Microsoft Offers Washington a Bargain: More State Taxes, For More Education

reifman writes: The Washington State Legislature and its budget is a complete mess this year but there's been an unusual bright spot which may quiet the protesters Slashdot reported earlier: Microsoft has volunteered for an exclusive $28 million annual tax — as long as the state funds a number of computer science degree programs. Visions of these faded after the 2008 recession when the legislature cut $4 billion from K-12 and higher education spending in part to cover the coming legalization and amnesty for Microsoft's Nevada tax dodge (students' tuitions only increased 58.6 percent.) With Microsoft's voluntary tax, the company will have fully repaid its $8.75 billion tax dodge by 2327, just 312 years from now.

Comments

Socialize the costs, privatize the profits

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft has cleverly figured out that it can spend $28 million to A) increase competition in the CS grad job market, thus driving down the cost of employees, and B) offload the costs they would incur training hires over to the state. How clever.

Compartmentalize the budget

[Karmashock]

The thing I find the most annoying about budgets especially at the local level is that when money gets tight they'll always raise money for "schools" or "police" or something when really the cost over runs are because of something completely different.

And instead of cutting spending where it got out of control... they instead jack up taxes for "the children"... and then divert all that money to some other project.

I've even seen tax bills written such that that was specifically supposed to happen... and they looted the fund anyway in contravention of the law... and who is going to prosecute? Not the AG.

I think we might need a fourth branch of government that does nothing but hold the other three accountable.

Anyone ever read Herbert's the "Whipping Star" or its sequel? It has this concept in it... he called it "the Bureau of Sabotage"... they did nothing but fuck up the other branches so they couldn't pull any tricky slights of hand, fuck over the democratic system, break the law, etc... the bureau slowed the other branches down... so that they couldn't subvert due process.

Something like that at every level might fix a lot of our problems.

People would point out that that would be expensive... I would would ask... more expensive than rampant corruption and subverted law?

Re:Very similar strategy to Cisco

[Penguinisto]

The only thing I worry about in this case is if Microsoft goes one step further and ties a "use Microsoft products exclusively in the schools or no deal" string to that money/tax bump.

It's not a dodge.

[SvnLyrBrto]

I despise Microsoft as much as anyone. But it's, at best, a strawman (non-)argument to call them a tax dodge or to claim they owe your hypothetical billions. Tax evasion and tax avoidance are two entirely different things. Learn the difference, and maybe you can sit at the adult table.

If you think the tax laws are broken, advocate for whatever changes you think are appropriate. But if you're going to attack someone else for not paying more tax than they are legally obligated to; then put your money where your mouth is, file a new W-4 with an extra $1000/cycle withholding yourself, and don't cash the refund check when it comes to you next year. I'll bet a dollar that says you won't though.

Re:It's not a dodge.

[im_thatoneguy]

it's, at best, a strawman (non-)argument to call them a tax dodge or to claim they owe your hypothetical billions. Tax evasion and tax avoidance are two entirely different things.

They said Tax Dodge. You even posted Tax Dodge, then you transformed it into "Tax Evasion" which nobody else said and burned the strawman that you built. That's a nice slight of hand you tried to pull there. Nowhere is the word "Evasion" aka an illegal tax dodge used in the article or the summary or the headline.

However, I disagree with the principle of what you said, even if they had said "Tax Evasion". Considering the amount of lobbying and corruption that multi billion dollar a month corporations wield over governments, it's perfectly fair to say that even if you legally evade taxes, it's still tax evasion when you are the de-facto rule writer for yourself. Following the letter of the law while violating the spirit of the law means we can still judge the company as an asshole even if they are following what's written in ink.

Re:Very similar strategy to Cisco

[SvnLyrBrto]

Apple does it too. IBM used to do so (when they still made PCs & AIX workstations). Juniper does it at the community-college level. And, back in the day, you used to see a LOT of Sparc/Solaris machines in academic settings where they were definitely overkill.

Nothing sinister here.

Re:Very similar strategy to Cisco

[gfxguy]

They don't need to. I'm not a fan of MS, but the school system would be doing their students a disservice if they didn't teach them to use MS products. I'm not saying exclusively, but learning anything else would be completely useless for the vast majority of the students who will end up using MS products anyway. I know, I know - it could change in the future, and I hope it does, but it's the reality of today.