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Ballmer Threatens To Pull Out of the US
theodp writes "Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is threatening to move Microsoft employees offshore if Congress enacts President Obama's plans to curb tax avoidance by US corporations. 'It makes US jobs more expensive,' complained billionaire Ballmer. 'We're better off taking lots of people and moving them out of the US as opposed to keeping them inside the US.' According to 2006 reports, Microsoft transferred $16 billion in assets to secretive Dublin subsidiaries to shave billions off its US tax bill. 'Corporate tax is part of the overall advantage of doing business in Ireland,' acknowledged Ballmer in 2005. 'It would be disingenuous to say otherwise.'"
corporations corporations corporations corporations corporations corporations corporations corporations corporations...
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And I'm threatening to move to Linux.
If they go out of US, to who M$ will complain to prevent unlicensed use of Windows?
EU is much more user oriented then US.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
He admits they transferred resources to Ireland to avoid taxes and then whines that if they go after that, he'll leave...WTF?!?!?
All I can say is 'so long Monkey Boy'
Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.
Too bad Ballmer's father didn't pull out.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Don't tease me like that unless you really mean it.
I live in Ireland. Should I be worried about flying chairs now?
It's just like moving rack mounted servers offshore. Just box them, ship them, and install in the new offices.
It's my assumption that while making the threat he was sweating profusely.
I don't believe Ballmer has the ballmers to move the whole company out of the U.S., much less trade his life in the Emerald City for the Emerald Isle.
But I do believe he has a point about seeking out the lowest cost of business, and if it comes down to it, I wouldn't be surprised to see Microsoft move all accounts receivabo to a tax haven and just keep cost centers in the U.S.
Take a look at what they've already done. They have already set up development centers in low labor cost countries like India and China. Moving more of those jobs out of the U.S. would just be a natural progression in the quest for lower costs. The worst part of this is that as time goes by the developers in those up and coming countries are getting just as good as their American counterparts. At some point we're looking at a hiring crisis here in America.
We're facing a 16 year educational depression as the currently undereducated kids gets graduates and makes way for a new generation educated satisfactorily. Naturally, this begs the question, but I think Obama is the guy to make the right changes to the DOE.
While it is a requirement of a corporation to maximize the shareholders' value, Ballmer is simply grandstanding and expecting the government to roll over for MS' benefit. The current administration is much less submissive to corporate political desires.
The Administration should VERY publicly call them out and recommend government offices immediately develop a schedule for converting as much of the IT infrastructure as possible away from MS software.
First off, it just isn't a very good idea to start going tit-for-tat with the US government. That's especially true for a convicted monopolist, not to mention the fact that the previous administration essentially cancelled anything so severe as even a wrist-slap.
That judgement could be re-examined.
Second, that's just a really patriotic, really American thing to do. Or does it mean that patriotism is defined one way for corporations and their heads, and another way for "merely working Americans"? For one of the most profitable corporations in US history to in all essence say, "I don't want to pay my fair share, I'm taking the rest of the American jobs overseas," is a real slap in the face. It's also not as if this is meant to be a tax increase, it's meant to be eliminating a tax shelter. For you and me, using such a tax shelter would be cheating, avoiding doing our fair share.
Third, I'm sure "Vista for the US Army" isn't a done deal. Also don't forget, Linus Torvalds is a US resident, and I'm sure *he* pays his income taxes, as do the various US-residing RedHat, Novell, etc, employees.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
That sounds great. I suggest moving them about 100 miles offshore, and then dropping them. It should make a satisfying splash sound. Then comes the thrashing, and the drowning, and the bubbles.
On a more serious note, just how many employees do they think are going to pick up and leave Washington for Ireland? Was this their plan all along? I guess the climates are compatible...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Greed.....just as old as prostitution, war and slavery.
Personally, I'm surprised MS hasn't moved out already. Not to mention plenty of other greedy corporations like the one that I work for. More and more, I'm beginning to think that it's time to get out of IT. The "bottom line" is all these fuckers truly care about. All I know is that karma will eventually catch up to them.
"Klaatu, verada, necktie!" -Ash
Depends on the market. In the case of Microsoft software, the consumers don't pay the tax. Microsoft's main titles (Windows & Office) are both mostly market monopolies, which means that the price is set based on how much people are willing to pay for the software. The price is set based only on the contrast between number of sales and price per sale to optimize for maximum product.
In cases like this, the industry ends up paying the taxes. While the monopoly company has less funds to develop improvement in the software, users of the software receive less functionality. Software developers and domestic employees are hurt the most, having less employer competition due to work being outsourced.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
I assume that you pay more in taxes than you have to, or else you are a criminal?
Moving operations to the lowest cost location is not illegal. Also, it is inevitable. Even if MS doesn't do it, someone will form a software company offshore that costs less to operate. Over the long term, this new company will take business from MS, making the end result the exact same.
Try as you and Lou Dobbs might, you can't stop the free market. Wealth and employment will eventually move to the most business friendly locations.
Microsoft: exploits loopholes in law to avoid paying corporate taxes.
People: exploit loopholes in Windows activation to avoid paying for a license.
The sad thing is that this is all Microsoft has become. Microsoft won't leave the US. For one thing there's a lot more to running a business than a freaking tax shelter. This is just another instance of Balmer blowing smoke. It's really a large portion of how he tries to exert influence.
I think Balmer is going to soon learn this is simply NOT the time to start drawing lines in the sand between greedy corporations and everyone else. Public opinion of Microsoft DOES matter, and painting your corporation as a bunch of dickweeds that'll just up and leave over some legislation is just idiotic.
AccountKiller
Individuals don't pay tax. Not really. We pass that tax to our employers by charging higher salaries. Can I get a free ride now just like a corporation??
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
On the other hand, Steve himself is a good candidate for the title "America's Asshole". I'm all for anyone with financial clout standing up to Obama and congress, but the enemy of my enemy is not automatically my friend.
Insightful and funny are really the same thing, except one has a punch line.
It makes you wonder if they are happy enough to pay their EU fines without to much fuss and threatening to move there EU based developments back to the US how much tax dodging are they doing?
Yeah, and then it goes right back out to the government to make up for the lost taxes from MS. Good thinking, son.
Steve, please do it. And better still, please keep telling everyone you're going to do it. You know what, how about starting a blog and telling everyone exactly how you think the American public and the world at large should make life better for the M$ shareholders.
Please, we want to know.
Not true.
Companies are constrained from passing on the full value of their tax to their customers by the price elasticity of demand for their product. Which in turn depends on the how much their customers need their product (can they put off buying them or do without, do they yearn for it?) and the availability of substitute products and the degree to which those substitute products are suitable (Linux and Mac OS X are pretty good, as is OpenOffice).
If he could pass on the full cost to his customers Ballmer wouldn't care about a tax increase.
MS will never do it. American is their biggest friendliest market. Just look at the 360, outside of the US, it's pretty much a non-event and part of me think's America's love for MS has to do with patriotism.
MS does not have the balls to piss off their largest group of consumers and if they did, the government and turn around and start using a Linux distro developed by Americans (they should be doing this anyway) and MS will not go for that. They'd lose far more than they would by Obama fixing the tax loopholes.
So he can make empty threats all he wants. The gov should just tell him to fuck off to Ireland.
Sounds familiar. Nokia threatened to leave Finland unless they get the right to spy on their employees. The law (named "Lex Nokia" by the media) was passed on March 11th and became effective beginning this month.
Ballmer's statement is simply the truth for a whole lot of industries. Supposedly, the fabric for your Levi's jeans is shipped to China to be cut into parts and then shipped back to the USA for sewing together. The LCD TV you buy from Sharp isn't really a constructed TV until the plastic bezel is snapped on here in the USA. All of this is done so that companies can avoid taxes. Companies are in business to provide a return on their shareholders' investment. Wall Street doesn't care if the profit margin went down because the government changed the tax laws. Investors will find some other company to invest their money. Adapting to the rules governments' place on them is part of doing business. IMO, this really isn't any different than when we 'forget' to pay the sales tax on stuff we bought from out-of-state. We all work the system to the extent that we can. I think this is just another example of the disconnect between the government and the real world. Seems to me the optimal solution would be to change the tax law so that these companies tax burden matches what they are achieving using these offshore loopholes and then eliminate the loopholes. That might encourage the companies to bring the jobs and profit back the the USA. We certainly could use the jobs right now.
(face | fact | fall | farm | fear | fire | fish | flag | flat | fold | food | foot | fork | form | fowl | free | from | full) yeah!
Next time, just say 'fuck'.
