes or recompiling apps just to make it work on a distro. Mac OSX took a kernel and made a great UI for it, it is now a great platform for developers.
And funny how linux distros are looking more and more like windows
Doe the author refer to the same Google that cut its income taxes nearly in half by re-incorporating in Delaware in 2002?
Apparently no one's noticed that 90% of banks (particularly credit card issuers) are incorporated in Deleware. There's no reaon for this, other than Deleware's very relaxed banking coporation tax laws. More than microsoft's guilty of this... and can you blaim them? I can rattle off more than one bank whose headquarters is a small 1 story building in DE.
IBM is creating almost 20,000 jobs this year and has a booming intellectual property business, fuelled by the record 3000 patents granted yearly to Bug Blue.Yet, IBM is developping a large number of open source projects.
So the gorilla's logic is flawed.
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
M$ Windows is an INDENSPENSIBLE product on PCs. M$ worked on making it that for years. (Don't get me started on how.)
...)
They can relocate their headquarters and 'production' facilities ANYWHERE on this planet that gives them an advantage.
Just wait 'til Gates find out how beautiful life can be on a small island (Pitcairn's maybe) and then we can all be fucked paying thge M$ tax while they pay NONE of their own.
Its because of the hegemonic impedence mismatch between the a geographically bounded nation state and the boundaryless multi-national.
If the 'country' that a multi-national finds itself in does anything to cost it anything, it can MOVE. And the multi-national can do so with astonishing ease.
They're now arguing whether China is being humane in shooting copyright violators, not the shooting but whether using bullets is humane. Killing people for ripping copies of "The Captain and Tenille" or some other ephemera.
Multi-nationals should be out-lawed (not likely to happen, they can buy the whores in Washington, or Ottawa, or Mexico City, or Moskva or
OR they should be met by a uniform code of international laws which erases the relative advantages (same comment as above,)
OR we, the citizens, should be given universality of hegemony (regardless of where you live on the planet, you can choose who's national rules you live by. [If you own shares in, or work for a company that opted to establish somewhere with no taxes, but as a consequence has no health care at all, YOU don't have health care at all.])
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
http://www.frogstar.com/pics/pics.comp/y_m_frogsta r_micros2.jpg
While following one of the threads in this story, the QOTD at the bottom of the page showed up as:
You have an unusual equipment for success. Be sure to use it properly.
I looked at the picture, but didn't see him. He must be invisible!
as long as the general public stays computer/ internet illiterate, microsoft is happy! this never has been or never will be a problem. let's just hope the dmv doesn't make us use a computer to take our driving test, it would however put a stop to traffic jams. the only people that would be driving would be the computer literate.
It's interesting that the article both slams MSFT for cutting back on employee benefits while blaming its flat stock price on poor execution. Letting expenses get out of line is a big part of execution. As MSFT's stock has been flat, I think you will indeed begin to see them focus much more on operational efficiencies to reduce costs and drive profits. Some employees may in fact benefit from this as they are large stock holders (if the stock goes up, it may outweigh the loss in benefits). Others (especially any laid off) could certainly end up worse off.
I'm also puzzled by the article citing Merck as a great company because of its committment to principles. Once the world's largest pharmaceutical company, Merck now a mid-tier play and slipping. With the removal of Vioxx from the market, the pending patent expiration on Zocor, and a comparatively weak pipeline, a number of analysts are questioning the company's ability to survive as an independent. I certainly applaud Merck's forthright recall of Vioxx and comittment to patient safety. But their policies have not kept them at the top of the pharmaceutical heap.
Google is also praised, despite the fact that it appears to be cooperating with the Chinese government in censoring the Internet and has set up a two tier owernship structure that gives the founders complete control despite a much lower ownership percentage (Google recently got very poor marks overall for corporate governance). (Having said that, I love Google!)
Gates will run for presidency and his first law will be prohibition of free software and other non-micro$oft software.
Microsoft's use of Nevada corporations to avoid approximately $327 million in Washington state taxes while telling voters they need to pay more to fund education
Since when are corporations supposed to fund education?
How about the corporations keep what they earn, and people pay for things as they need them?
It seems like a scam, for the state to tax everyone as much as it wants to pay for an education in a non-competitive market - if you send your kids to private school, you've still got to pay taxes to pay for the public schools you didn't want your kids to go to in the first place. No government has ever done a very good job trying to run schools, so why is Washington even in this business?
Crazy.
Linux: The Next Airbus
Gotta love that line
Before you complain too much about Microsoft setting up shop in various states to get a better tax deal, think about this ...
When MS was fighting hard against the government a few years ago, when it looked like they might be forced to split up into several smaller companies, they had a plan to avoid it.
Microsoft had quietly purchased a huge piece of land in the suburbs of Vancouver BC. They were silently in talks with the Government of BC to set the ground work for the move if it became necessary.
They were prepared to say to hell with your damn country entirely, taking 10's of thousands of jobs to Canada, and thereby taking away many billions of tax dollars from your governments.
