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Protesters Blockade Microsoft's Seattle Headquarters Over Tax Breaks
reifman (786887) writes "A thousand unionized healthcare workers protested outside Microsoft's Seattle offices over its Nevada tax dodge on Friday. Microsoft shareholders have pocketed more than $5.34 billion in tax savings as Washington State social services and schools have taken huge cuts. In a hearing Wednesday, the Supreme Court suggested it may hold the Legislature in contempt and order it to repeal all tax breaks to restore proper funding to K-12 schools and universities." I suspect Microsoft's lawyers are careful to engage in legal tax avoidance rather than illegal tax evasion. Geekwire notes "The South Lake Union satellite facility is not a major office for Microsoft, compared to its presence in Redmond. It’s not clear why the workers didn’t protest at Microsoft headquarters."
I suspect they protested at S. Lake Union because that is very close to downtown Seattle and an extremely visible location. Microsoft Campus in Redmond is in the in a much more suburban atmosphere, it would be much less of a visible protest there.
The difference between Microsoft-style tax avoidance and tax evasion is that MS just donate to politicians to reduce the amount of taxes they pay in the former while you don't pay politicians in the latter
Itâ(TM)s not clear why the workers didnâ(TM)t protest at Microsoft headquarters."
- this is not the question, and really, the answer is in TFA:
But Jeff Reifman, a technology consultant and writer who used to work for Microsoft, is pointing the finger at his former employer, saying that Microsoft has used a subsidiary in Nevada to avoid paying Washington taxes. Heâ(TM)s written numerous articles about this over the years, and now published a recent commentary on Crosscut.com linking Microsoftâ(TM)s tax policy with the stateâ(TM)s school funding shortfall
There you go, that's why they are in Nevada.
By the way, this is again compared to Burger King for all the wrong reasons:
In response, Hunter said that he and many other legislators tried for years to figure out whether they could tax the money Microsoft sends to Nevada. He said the answer from the stateâ(TM)s lawyers was always, âoeNo.â And he said itâ(TM)s similar to the recent move by Burger King to buy a Canadian company as a way to lower its U.S. tax bill.
âoeTo move that big chunk of revenue to Nevada â" itâ(TM)s legal,â Hunter said. âoeSo this is just like the Burger King thing. Itâ(TM)s frustrating, and youâ(TM)ve got lots of people in Congress who are frustrated about it, but itâ(TM)s legal.â
Burger King is a BRAZILIAN COMPANY, not American. Hasn't been American since about 1989. 70% of its stock is held by a Brazilian conglomerate. Fucking Americans are idiots, crying about a Brazilian company merging with a Canadian one, but what else is new?
However the point is that Microsoft is a victim of unconstitutional, illegal government system that usurped power and is stealing people's money. Income taxes are illegal and are collected illegally for a wide range of reasons.
Of-course the reality is that so are these government monopolies on education and health insurance and care. There should be no government at all in any of it, education and health insurance and care are just as much subject to free market rules as any other products, including food and shelter and clothing and energy and none of is any of government's business and the fact that government is in all of these things is the reason that these socialist / fascist economies are dying and good, the sooner the better. The sooner these socialist/fascist states disappear the sooner people can rebuild their individual freedoms and real economies.
MY OTHER COMMENTS
I don't get this at all?
If a business has avoided paying some taxes *legally* and citizens are angry about it? The proper channel to go through is protesting the government that allowed it.
Any "for profit" business has the responsibility to maximize profits for the sake of its continued existence and growth, and as a duty to its stockholders if it was publicly held. Therefore, it would be irresponsible of it NOT to take advantage of legal tax loopholes or tactics to minimize costs.
It sounds like some people have the idea that they can "shame" businesses into volunteering to pay more tax than they're legally required to pay. I'm not saying that might not have a small measure of success in some situations -- but you'd probably achieve similar results by just randomly picketing ANY profitable business and demanding they give more to charity, or pay more of their profits to improve the local area, or ??
The crux of the problem here is the way the laws are written, so only your legislators can correct it.
People don't bootstrap their earning potential or marketable skills from nothing, nor could they continue to prosper without social cooperation made possible by tax-supported infrastructure and institutions. If you want to be a completely unencumbered individual, find a deserted island.
You can rationalize it all you want, but tax "avoidance" really is the same concept as tax evasion.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I suspect they protested at S. Lake Union because that is very close to downtown Seattle and an extremely visible location.
You have that right on the money.
This year at WWDC there were Apple tax protestors out front before the keynote with the classic protestor drum circle and some kind of chant.
Well the moment the cameras outside are gone? So are they. I had some respect for them before that for at least making a stand, even if I disagree with the position. But they weren't making a stand - they were making a TV show.
Given the behavior it's hard to believe they were not all actors of one form or another. It certainly didn't seem like anyone had the kind of protesting spirit that really meant anything when they couldn't be arsed to protest longer than a few hours. I have to wonder if the Microsoft protest is of the same spiritless form.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Sigh.. It is only made possible by tax-supported infrastructure and institutions because the government injected itself. Before the governments injected themselves, it was sustained by private industry or the people themselves. Those costs were either passed on to the consumers of simple born by the people involved.
You act as if no one could ever function without the government hand holding people through life. Some of the more prosperous years in our history were when the government was not in schools, limited themselves on the roads, did not deliver water and so on. And even to the schools issues, the feds were hands off it when we put man on the moon. It wasn't until years later that feds got involved and now not only do we have a department of education that cannot even do the math to account for their budget at times but we lack sufficient knowledge and resources to put a man on the moon again.
So? Apple developers don't care, customers may care. Protesting is about two things, PR and disruption.
Lots of disruption cases are illegal especially in a public setting so disruption is typically reserved for private cases but then how can you be disruptive if you don't have access to the private premises? Disruptive protests are normally done by employees internally but they aren't going to complain about the tax breaks their employer received.
In cases like this the protest is exclusively a PR campaign to raise awareness. Disruption will likely end them in jail, fined, or worse still as in the cases of the Google Buses people may not sympathise due to a misdirected attack.
What they did here was get their face on TV. It's about the best form of public protest you can have. Who cares about a few thousand developers when you have the evening news and media sites picking up the story? In some cases getting your face on TV is the end game and there really is no point it wasting your time beyond that.