Right; most taxes are based on transfers of capital. There's no fundamental difference between a tax on a corporation / income tax or sales tax. The money has moved from control of one (legal) person to another. Also the grandparent is assuming that companies charge for their products according to their costs which is garbage. They charge according to what they can charge. If MS starts paying fair taxes and increases product costs to cover it, that would give linux distribution builders who have to pay full income tax a more fair chance in the market.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Ya know, just because some corporation skips out of town to save a buck doesn't mean it's a good thing or even the proper thing to do. It just means that they're making more money at the expense of the country that allowed them to get so big in the first place. Capitalism has flaws and that is one of them. I don't really understand your sentiment. Looks good on paper, smells like crap in practice. People should trust their noses.
Companies don't pay for routers. Not really. They just pass those costs to their customers. Ultimately, it is the consumer that pays for routers.
Statements like this are true, but irrelevant.
You know, cause the Republicans and George W Bush are evil.
Or it might be because 30 years of supply-side greedfest has destroyed our economy... One of the two. Yeah, it's probably because they're evil though, because slashdotters are too stupid to notice something like economics but we all consult our priests and/or crystal balls daily.
Nid ad hominem though, I really felt part of a group there for a second.
And ones one start to think about it that way (moving money), one start to wonder about the validity of "wealth cration"...
Especially as more and more physical production is automated to the point where things can run 24/7 as long as the base materials and energy needs are fulfilled.
And then one may find a insight into why the governments are buying the idea of "intellectual property". If a nation cant monopolize the means of physical production, how about it monopolize the means of intellectual production? If every other industry around the world have to pay your nations companies and people for their ideas, then your basically printing money. Also, as the physical workforce is being reduced, re-school the freed up people into idea producers...
Hmm, matrix scene, only with the rows of pods being mental monkeys hammering on mental idea writers?
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
To begin with, none of the executive team wants to live in any of those countries with super low labor availability. Sure, Western Europe, the UK -- you'll get lots of takers among management and plenty of good managers over there already. Try moving all those lifestyle employees living in the Seattle suburbs to India, Pakistan, Indonesia, or China, and you'll see a very different result.
So, now we're talking about really threatening to move the teams of "developers, developers, developers, developers" off shore. Companies that have tried this before have found that much to their shock, "developers, developers, developers, developers" are not bought and sold as commodities by the pound, but in fact are individuals who have creative ways to solve problems and work best when they can interact with the decision makers to improve the product.
The truth is, only the lowest tier of developer "meat" can be moved easily off-shore and away from the management and executive teams where decisions and management happen. If you ignore that, you get crappy product. You get crappy product because the offshore teams give you EXACTLY what you ask them for, instead of working with you to understand the goal and produce a result that makes more sense.
In summation: "FSCK-OFF" Balmer.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
Seeing that the US is one of the few countries that have Software Patents, Ballmer might want to reconsider. Currently the EU does not have Software Patents, and hopefully never will. Seeing that Microsoft's strategy lately is to patent everything and spread FUD about Linux infringing on it's patent portfolio, threating to move the company outside of the US would mean there would be less of an incentive for the US to maintain it's position on Software Patents.
While making it VERY difficult on companies to hide tax money offshore, at the same time, why don't we cut corportate taxes severely. That way, you attract more businesses back to the US, and there is less reason to try to 'hide' the monies.
Besides, IMHO...corporate tax is useless, it is just a hidden tax on the consumer, since a corporation just passes this off onto the consumer as part of their cost of a product.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
If you have held MSFT over the last 10 years you would have been better off with your money in a savings account.
June 11, 1999 @ $39 to
June 4, 2009 @ $22.14
Other than a little bump in early 2000 at the end of the tech bubble, there is not a year in the last 10 where you would have been better off holding your MSFT rather than selling.
Maybe they (and most corporations) should spend less time trying to game the tax system or the H1A system or screwing around with politics and spend a little more time trying to make a decent product. That is the ONLY thing that can increase shareholder value in the long term. And those greedy, greedy shareholders should demand it...
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
try this shit...import tariffs and taxes.
less protection under ancient us copyright laws it thrives on to maintain closed source monopoly
.less relevance and access to the us legal courts to sue and harass competitors
buying your american competitors becomes difficult.
Good people go to bed earlier.
I thought Microsoft was in Washington state.
Trying to live beyond our means (collectively via the federal debt and the congress/white house orgy of spending and individually with credit card debt, mortgage debt, house speculation, buying cheap chinese shit, etc) has destroyed our economy.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Sveral comments:
- Ballmer sounds like an unpatriotic ass. Perhaps /I'm wrong and he's a really nice guy, but not in this article. He's turning his back on the country that gave Ballmer opportunity to be where he is today. Industrialist Carnegie came from Scotland and loved the U.S., and maintained loyalty until his death. He would have never entertained the idea of moving factories to China for cheap labor.
- Raising corporat taxes doesn't affect the consumer as badly as you believe. Yes some prices get raised, but increased taxation also leads to more cuts internally like plastic desks instead of mahogany, fewer free trips to Vegas, snd so on.
- If California's standard of living drops, then wages will drop, and eventually the factories will move back here because WE will be the cheaper labor than the Chinese.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
The U.S. is becoming increasingly hostile toward business. I certainly wouldn't blame Microsoft, Google, Intel or any big company for leaving the U.S. if they can find a country that does not view them as a cash cow, does not attack them with anti-trust, and does not punish their energy-use with cap and trade.
A smart country could displace the U.S. as the economic leader in the world by recognizing and protecting the liberties required for individuals and companies to survive and prosper. If there were a country with minimal tax, strong protection from the government, freedom to think and act - I know I would move there.
Thank you! Why is it that corporations who want to keep the money they earned by selling products and services are evil and greedy, but the government wanting to take more and more of that money is perfectly fine? What makes government more entitled to that money than the person or entity that earned it? You can hate and bash MS or any company for thinking of offshoring jobs to save money, but what about rethinking our punitive tax policy?
I saw it on Slashdot, it must be true!
He has an obligation to the shareholders to not be "patriotic", but instead to maximise the value of the company. He could be sued in to the ground if he didn't.
Infinite time means everything that can happen, will. You being you is absolutely incidental. You do not exist.
You already have the cheaper labor. They're called Mexicans. The more businesses that move out of California the more the state turns into a third world country or an extension of Mexico. LA is kind of like Mexico's ballsack if you think about it. That state is done.
I agree with the notion that corporate taxes are not necessarily passed on as it it post expense money that is taxed. They get to right off the development and production costs as it is, so it is only the money that reaches the corporations pockets that are taxed.
It may be prudent to scale these back - so long as you simultaneously put in place capital gains taxes and adequate taxes on dividends to compensate for this. Also, I don't buy the double taxation bit. Corporations provide protection to the investors and to some degree employees and board members against crimes of the corporation. If they are to be treated as separate entities, than they should do their part in maintaining the governments expenses.
As to dropping wages in california as a response to unemployment - minimum wage is $8 - federal min wage is $6.55. The best min wage you can get ni china is comperable to 60c per hour. Competition does not apply.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S.A._minimum_wages
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_law
When all else fails, try.
If MS feels that the taxes associated with doing business in the US are a hindrance, they have failed to consider that the US government might actually "value" those taxes.
That is to say, if MS becomes a foreign company whose retail products are being imported, expect the US government to set up tariffs on software imports. Expect those tariffs to draw substantially more revenue for the government than the present corporate income tax draws. Consequently, expect the net impact on the MS bottom line to go down, and go down further as the cost advantage they now enjoy over their principal competitor (Apple) evaporates, and as the security-minded DOD switches all of their computers to a US-made operating system such as Snow Leopard or a custom system from Sun, costing them an enormous contract.
I don't see how this would be a good move for Microsoft, but honestly, it would be exemplary of a larger trend: that short sighted "I only want to good parts" thinking is motivating US corporations to move most of their operations abroad to save money by avoiding US laws- such as, minimum wage and human rights standards, environmental standards, and taxation. For a few months or years, the profits of these companies SKYROCKET as their costs evaporate, but, keeping retail prices constant, they continue to sustain revenues. Until, that is, enough companies follow suit. When the US marketplace collapses due to the decimation of its labor (and thus, spending) base, there will be nobody left to sell products to- and the government begins to bleed out, as expenditures escalate on human services to mitigate unemployment, while revenues tank due to dropping taxes on all fronts.
In this move, Ballmer has stated his values. Specifically, he does not feel adequately patriotic to even want to pay his taxes, and he cares more for his stock value than for the value of the economy his products "serve".
If Microsoft leaves, let them. I will contentedly go on not buying their products, and smugly advise anyone (in the US) who cares about their country to buy an Apple product instead, which is at least designed in (and pays taxes to) America, or for that matter a product from an originally European or Asian company which at least has chosen to support its homeland.