Surprise surprise, your government decided not to split them up, to keep the jobs and tax money.
So stop your complaining about how they legally use your own system to avoid a mere 0.3billion in taxes through Nevada.
You could have lost far far more.
If you want to complain about wasting tax money, look at the $200 BILLION wasted on Iraq, where there never were WMD's, where the true cause of 911 never set foot.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
As a Washington resident, I might remind those who equate Democrat with good and Republican with evil that this state with its dreadfully regressive business and sales taxes, no income tax, and massive subsidies for giant corporations is mostly Democratic. Our governor is a Democrat, as are both our US senators, and it is assumed that the state will go for Kerry in November. In part this is because our not-too-bright left concentrates on multiplying regulations (especially environmental/land use). That makes the state (especially King County where Boeing and Microsoft are located) so business-hostile that the legislature is forced to give massive tax breaks in an attempt to keep them here. Those same regulations also give us some of the highest home prices in the country, which also deters business investment.
Seattle, which dominates the state politically, has never been very bright. When we had forty-eight states, there was an expression: "There are 47 states and the Soviet of Washington." When you think of just how dreadful the Soviet Union was (especially under Stalin when that remark was common), you get a taste of just how much sense many of my neighbors have. They have no problem voting for Kerry, who is still proud of his early political activism that helped to turn Vietnam into a repressive police state so terrible over a million people fled the country. And amazingly, all that moral blindness is linked to an incredible smugness and sense of superiority.
Those of us not caught up in this perversity have to be thankful for the little things. My representative in the US House, Jim McDermott may have gone to Bagdad to kiss up to Saddam before the war, but at least the city council didn't proclaim Saddam's Bagdad a "sister city."
--Mike Perry, Inkling blog , Seattle
All I meant by the original comment is that if voters pay no "taxes" (that they notice) what incentive do they have to vote for fiscally responsible representitives?
I am self employed, and pay big, fat quarterly taxes that are MUCH more obvious than any W-2 job I ever had (although I was never un-aware of what I was paying, it just wasn't as painful).
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
I've heard of shifting profits overseas to avoid US federal taxes, but hadn't heard of this interesting state shifting for tax purposes.
It's the free market at work - increase revenue and reduce expenses by whatever means are possible. You can't fault businesses for neglecting their fiduciary responsibilities in this matter.
Incorporate in Delaware, get your ship registered in Liberia or Panama, get taxed in the Bahamas, get revenue from sales in the US or EU.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
What happend to the part of the libertarian credo where free markets where supposed to increase the wants of its participants, not their profits?.
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
Let's say that "rich boy" and "poor boy" live the same distance from work, with a similiar house, and the same size family.
There are just fixed costs in life that don't scale down. If one makes 10x less than someone else there reaches a point where you can't say "well, you should spend 10x less on food, or 10x less on medical care". IT DOESN'T SCALE DOWN!!
I love capitalism and I don't want to live in a socialist country, but at the same time I'm not a market fundamentalist.
Capitalism may ensure efficient distribution of capital (assuming it's not being manipulated by the powers that be), but it doesn't ensure everyone eats or everyone gets an education (even if they have potential).
There is a balance, my friends.
A speech...
...but at some point it's time to give back to society.
High taxes for the rich basicly give them they choice of how to give back to the comunity, by donation or by hiring more or paying more or whatever, so they still have their own choice as to how to do this.
Less look fast, more go fast.
I do agree with you that there are expenses that are somewhat fixed. If they both have a prescription for some drug, 'poor boy' can't take 33% as much as the rich guy; the pharmacy cannot charge them different prices. Food prices? If necessary, it's possible to buy plenty of food fairly cheap.
The problem I see is that everybody thinks that poor people should have the same posessions and experiences as rich people. I'm not going on a Australian vacation because I don't have as much money as other people. I don't eat out every night because I don't have enough money. I blame that on my lack of hard work (I'm here posting on slashdot instead of earning money) and not regressive taxes.
For the most part, prices of things necessary to living DO scale down. I could get by on a vehicle that cost 25% as much as the one I currently have (and my current vechicle is nothing fancy, a '92 GMC Sonoma). I could easily cut my food budget by 50% and still eat healthier than I do now. I could reduce my rent by 75% and still have a perfectly good place to live. And if you cut my income by 75%, I would not be paying any income taxes at all.
In summary, you are right that there are some fixed costs that you can't scale down, however almost all do scale well enough that most of the people who complain about the taxes being 'regressive' would need only scale back their unnecessary purchases. Dining out, big-screen TVs, fancy cars and cable TV are a few prime examples. Purchases like those are (in my opinion, of course) the real reason those without money in the US tend to stay without money. And before anybody gets all worked up about it, there ARE those who do scrimp and save and don't or can't make it on their own.
Yes, the US Government is unfair to some. But the vast majority gets what they pay for, no more, no less.
Nathan Brazil?