The IRS Hits Symantec with a $1 Billion Tax Bill

GnoWay writes "Macworld is reporting that the IRS has charged Symantec Corporation with about a 900 million dollar tax bill due to the charge that Symantec and Veritas (purchased by Symantec last year) under-reported the value of intellectual property which they had transferred to their two Irish subsidiaries. Another $100 million is connected to Symantec's 2003 and 2004 reports."

Comments

Learn from this...

[infinite9]

I used to work for veritas and got out shortly after the buyout. Veritas was a cool place to work. And when symantec took over, they sent out this 1/4" thick book full of management-speak. It was unreal. "What is winning?" "We believe in unity." "Our customers trust us to lead the way." After all of this, they listed the names of every employee from either company. Then they had a company-wide conference call with the new ceo. They had "questions from employees" dolled out by a pretty-sounding secretary type. One of the questions was "what can I do to be a better employee?" "You know, I'm being asked that all the time..." I nearly vomited. Ahead of their exit interview, they send you this questionaire to fill out planning to go ever it with you later. After I sent it back to them, they didn't want to have an exit interview anymore... something about how the ceo on the conference call sounded like a lord trying to placate the serfs. :-) I still have the book as a joke, and as a reminder of why, yet again, I've become a consultant and vow never again to be a wage-slave. I shudder to think about what it costs to print up 20,000 of these shiny black books. If they were trying to buy my loyalty with bull-shit management wrapped in a shiny package, they would have bought more loyalty by simply sending me a check for the printing cost of my little book.

I hear their stock has dropped by 1/3 since the buyout. I'm glad I didn't hang around for the stock options.

Re:No

[voice_of_all_reason]

It will be tied up in Tax Court (where corporations appeal decisions like this) for years.

Fixed.

(we peons simply go to directly pound-me-in-the-ass-prison -- do not pass go, do not collect dropped soap)

Re:Nothing New About Tax Evasion& Creative Acc

[qbzzt]

Without the loopholes, the IRS tax guide would have exactly 3 pages: the front page, the tax formula, and the back page.

Not exactly. How do you define income? In other words, what is a business expense (I bought a widget for $15 and sold it for $25, so I made $10), and what isn't (I bought a widget for $15 and lunch for $5, then sold the widget for $25 - I still made $10)? What if I bought lunch to find widget buyers in the restaurant?

The whole concept of taxing income is flawed because income is abstract. It can be manipulated in multiple ways. It would be better to tax something tangible like property or sales - but that would lose politicians their power to play with the tax code to the benefit of their backers.