By the way, if they were talking about "Moving to India so that we can save money on labor and taxes while simultaneously bettering the lives of our future employees there", which they are not, I would ironically be less opposed. But this is just about shouting a big "screw you" to the country that bred them.
"Besides, IMHO...corporate tax is useless, it is just a hidden tax on the consumer, since a corporation just passes this off onto the consumer as part
of their cost of a product."
Why does this ridiculous soundbite keep getting regurgitated *every single time* this topic comes up?
If corporations don't pay tax as so many Internet corporate lick-spittles shriek, then they wouldn't need ridiculously twisted foreign tax accounts and be prancing around like sooks when someone comes along and tells them to meet their obligations in their home countries would they? They would just happily pass this tax burden it along.
That's right logic doesn't come into a discussion where fanatical ideologists are hopping up and down does it?
Second the same argument could be made for *anyone* who runs a business. "Small business owners don't pay personal income or sales tax, they just pass it along in the price of the goods & services their business sells, so they shouldn't be taxed".
The whole "argument" completely ignores competition, elasticity and old fashioned out of date sneered at "patriotism".
Good god.
The worst thing about it all, is you all point to Ireland as some sort of bastion of economic freedom and some sort of idol, completely ignoring the fact that Ireland has been hit harder than *any* other country since the depression due to it's low tax rates and lax corporate regulations and now has a debt of 800% of GDP and all the multinationals that used and abused her are now running back to their safe secure and regulated home countries post haste!
But yeah, the US should definitely aspire to be more like Ireland or Poland or fucking "Mumbai" as some tool below puts it. What a great idea.
"Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak........."
I'll say...
Okay, you decide it's too expensive to continue to pay American taxes, that's fine.
BTW, we've decided it's too expensive to continue to enforce your copyright on Windows.
Moderators: Before moderating a comment Insightful/Informative, check to see if a child post has already refuted it.
FACT of the matter (and it is a FACT), is that the U.S. has the second highest corporate tax rate in the world. It's no surprise that companies choose to do business elsewhere
Oh, i love guys like you.
The Fact is that while USA has the second highest corporate tax rates, an abolition of CIT (corporate income tax) and replacing it with VAT will increase additional investment only by 1.5% (source: NBER )
while it increases corporate cash flow by $5.2 Billion. And that is in 1969 dollars.
The FACT, as you love to put it is that Federal corporate tax has decreased steadily from 52% in 1955 to 30% in 1967 only to rise up to 33.8% in 1968 (in response to Vietnam) and dropped to 28% in 1977 and again to rise and fall to 16% in 1984 (the begining of the Reagan Era of freedom and corporate irresponsibility).
And no, am NOT quoting these stats from my a$$. You can check it up at NBER.
So you were sayin???
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
The thing that makes him sound unpatriotic is the wording of the summary. They chose to make it about him avoiding efforts to "curb tax avoidance," instead of being about him "avoiding extremely high US taxes." I'm not saying he is patriotic, just to be aware that either viewpoint is just an opinion in disguise, not a fact.
Currently hooked on AMP
Microsoft are everywhere, but you are right, Redmond, Washington, at least last time I checked.
And the important thing here is to try to ignore the people that comes with such threats because they are short-lived and it costs a lot of money to move an operation.
Another issue is that to find a place with a low tax pressure he will have to look into some really strange places - where people not really want to live anyway. Almost every country have taxes, they are just applied in different ways.
So I would just check in on Ballmer and say STFU.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
If there were a country with minimal tax, strong protection from the government, freedom to think and act - I know I would move there.
Better start packing then. This place is a Republican wet dream come true. Minimal taxes, practically no government, and a free market economy! Check out their site for tourists!
And, perhaps more serious, if those companies were to be protected and forced to do things by government production would become increasingly inefficient, since the incentive for efficiency would have been taken away. Inefficiency means that less money is available for the state/country/world as a whole.
The problem with that is what it leads to. Keeping a human alive is not free. Less efficiency means less money available as a whole, and as every developing country illustrates, politicians still steal enough money for 5 mercedesses and a private jet (you see sacrifices and policies only apply to others, don't they Nancy "less co2 ! everyone save ! where's my jet ?" Pelosi ?)
The end result of not letting companies move, not allowing for free trade, and "protecting" those poor (but eating) unemployed, is a whole lot more people starving to death.
If you feel that way, you should read up on it. If it's useless it's because we've allowed these egregious abuses of loopholes to go on.
The problem is that you can't cut corporate taxes far enough to stop the whining and threats. Corporations are used to being spoiled by fascists and will threaten to leave the country for absolutely any reason. Trade agreements like the WTO just make it worse since free trade undermines the ability of nations to look out for their own interests. As long as countries like China and Japan refuse to play by the same rules as everybody else, we're going to see this sort of thing. Ultimately MS cheats quite a bit and probably ought to be investigated for those fraudulent visas they've been using.
The point of corporate taxes is that if you remove it is that you lose the ability to impact how the corporation does business. You're restricted to out right bans on certain practices rather than influencing the cost curves.
In reality this doesn't work, the idea that "as the physical workforce is being reduced, re-school the freed up people into idea producers..."
The reasons are sad, but ultimately, my experience working with all manners of the mythical "poor people in America" (they actually do exist) shows them.
First, you can't just expect people to go from "physical workforce" to "idea producers" because you tell them to. Unfortunately, not everyone is creative. Not everyone is intelligent. Similarly, not everyone is strong or has manual dexterity. Some people are very well suited to chopping down trees, digging holes, and assembling circuit boards. Other people are very well suited to inventing things, drafting documents, making things pretty, and directing/managing. Some people are good at both categories, and choose the one that they prefer, in places where they have the choice. But it is not true that MOST people are well suited to idea work. Many, but not most.
Second, you can't assume that Americans naturally make for better "idea producers" than Chinese etc- if you try to set up America as a country of designers and managers, while having other portions of the world simply be the labor force, you (ie, corporate America) are attempting to set up a global caste system. Very dangerous. Yet, even then, there would remain jobs which must be performed physically and locally. Janitor. Pavement repairer. McDonalds cook. Chef. Doctor. If you set up an economy where "most people" are "supposed to be" concept workers, then you are conveying the social message that other work is inferior, and thus, other workers are inferior. Not a good message for a government, of all groups, to promulgate.
Additionally, consider that, even if they are capable of it, many people would despise office-type work. Myself, I am bound to it by ability (err, by lack of physical ability otherwise) but, especially working with the physically disabled, I meet people all the time who would rather starve to death than work in an office- they would rather build things or chop down trees. Many people feel that they haven't worked if their muscles don't feel it at the end of the day, and in fact, my father, being one of those people, actually looked down on people who worked with paper and computers.
When I googled ' "corporate tax rates", usa, graph ' I, too, got the Wikipedia that makes it look like the USA has very high corporate tax rates:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rates_around_the_world
But I also got this link, a discussion of statutory tax rates, vs effective tax rates (after all the deductions and other tax reliefs had been subtracted): http://seekingalpha.com/article/92485-statutory-vs-effective-tax-rates ...which concludes that "the US is a corporate tax haven". That may be going a little overboard the other way, because what I found telling was this comparison of how much of the total tax income of various countries came from corporate tax (the rest from personal incomes taxes, basically):
http://www.oecdobserver.org/news/fullstory.php/aid/2229/Corporate_tax_warning.html ...which shows the US to be about median for developed countries. (Looks like Germany is the real tax haven.)
By the way, terrific comedy about how if Microsoft won't move, somebody else will start up a company with maybe over 10 percent monetary advantage due to lower taxes elsewhere, and thereby out-compete MS from the market. "...you can't stop the free market". Dude, the entire anti-trust action was about how Microsoft is no longer subject to the free market. Hell, you can produce superior products and give them away for FREE and not out-compete Microsoft. So some little tax break isn't going to make a tiny bit of difference to their market share.
Microsoft probably wouldn't be where it is today if it had started in another country. They got access to a large, young, very educated workforce and were able to sell to the world's largest government and corporations as a local, patriotic choice. Try, just try, selling the US military in particular, any foreign-based product. Alas, it takes a lot of tax money to support that that large government, that huge, well-funded military, provide the schools and superhighways that train and transport that smart workforce. People who imagine taxes as a national drain rather than a national investment (generally by cherry-picking the least-defensible 1% of budget items as pork while ignoring the 99% that goes to very defensible schools, roads, etc) always imagine that the circumstances of their success are some kind of natural resource that was "just there". No, those circumstances were expensively built and expensively maintained, and recently, that's been done with borrowed money, and it's time to pay up.
People like Ballmer, of course, know all this. Ballmer is bluffing. Call him on it.
