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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."
Ohhh! Ohhh! I got an idea too. What if the majority of my revenue comes from another state since were are talking about state INCOME tax and where my LABOR comes from can have nothing to do where I make my money. But wait, what if I have multiple businesses, all of whom who have labor in every state, and I need one jurisdiction to deal with all possible legal challenges to contracts. That's when I incorporate in Deleware because the Delware Chancery Courts are the default Supreme Court for business law in the country. No, you cannot expect anyone to incorporate in just any state based upon the parameter that suits your purpose at the time. You have to either create consistentcy in US law or you have to deal with situations such as this.
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.
So I don't have to sign an EULA and a two-year service agreement to use a road to drive the store.
Why should the *government* hire teachers?
To keep everone else's kids out of trouble and off my lawn.
Why should the *government* hire firefighters?
So I don't have to find my credit card before I can get somebody to rescue my family from a burning building.
Why should the *government* give disabled people money?
So I don't have to trip over them on the sidewalk and in stairwells as if I was Charlton Heston in Soylent Green.
Since you're the one who doesn't seem to need anybody else, why don't you head for the border.
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.
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.