"What do corporations do with profits? They use them to PAY STAFF, GIVE RAISES, purchase companies, save for bad economies (like the current one??), and return money to investors."
If you think corporations pay staff with profits, why should anyone take you seriously?
Taxation is not patriotic. It is a necessary evil that keeps society functioning smoothly. And now, we get to spend our tax dollars buying up auto makers and financial institutions aside from all the colossal wastes that government can think up.
The purpose of business is to make money. Not to be a patriotic cash funnel that supports governmental pet programs. Keep viewing corporations as ATM machines and they *will* relocate to more desirable locations because there are a lot of countries out there that see the benefits of all the jobs that large companies bring. We seem to have lost sight of that fact. Now watch as companies relocate and the country loses ALL of that tax revenue and ALL of those jobs.
Those in charge in government like to think they "create jobs". No, a government job is not a "good" job, it is a drain on the tax base because it generates no wealth. It only helps the individual at the expense of the rest of us. But when the government makes the business climate desirable, businesses come and create good jobs that help both the individual and the nation by generating wealth that feeds back in the economy. Then the government benefits from that added taxation. Everyone wins.
- Raising corporat taxes doesn't affect the consumer as badly as you believe. Yes some prices get raised, but increased taxation also leads to more cuts internally like plastic desks instead of mahogany, fewer free trips to Vegas, snd so on.
Which in turn depresses the mahogany desk business and Vegas travel business, which causes them to close factories and lay off staff. There is no free lunch, there is no free tax. Right now Vegas is really hurting because people like you think it's really neat to punish businesses that have conventions in Vegas. In the same vein, people who buy heavily-taxed or -regulated goods are choosing not to buy these goods, instead opting to buy something without such hidden added costs -- or opting not to buy at all. If you want to see the results of this, just look at Detroit and how artificially inflated labor rates and benefits (thanks, unions) have made domestic cars expensive, inferior, and unprofitable.
He's turning his back on the country that gave Ballmer opportunity to be where he is today. Industrialist Carnegie came from Scotland and loved the U.S., and maintained loyalty until his death. He would have never entertained the idea of moving factories to China for cheap labor.
And what do you suppose will happen if MS doesn't move? Foreign competition that isn't subject to a crushing corporate tax will then have an advantage over MS. You don't move your labor base because you want to, you do it because if you don't, your competition will. It has nothing to do with greed (a favorite word of the class warfare monger) and everything to do with how the world works in a global labor market.
If California's standard of living drops, then wages will drop, and eventually the factories will move back here because WE will be the cheaper labor than the Chinese.
California's standard of living would have to drop below that of a peasant Chinese factory worker living in a hut with 20 other people before that would happen because that's what labor is like in China. Somehow I don't see that happening.
What could happen -- but won't because people like you refuse to understand basic economics -- is the U.S. government could drastically reduce corporate taxes. If you want see what kind of effects that can have on attracting and keeping new businesses to your country, try here. Corporate taxes were lowered. Businesses flocked to it. Tax reveneues increased because of a larger tax base despite a lower marginal rate. The general standard of living for everyone went up. And you're against this idea?
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Or... You know we could actually have sane tax reform where you simply pay for what you use and you don't have to pay if you don't want to use it... However I don't think we will see that until Obama is out of office
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Slashdot "libertarians" *never* respond to what I call "The Somalia Bomb".
See it interferes with their religion, that there already exists a country already that they define as "paradise" which is just a hell hole doesn't match up with their fairy tale. So don't go upsetting the religious people with facts and reality and the like. It's impolite and they get all riled and carry on about "Rand this" and "barrel of a gun" that for no good reason. Just let them rant, nobody's really listening outside of their echo chamber so it doesn't matter.
"If corporations don't pay tax as so many Internet corporate lick-spittles shriek, then they wouldn't need ridiculously twisted foreign tax accounts and be prancing around like sooks when someone comes along and tells them to meet their obligations in their home countries would they? They would just happily pass this tax burden it along."
Ok, smartass, WHY DO THEY AVOID TAXES?
And the answer is...
Because it increases profits. There, I said it.
Should we allow tax policy to encourage moving profits offshore to avoid taxes and increase profits? Does Microsoft have ANY responsibility to pay their fair (or legal) taxes in the U.S., the country that does, largely, make their success possible? Should we not perhaps have a tax policy that discourages moving jobs offshore merely to avoid taxation? Can we in fact craft a tax policy that does any of this?
Corporations are now pretty much driven by self-interest, in a shortsighted way. Quarterly results, dividends, thwarting competition instead of out-competing, I suppose it was inevitable, but Ballmer's threat to move offshore exposes the culture of 'profit first last and always' at Microsoft.
This culture has resulted in so many industries in the U.S. being moved offshore, most notably to China. Can you buy a single piece of PC hardware that isn't made in China? What does it take to avoid Chinese-manufactured products? Is it ok to send U.S. jobs overseas only to maximize profit?
Ballmer's threat should spur this debate.
Oh, and for what it's worth, if we DID reduce or eliminate corporate taxes, prices probably wouldn't go down - you're right. Greed dictates that corporations take that opportunity to increase profits. Unless one says there is enough price pressure to lower theirs. Then the market starts working again.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I don't think Obama has anything to do with that. I doubt sane taxes will come about until we have some major catastrophe thats a result of our tax system. So microsoft moving over seas would be great, you get a couple hundred other heavy hitters leaving it might generate enough horror that some Change actually occurs.
The Goal: A long simple life filled with many complex toys.
MSFT has undergone two two-for-one stock splits in that period. That means that if you had bought one $39 share in 1999 you would now have four $22.14 shares now, at a total value of $88.56. Factoring in compound interest, that works out to an equivalent of an 8.5% annual ROI (((22.14*4) / 39)^(1/10)). My savings account doesn't give me 8.5%...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
If corporations don't pay tax as so many Internet corporate lick-spittles shriek, then they wouldn't need ridiculously twisted foreign tax accounts and be prancing around like sooks when someone comes along and tells them to meet their obligations in their home countries would they? They would just happily pass this tax burden it along.
Why does this ridiculous soundbite keep getting regurgitated *every single time* this topic comes up? Because you fail to understand basic economics, that's why.
If the company didn't try to minimize its tax burden, it would have higher operating costs due to higher taxes. That would result in either (a) a lower profit margin or (b) a higher price for the end product or service.
You probably think (a) is a great idea. Hey, let's sock it to those fat, lazy, rich bastards, right? Cut their profits! Only it doesn't work that way. Businesses that make lower profits have less money not only for compensation but also for re-investment and expansion. So the business grows slower if it grows at all. It has less money in the bank to weather a recession. In general, it's always going to be in a worse position than another company with a higher margin, assuming the costs of the end product or service are relatively equal. So your brilliant idea is a recipe for hurting a company and potentially causing layoffs or the wholesale shutdown where tens of thousands of people could lose their jobs. Nice job!
But if we don't reduce profit margin, then the cost must be passed along to the consumer. Thus we get higher prices. If everyone were on the same tax playing field then this wouldn't be quite so detrimental (to the company, not the consumer, mind you), but international companies do not play on a level field. If the U.S. taxes MS more than India would tax an Indian company then the Indian company has a competitive advantage over MS. It could sell its products or services for less and still enjoy the same margin. Or it could sell it for the same price and have a higher margin. Either way, in the long run the Indian company can cause significant harm to the U.S. company, thus losing jobs, stock value, and so forth.
So I'm really, really sorry to have burst your Socialist Worker's Paradise Reality Distortion Field. Higher corporate taxes are an added hidden cost to consumers. Higher taxes are a detriment to domestic job creation due to depressed investment and re-investment. And if you know anything at all about how an economy works you'd know this already.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Heck, it make sense to abolish all income taxes. Establish a pay-per-use system. If Most government programs were just service providers. Every household would have to pay a "defense fee" this simply keeps up the costs of our armed forces, this is one of the few mandatory taxes because it affects everyone. Because its not much harder to defend a house of 1 than a household of 10, its done by household not by person and if the US was actually invaded, its hard to exclude a household. Fire departments and police departments would charge an annual or monthly fee if you chose to have their protection, you could chose to have a third party protect you from fire or to secure your home. The government's fire/police would be regulated so fees couldn't go up, would have a mandatory quality of service, and would be required to respond to any call, however after the call they could charge for a heavy payment if they did not subscribe to their service. Roads would be financed through either an optional license fee that would allow you to be on any government road, or you could choose to pay tolls throughout the way. Healthcare and social security would be optional, however you would have to pay to get them along with guarantees that the more you payed the better the service you would get (for example, someone who worked and payed social security for 50 years would get a much higher return then someone who paid social security for 10 years). Public libraries would be funded with library card dues along with a loosening of copyright laws for public libraries that would allow for free books for any book either A) Not being actively printed B) With a dead author or C) Has been printed for 30 years. This would allow for them to continue. As for courts, anyone who won a lawsuit would be required to pay A) The jury B) The judge C) Their lawyer. In a criminal case, the fees paid would pay for the judge, jury and public defendants. If they got prison time, they would have to work for a small wage, use that wage to buy food, with a proceeds being used to pay the judge, jury, and any public defendants. And then either after a certain amount of time or after all that was paid, they would be set free.
The government is meant for the people, governments are meant to be paid when they do something for you. Whenever I buy something in a store, there is very, very, very, little that the government did for me. They paid for the roads, yes, however I purchased a license for my car that should be used to drive on those roads. It makes no sense to license something if its not going to be used to pay for that thing.
The government should be run much like a business in the fact that if I don't use it, I shouldn't have to pay, and I should have a right to not use it. Just like I have a right not to eat at McDonalds, if I don't eat, McDonalds doesn't get my money.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Dear Microsoft, You may move your business oversees and we may mandate a transition away from using Microsoft products in all governmental, educational, military and other facilities throughout the US. Thank you. --US Government
Why save your soul when you can sell it for a profit?
Please, please, won't people on Slashdot please stop repeating this tripe? Corporate leaders have a high degree of flexibility about how their companies are operated; it is not as simple as this stupid mantra that has cropped up here to explain away all misdeeds and bad decisions.
Anyone can be sued. For anything. Doesn't mean it has merit. And there are always countervailing forces to all business decisions - does a short-term move to avoid American taxes actually have hidden long-term costs? Are there ways of considering value beyond immediate quarterly costs vs. earnings? Did you know corporations frequently count "good will" as an asset? Did you know a smart leader can see how patriotism may, in fact, be an asset? Perhaps it means a better chance at contracts with the Federal government; perhaps it simply means helping to maintain the business environment in their single largest market.
Ballmer Threatens To Pull Out of the US
Does this mean Ballmer admits hes been screwing the US for years?
What exactly is patriotic about running a corporation? The goal of a corporation should be to maximize shareholder profit, not to pledge blind allegiance to its country of origin. If the opportunity to accomplish this lies elsewhere, then a corporation should take advantage of it...
With that said, who would Microsoft threaten to move? More support operations (which are mostly in India now)? Other teams that are not too far in the hierarchy?
I doubt that this is a big deal.
Absolutely.
If Microsoft moves their jobs out of the US, the US government and military should decide that there's no longer a good reason not to announce a new long-term strategy of migrating all new systems and system upgrades to open-source by default, whenever there's not a good reason to do otherwise. Microsoft will cease to be a strategic US company with the governmental&CIA support that goes with that status. Pres. Obama can announce the strategic move to open source as part of his cuts programme for eliminating wasteful government spending, and declare that part of the new US healthcare initiative is the condition that the main software that runs the system be open-source.
It sounds like a sensible populist move - an accountant can probably calculate how many copies of Windows there are in use in the US governement and military and estimate how much the US taxpayer spends per year on buying proprietary operating systems and office software ... and that big number (or a proportion of it) can be announced as an immediate saving for next year onwards, without the White House having to do a thing except issue a couple of federal directives and notifying state governments that they're expected to follow suit.
The only reason not to do that //now//, is that Microsoft would cry foul and complain that the decision would hurt a flagship US company and cost US jobs. But if the jobs have already been moved out of the US, and the company is currently so successful partly becuase they channel so much paperwork to a foreign tax haven to avoid paying US taxes, then really, who's really being protected other than the company's owners?
If MS move those jobs out of the US, then fuck them. Seriously. Fuck them. Default patriotic behaviour then switches from supporting them to making sure that they're penalised for trying to screw the society that made them successful. Eliminate all US government money that's going their way, as soon as possible, and divert it to people who actually need it, or who are actually trying to make a positive difference to the US economy.
Eric Baird
"You get crappy product because the offshore teams give you EXACTLY what you ask them for, instead of working with you to understand the goal and produce a result that makes more sense."
To true,
I've worked on three projects in the last year alone that were initially outsourced to India then brought back because of the abysmal final product.
This is why I don't care one whit when companies outsource. We get to charge more when they inevitably bring it back and give it to us tail between the legs to get us to "fix" the problems. It'd be cheaper to start again but there's usually pride at stake so we let them do what they need to do to save face. Unfortunately others have gone broke instead of admitting that they fucked up trying to save a couple of dollars.
It's a bit of an inside joke in the industry here. A mate of mine working in another company and has had two major projects in the last six months for the same reason.
I don't know what goes on over there, but I've seen swaths of code that are worse than *anything* I've ever seen even from beginners. Lots of it seems like something a code generator would spit out, but it's all logic so who I don't see how. Unless they're super advanced genuiuses and are creating AI to auto write programs or something... geez that'd be a problem! Then again the AI is writing some pretty crap code so maybe not. :)
Whenever I buy something in a store, there is very, very, very, little that the government did for me.
Other than provide the safety regulations to minimize the risk the product harms you, the advertising regulations to minimize the chance you are scammed, etc, etc. Your commercial transaction occurs in a complicated environment, much of which is government funded, much of which serves to protect you (nominally, obviously you can debate the efficacy).
In general, I don't think there are many government services that you can fund on a pay-per-use basis. Fire department? Are you kidding? Many places in the country, they have to put your fire out to keep it from spreading to your neighbors. Having a patchwork of private providers mixed in would be a nightmare. For police, similarly -- take all the issues we have with police brutality, privacy violation, etc, and now throw in groups who are not directly run by a group (nominally, at least) constrained by Constitutional limits? No thanks.
Throw in the fact that you're going to have to construct an enormous infrastructure to monitor who's paying for what, whether you get access to x y or z service, etc, and I think a lot of the purported benefit is going to go out the window. Also, for many of these (e.g., libraries), there is more benefit than simply "what do I get today?" Sure, you could allow for private libraries, but they would be driven solely by profit motive. Public libraries serve as important record-keepers and generally provide a service to society in a more general sense than just a pay-for-service sense. Look at the book selection in your typical bookstore and compare it to that in the library. In my experience, the library is a much better place for obscure or old books-- the purpose of the library is to preserve information. The purpose of the bookstore is to sell books. They're both valuable, but sometimes very different.
I personally think we could run a constitutional sized government on a 3% sales tax.
I'm not sure how high a sales tax would need to be with a national sales tax and user fees I do believe the income tax could be eliminated. This year Tax Freedom Day was 13 April and taxes will eat up 28.20% of people's income. As president Abraham Lincoln instituted the first income tax, to pay for the Civil War. And when the war ended the tax was phased out. The tax wasn't even 10% though.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Or... You know we could actually have sane tax reform where you simply pay for what you use and you don't have to pay if you don't want to use it.
How is that even remotely viable?
Leave the gun, take the cannolis.
I replied to the top post explaining that you can have your cake and eat it too :
You want a VAT (sales tax) with a rate determined logarithmically based upon gross corporate income. An "income adjusted VAT" will massively benefit free market competition and discourage monopoly.
You'd also move anti-trust law into tax courts, giving judges the power to penalize companies by increasing their VAT rate for future years or charging backed taxes for past periods of violations. So if your company get fines 5% for 10 years because you spent 10 years destroying your competitors, well that's some hefty fine.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Internet "libertarians" seem to forget one imperative thing: Corporations are a 100% Government created *legal* entity. There is NO natural right to form a corporation, "God" or whoever must have forgotten to include that in the package and I'm sure he's very sorry Randians.
So without government power there's NO SUCH THING as a limited liability Corporation. All that exists are sole traders.
So if the government creates it, the government can tax it, destroy it or rule it as it sees fit. If the corp doesn't like it, it may disband at any time and the owners can become sole traders and not be liable under these regulations.
Pretty bloody simple isn't it?
Sometimes I think that many people here long for an aristocracy to rule them.
Please, please, won't people on Slashdot please stop repeating this tripe?
Man, I've been trying forever. Unfortunately, the people with rolled-up sleeves on CNBC tell them that they're right, several times a day.
It's not likely to stop, either. It's a very convenient idea for officers who would like to act badly, for one thing. Second, nearly all of the people on Slashdot who talk about financial news get it from places like CNBC, which is not only run by officers who enjoy this misapprehension of the law, but whose programming consists of mostly brown-nosing officers who were, or are currently, running companies in this way.
On the bright side, I have seen a new meme rise up; Free marketeers are starting to realize that their purer market will require strong tort... They're starting to accept the reality that "tort reform" and an efficient market are incompatible. It's not worth accepting the rest of dogma, but at least the drive to disable lawsuits has been weakened.
Back on topic: As Obama said at the outset, corporate tax reform is on the table, but only if every closed loophole is not portrayed as a tax increase. For one thing, reform is impossible without knowing what the current tax burden is precisely (i.e. figures for the top corporate rate are a lie). It's a subtle thing with what Ballmer and others are saying; they're not protesting a statutory tax increase, they're protesting increased difficulty in being a scofflaw.
That's one way of looking at it.
- ...He's turning his back on the country that gave Ballmer opportunity to be where he is today.
If the country changes, then it is not the country that gave him any opportunity.
Industrialist Carnegie... would have never entertained the idea of moving factories to China for cheap labor.
If he was a smart businessman, he would have taken his business to the place that made the most sense. At the time, it was America.
Raising corporat taxes doesn't affect the consumer as badly as you believe. Yes some prices get raised, but increased taxation also leads to more cuts internally like plastic desks instead of mahogany, fewer free trips to Vegas, snd so on.
And you know this from... running a large corporation? I've never seen the internal operations of a large corporation first hand, so I'll have to take your word. I would think that office supplies are actually on the bottom of the list for cuts. When this economic crisis hit, I didn't hear a lot about companies selling their desks. I heard about job losses. Why would it be any different for a tax increase?
- If California's standard of living drops, then wages will drop, and eventually the factories will move back here because WE will be the cheaper labor than the Chinese.
Eventually they will come back? Why wait? Just cut to the chase and make it more enticing for businesses to operate in California from the get go?
Industrialist Carnegie came from Scotland and loved the U.S., and maintained loyalty until his death. He would have never entertained the idea of moving factories to China for cheap labor.
Are you seriously going to compare Ballmer to Carnegie? How many striking workers has Ballmer had killed by Pinkerton thugs?
As for taxes, this country was founded on tax resistance. Anyone who pretends that it's unpatriotic to resist taxes today needs a remedial history course.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
To be fair, the US labor market of Carnegie's day was on par with that of most other countries, his railroad empire was largely built on the back of indentured labor (a substantial portion of which had consisted of Chinese immigrants). He maintained a private army to hedge against an armed workforce uprising, which eventually happened -- and during which he retreated to the safety of his personal Scottish castle. Afterward said labor force was promptly replaced with a force entirely composed of desperate immigrants.
It is widely believed his later philanthropic activities were entirely motivated by his damaged reputation and desire to right a fortune built on questionable ethics and ruthless business practices. What do you buy someone who already has everything? Posterity.
He's alienating the business and personal user buyers ("Everyone's working together in these difficult economic times .... except Microsoft"), he's damaging future military sales ("If we continue committing stategically to this company's products, there's no guarantee that the support for these systems won't be under the jurisdiction of a foreign power in five years' time"), and he's also damaging Microsoft's influence over governmental sales and government legislation ("Now we're finally free to pass laws and directives that might hurt Microsoft sales (such as deciding to move to open-source), because if anyone complains that we're risking US jobs, we can now reply that Microsoft's CEO has suggested that those US jobs are liable to disappear anyway, at short notice").
Eric Baird
corporations have to also be of the public benefit, ie, for the citizens inside the nation where they are GRANTED their incorporation charters.
No, they just have to comply with the letter of the laws that set the terms of their incorporation.
Corporations that threaten to pull out should have their charters instantly revoked.
Great. Capricious moves like that are a real incentive for investment.
You want all of the benefits, all the profits possible, but none of the *responsibilities*.
On the contrary. Corporations, just like individuals, should be held to whatever obligations they freely agree to.
traitorous scumbags.
Fuck you too, Adolph. People are not the property of the state, and neither are corporations.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
There is absolutely nothing unpatriotic about speaking out against tyranny.
Additionally, if consumers don't pay the corporate tax, then who does? Even if it doesn't affect prices and only affects the profit margin, that is still bad because the company is not profiting as much as they would have been, thus an industry cannot satisfy demand as effectively, and consumers end up getting ripped off second hand. Cutting into profits is a very bad thing to do.
Wonder what the public key field is for?
Microsoft's workforce is tiny, Windows licensing is a huge drain on the economy, they keep importing foreign workers, and they are very good at avoiding taxes. So, good riddance, the US economy would likely be better off without Microsoft.
Unfortunately, Ballmer knows full well that the regulatory climate in Europe is much less favorable to Microsoft than the US, so he won't follow through on his threat.
The costs end up on the consumer either way. If you tax the corporations, then they raise the price of their goods, consumers pay more. If you don't tax the corporations, then the government will directly tax the people even more to make up for the income that they aren't getting from corporate taxes.
We pay either way. The government requires money to meet its many obligations, and it's going to collect that money through taxes of one sort or the other.
The corporation that I'm buying from is reliant on the highways and bridges that it has to truck its products across, and those highways and bridges need to get paid for. Either I pay the company which than pays the government, or I pay the government directly. If the company is paying, it factors that cost into its prices, and then as a consumer, I can see those extra costs and make a more informed purchasing decision. And a well designed corporate tax system would have the added benefit of compelling companies to use those public resources more efficiently, which would lower their tax burden, and then lower their prices.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
The problem with "pay only for what you use" is that there are many things that have substantial fixed costs (like roads, sewers, etc.). These goods give only a limited amount of direct benefit to each consumer, but, the positive externalities they justify the cost.
As a more concrete example, if we paid only for what we used, there would be no interstate highway systems.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
I am promising right here to pay directly to MS corp, $20,000 US dollars, cash, if they move OFF US soil entirely.
I'm calling your bluff. since I know you're a hothead asshole with a lot of talk but no real balls behind your moves.
put up or shut up. I'd LOVE to see you fuck your own company up. I'd PAY to help.
I'm in. are you?
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
I think I'm accounting for splits. I was basing this on Google Finance which shows a smooth curve across splits which implies that Google is taking splits into account. The curve from 1999 is pretty consistantly down...
Here's Yahoo's version:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=MSFT&t=my
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
Providing a product or services used by billions is not seen as a benefit?
Your pitiful reasoning would lead "instantly" to the USA being a 3rd world country. This country is only as powerful and advanced as it is *because* of the innovation, services and products created by these "evil" corporations.
The majority of the US income (taxes) *comes* from these "evil" corporations. How d you plan to support the welfare needs that are already over0burdening our tax system if these corporations no longer operate in the US?
Lastly, corporations are run by individuals. These individuals *do* have rights. One of those rights is to determine *where* and *how* they do business so long as their decisions do not present a clear an present danger to the rights of others. *You* do not have the right to tell them how to do business. You *do* have the right to start your own and run it how *you* see fit.
There is NO natural right to form a corporation
There is the right of free association, and the right of contract. The joint-stock corporation as we know it today is a government creation, but the same terms could be obtained through contract with any parties doing business with a corporation.
So if the government creates it, the government can tax it, destroy it or rule it as it sees fit.
Sure, but if they want people to keep their money in the USA, then it makes sense not to pile on the disincentives. If we actually want the economy to improve, we should abolish taxes on capital growth.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
MS CEO Steve Ballmer lied about a false programmer shortage for decades. Republicans need for once to grow a pair and call his bluff. Quit coddling cronies.
Microsoft stifles innovation. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. He lied then. He is lying now.
Score & Karma: SASA: Slashdot Approval Seekers Anonymous
Hasn't anyone RTF? These aren't profits from inside the US, they're international profits. Why should the American gov't be able to tax international revenue in the first place IF that revenue is kept and invested internationally? I hate Microsoft as much as the next man, but Balmer is actually making a lot of sense here.
'Impossible' is a word that humans use far too often. -- Seven of Nine
Yeah, lets let Microsoft have a nice tax free environment, the US's part of the International Space Station. And make em use their own OS to run it. "OXYGEN GENERATORS OFFLINE, DO YOU WISH TO START THEM?"
Now, that figure has risen to around, or over 73%. This "obligation to the shareholders" baloney is a nifty neocon mindless chant, but since so many of the American laws have been written - in a concentrated fashion over the previous 20 years - giving special privileges to corporations - and making almost everything illegal now for the citizens - such crapola doesn't cut it. Legalizing fraud don't make it right, doodette.....
There is the right of free association, and the right of contract. The joint-stock corporation as we know it today is a government creation, but the same terms could be obtained through contract with any parties doing business with a corporation.
Not they can't.
Not having all the business income count as personal income for someone can't be done with private contracts between the owners and those doing business with them.
Limited Liability can't be created with such contracts either, since it applies to parties not doing business with the corporation (their neglegence does damage to me, no contract they've signed with those doing business with them is going to stop me from claiming against the owner's assets, for example).
Yeah, cause clearly the government has done nothing to help the companies within its borders. It certainly doesn't provide education for their workforce, roads for their commuters, patent/copyright/trademark protection, investment in pure research that forms the basis of private R&D, emergency personnel to save them from natural disasters, military protection, retirement and insurance benefits for their employees, regulation of the markets so their stock can't be manipulated, and so forth.
Yup, those greedy government bastards! Demanding we provide the money for the services they provide!
"Because you fail to understand basic economics, that's why."
No no I don't. And you've set up one big fat straw man to knock down there in your long ideologically driven fairy tale.
I get it - you found religion in Randian free market economic theory. Very nice, the *real* world has what we call leeching bastards. People who will *live* in a country, use said countries resources as paid for by *everyone else* to make themselves billions of dollars and then work as hard as they can to pay NOTHING into the system that everyone else has worked towards setting up and maintaining that protects said leeching bastard to allow them to make that sort of money in the first place.
I suppose you think the old aristocracies deserved their position as well. Well I guess they had plenty of lick-spittles too!
"Socialist Worker's Paradise Reality" Lol ok what? That was a joke if you read my last post. I'm a contractor - self employed or in other words a small business. You know the real engine of every economy on earth. I'm about as far from "Socialist" as is *realistically* possible without becoming...well, like you.
I'm also allergic to religious fanatics.
"There is the right of free association, and the right of contract."
One of the idea of corporations is to avoid personal liability. Without incorporation, the stockholders would be personally liable for the malfeasance of their agents, corporate board. Without this protection, the stockholders could loose ALL of their personal wealth not just their investments in the company. So there is an advantage to incorporate and it has nothing to do with free association.
"avoiding extremely high US taxes."
This I don't understand.
The US doesn't have "extremely high taxes." Compared to the third world it does I suppose but if that's the comparison that has to be made then that's pretty sad.
Compared to the first world it's in the lower end.
A highly regarded judge agrees with you...
"Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as
possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the
treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes.
Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister
in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone
does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any
public duty to pay more than the law demands." - Judge Learned Hand
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
And I'm threatening to move to Linux.
Oh man... do you have any idea how outsourced/globalized the Linux market is? Linux as a commercial software product is almost entirely third world off-shored. Microsoft was sort of an outlier in doing so much development here in America.
Do you really think companies like Lynx or Motorola or Red Hat are doing their work here with American developers? They're not nearly profitable enough. If you want to be principled and supportive of the American business framework, then Linux is basically raping our software economy. Hell, even Solaris is more of an American product, and Sun is pretty globalized, as well.
I am fairly certain BSD is, as well.
All I am saying is that the Linux v. Microsoft argument is really really inappropriate here. It doesn't apply on any front. The American Linux development companies did this years ago. It's just a bigger deal when Microsoft does it.
If you are pro American industry and development that employs Americans and doesn't subvert out tax structure, you should be using Windows or Mac OS X. Seriously.
Heh.
I always enjoy watching somebody who has their head screwed on right destroying the phony arguments of right wing lunatics.
You couldn't have described the tax evasion crowd any better.
Leeches - they consume government services - military protection, social safety nets that keep the country stable, educated workforce, and everything else that comes with living in a modern country.
Then when the time comes to pay the bill for all these services, they can't stop making excuses.
And now what - threatening to move jobs oversees?
Microsoft has been moving jobs overseas as fast as they can for as long as I can remember. Luckily there are some things that Americans still do better than lower cost foreign workers. And now that asshat Ballmer wants to threaten to continue doing what he has been doing for years if Microsoft has to pay its taxes?
Screw Steve Ballmer, and all the other leeches that run and hide when it's time to pay the bill.
Correct. It's unlikely that Microsoft could be sued successfully in a US court for failing to evade US taxes. Corporate leadership has certain responsibilities, including remaining in compliance with the law. No judge is going to sanction a CEO for taking actions that keep the company in better compliance, even if it is possible to evade the laws legally.
Interesting how low we've come.
A Tax Cheat costs honest tax payers money.
SMALL BUSINESS POWERS MOST OF THE ECONOMY. THEY CAN'T CHEAT LIKE MS!
If I don't pay taxes than YOU end up paying the difference. That alone should upset tax payers. Instead we frame it in some warped way so many of us rejoice that somebody is screwing the system-- are we so daft that we can't see the next step anymore?
Then we have big tax cheats who BRIBE officials (using legal games - everybody knows its bribery) to continue to cheat and/or create more ways to cheat on their taxes! That should REALLY upset tax payers. Instead we get easily fooled with irrelevant distractions like the endless rhetorical debate over taxation itself and government services etc.
Fix the tax system. Make it fair. THEN spend eternity fussing over details and principles.
BTW, teach MATH. Too many people do not understand how percentage works and why it is equitable.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
a government job is not a "good" job, it is a drain on the tax base because it generates no wealth. It only helps the individual at the expense of the rest of us.
yeah, man. the military, police, firefighters, national park/forest system, local parks, judiciary, cia, roads, and schools are a real fuckin' drain. never did me any good; but goddamn, those bourgeois grunts and jarheads sure are living the high life (at the expense of the rest of us) in baghdad and kabul.
generating wealth isn't the only measure of usefulness. i agree with a lot of the other stuff you said, but the part i quoted is downright asinine.
the united states is a nation of laws; badly written and randomly enforced -- frank zappa
Like the taxes that paid for this bridge?
These days large corporations expect the government to pay for the land their buildings sit on, the buildings themselves, and an annual stipend to cover part of their operating costs. It's like the reverse of taxation.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Horseshit.
The US is what it is because of the hard work, dedication, and innovation of its people, not some legal structure such as a corporation.
It was people who struggled to open the frontiers. It was people who invested/risked their hearts, souls, and fortunes to bring this country into existence. It was people who worked hard, sacrificed all they had to make this country strong. It's people who have innovated. It's people who have created and invented.
A corporation, in and of itself, can do absolutely nothing. It's the people that run the corporation who are responsible for its success or failure. Furthermore, this country was wildly successful long before multinational corporations began to get get laws passed that coddle them and punish individuals who are guilty of the same types of actions.
This country can survive without corrupt corporations. They do nothing but concentrate wealth in as few as hands as possible and make the citizens of this country into nothing more than nameless, faceless cogs in a machine whom the corporations consider to be nothing more than pawns.
That is the antithesis of what brought the US out of nothing more than wilderness to the point of being the most powerful nation on earth.
On the contrary, the USA has one of the higher corporate tax rates. It is minimized in peoples' minds by quoting percent of GDP, but a corporation doesn't care about GDP it cares about the tax rate.
UK: 21-28%
Spain: 25-30%
France: 33.3%
Germany: 29.8% (avg)
Italy: 31.4%
Canada: 29.5-35.5%
Australia: 30%
USA: 15-39% + 0-12% state -- 39.3 (avg)
Curiously it Barbados(40), Cameroon(38.5) and Guyana(35/45) were on the top of the list.
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rates_around_the_world
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_the_United_States
If we didn't have an interstate highway system, we'd have better railroads.
Uuuhhhhh....what in the heck do you think we smokers are ALREADY paying taxes out the ass for now? It ain't our fault if the states take that money and piss it down a rat hole. We are ALREADY paying $4+ a pack here and a good 75% of that is taxes that were supposed to take care of our "burden", which is BS anyway since many smokers don't live to an old enough age to suck down the medical care like the non smokers do in the last years of their lives anyway.
And don't think they will stop with smokers. We have already heard rumblings about "soda taxes" and "fat taxes" and just about any other tax you can think of. If the US government didn't piss money down a rat hole and spend Lord knows how much propping up third world dictators and actually spent those taxes on their citizens we wouldn't need the amount of taxes we got now, much less more to deal with us "burdens".
Tell you what, I'll be happy to sign a 'leave me the hell alone mama government" document, where I agree not to get any treatment other than pain killers if I get cancer, and they get rid of the insane taxes on me. That would be fair, wouldn't it? After all I wouldn't be a "burden" if I didn't actually have any money spent on me, right? What do you think the odds the nanny government would agree to that, knowing it meant they'd have to quit blowing that "burden" money like a crack whore in Vegas. Yeah, me neither.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
The US can print money to bail out banks because most of the world buys oil, wheat, microprocessors and other stuff in US dollars. Hence those countries have to keep around billions of US dollars.
Inflation (and thus devaluation) of a currency is a way of taxing the people who hold net positive amounts of that currency. And in the USA's case - it taxes the countries holding US dollars too.
The problem for the USA is if other countries stop using US dollars to buy stuff and use something else like the Euro. Then when the USA prints money, they'll be just like Zimbabwe printing money.
Otherwise, it's like Mugabe (US Gov) printing money, and passing some of it to Mugabe's Cronies (friends of the US Gov - previously the US citizens fell into that category), and the Zimbabweans (rest of the world) having to buy bread using wheelbarrows of cash.
When large portions of those subject to a law regard it with derision, then the law is stupid.
Take for instance alcohol prohibition, recreational drug prohibition, prostitution criminalization and abusive copyright. All widely ridiculed and flaunted.
Tax loopholes are just tax cuts disguised to preserve politicians' careers. Let's get rid of the loopholes, so that we can discuss what taxes really should be. Out in the light of day like this, taxes may even start to make sense.
As for taxes, this country was founded on tax resistance. Anyone who pretends that it's unpatriotic to resist taxes today needs a remedial history course.
Actually, this country was founded on, among other things, not paying taxes to a body with which they had no representation. You remember, that whole "no taxation without representation" thing.
Guess what. Ballmer has representation in this country as he is a citizen and has the right to vote.
I think you're the one who needs a remedial history lesson.
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
And my purpose for working is to be able to have a good living and store up a pile of cash for my retirement. Shall I evade taxes as well? Who, then, will pay taxes?
Taxes ARE an evil, but they ARE necessary. Certainly MS is happy to have services provided by the U.S. government and various local governments, why do they get a pass to leach off of U.S. taxpayers like that? Don't they get enough cash from Americans as it is?
To answer the question of "what benefits", consider how they would like it if some U.S. Citizen starts selling Windows and Office CDs (with all DRM hacked out, of course) for $10 each and the FBI said "Not our problem".
One minute after Ballmer said that, MS should have ceased to be a legal operating US company. He can go try his luck someplace else
Actually, though they'd take a bit of a hit, Microsoft would probably survive just fine somewhere else - and they'd take 89000 jobs with them (and possibly millions of secondary jobs) too. You really think that's best for the US?
I believe it is YOU, sir, who needs the remedial history course. This country was founded on many ideals, but "tax resistance" was not one of them. The Boston tea party was a protest against the colonies lack of representation in parliament. Ballmer, through his corporation's lobbying efforts, has more influence in congress than 10,000 middle-class citizens.
Furthermore, Andrew Carnegie was a ruthless business man, but he would never have even dreamed of having political opponents assassinated. He also happens to be one of the most important philanthropists in the history of the US. He believed it was immoral to horde wealth or to bequeath it to descendants. He believed it was the duty of the corporate leaders to use their wealth to improve the lives of US citizens in ways which they could not have if the money were dispersed among them.
The next time you think about making a comment on these forums, please take a moment to assess your knowledge of the topic. We could do with less falsities on slashdot.
Your data does not include the fast that the USA also has a ridiculous number of corporate tax deductions.
Average company in S&P 500 had tax rate of 26% between 2002 and 2006, probably the lowest in developed world.
traitorous scumbags.
Sure, force them to fulfill their so-called "obligations" - we all know the next steps - they leave the country for more free countries elsewhere - and then the next step, make it illegal for them to leave the country! Starting to sound like the old Soviet Union yet?
Using a legal loophole is NOT against the law - spirit of the law, sure, but if we start jailing and fining people for doing things that aren't even against the law, that would set an incredibly frightening precedent.
Does that really sound like a good idea to you?
I suggest you read some history books on the Boston Tea Party.
The Boston Tea Party was in response to a TAX DECREASE.
- England was charging a high tarrif on all tea going to the colonies.
- The East Indian Tea Company was going bankrupt and threatening to wipe out a huge part of the british economy. (Sound familiar?)
- England decided it would impose the East Indian Tea Company as a monopoly on Tea in order to save it. Driving out a bunch of smaller Tea companies which weren't too large to fail.
- In order to 'sweaten' the deal for the colonies England decided that they would do two things.
1) Slash the tax rate on Tea.
2) Stop requiring ships to stop in London to pay their corporate taxes before continueing on to the colonies. Instead England would setup an officer in the colonies to collect the tarrif once they enter colonial ports.
- Several of these "revolutionairies" owned tea shops which would be put of business. So they inflamed a huge moral outrage over this severely reduced tarrif being collected on colonial soil instead of London (in order to save the colonies money on transportaiton costs) in order to save their own profit centers.
They weren't resisting taxes. They were resisting market consolidation and cutting out of the middle man brokers in order to offer direct to consumer bargain goods at a steep discount.
They were always paying the "Taxation without representation" in the form of foreign tarrifs. We STILL PAY THOSE KINDS OF TAXES on many goods. England just tried to get creative at the time and assess that tax at the point of delivery instead of the point of departure.
But you are right. Americans have been retarded hotheads about taxes since the begining.
^^that.
The problem here is the difference between the theoretical and actual tax rates that corporations are affected by in the US. Closing tax loopholes will bring these closer in line, and then we can have a more reasonable discussion about the issue. As things stand, those in favor of lowering taxes just point to the stated rates, and those that want to raise them point to the effective ones, and everybody just talks past each other.
Obama has to realize, though, that if these loopholes are closed, the tax rates will have to come down a bit to compensate for that, or else we really will have a tax system that's too hostile to corporations. I'm not sure if he's come to terms with that reality yet.
Here's why this is misleading:
"According to latest available figures from the Government Accountability Office, 83 of the largest 100 corporations have subsidiaries in tax havens. Collectively they earned about $700 billion in foreign active earnings, and paid 2.3 percent taxes on those earnings. That is a situation the White House seeks to correct."
So while the US has high tax rates on paper, in reality loopholes and tax havens allow large multinationals to pay a much lower rate -- averaging just 2.3% for the largest 100, according to http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=107516
...just tax the corporations even more.
Call it a simplistic viewpoint but employing people in a country puts money back into that country whereas selling products or services in that country takes money out of it.
Therefore subtract the former from the latter and heavily tax the difference - thus making outsourcing far more expensive.
And no, not just because it's Microsoft, make it apply to everyone.
I'm sure it's the same in the USA and other parts of Europe, but here in the UK whole communities have been decimated because coal mines or industrial parks have shut down due to cheaper coal imports or jobs going overseas - corporations have got far too powerful and need to be forced to have a social conscience.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Amen, brother. The ongoing "war on smokers" was/is a tolerance test and it's easy to implement. Freedom lost. Why?
Because it's easy to do especially with main stream media support.
a smoker complaining that non smokers live too long, and burden the health system... now ive read everything.
As a more concrete example, if we paid only for what we used, there would be no interstate highway systems.
I-90 in MA is funded entirely by tolls, leasing, development of land and air rights, and advertising. http://www.massturnpike.com/aboutus/index.html
In the United States, government does NOT grant rights. Rights are inherent, and the structure of government is such that government has limited powers. Basically, by default everything is permitted. The only way things are prohibited is if they're specifically restricted. It's the complete opposite of many other governmental structures where 'rights' are granted by a traditional monarchy or other hierarchy.
You must not be an American. Which is okay, but you're talking outside your area of expertise.
I like how considerate your post it; there's one problem with the whole theory imbued therein, which is those "loopholes" aren't accidents being abused: a great deal of them were put there as "incentives" for people to create and run corporations, and particularly to create jobs doing this. It's not perfect, but trying to "close" the "loopholes" is a good way to kill the space which they were meant to let private ingenuity fill.
p.s. I reposted this, accidentally posted anonymously; anyone know how to get some kind of admin to delete the first copy? u
Intelligent idiots are we. | Evil men do not understand justice.
Why is this modded insightful? The government should have the right to terminate any company for what their CEO says. That is a terrible idea. Not only is it a bad idea in principle, as it would surely be abused, it also would harm a lot of innocent people like employees and stockholders. There's no way, even by your standard of morality that every person who worked for Microsoft, or owned stock are immoral.
There are 11 types of people, those who know unary and those who don't.
I'm well aware that bonds are sold... Whether they will be repaid is something most leave to others to worry about 30-50 years later (the relevant person in China must be hoping he retires before the shit hits the fan).
;).
But if it never actually gets paid back, or the currency is rather devalued in 50 years time, there really is little difference between issuing bonds and printing money.
Germany had hyperinflation when printing money because the rest of the world did not use their currency.
Because if the rest of the world were using their currency for most stuff, Germany could print money and instantly make themselves richer than the rest of the world. Since traded goods would instantly be cheaper for them.
But the rest of the world didn't, so the German government only made themselves richer than their citizens.
As I said, inflation can be a form of taxation. You make those with your currency pay, whether they like it or not. If you tax only your citizens the per person tax is higher, but if you get to tax the rest of the world, the rest of the world might take a while to figure it out
Go look at how much the US Dollar has devalued in the past 20-30 years. So did the bondholders get enough interest to cover that and more?