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.

The job of the press is accountability

[sjbe]

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

We have that - it's called the press. Combined with an informed electorate it's pretty effective in the long run. It's not official in the government but you really don't want it to be. An official branch of government that isn't accountable itself is called a dictatorship. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't like that.

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.

It most certainly is a tax dodge.

[sjbe]

But it's, at best, a strawman (non-)argument to call them a tax dodge or to claim they owe your hypothetical billions.

If they took extraordinary action to avoid paying taxes while still staying within the letter of the law then they ARE dodging taxes. Any argument otherwise is merely equivocation.

Tax evasion and tax avoidance are two entirely different things.

Just because something is legal doesn't make it right. And I don't buy your argument because it is basically a "might makes right" argument. Just because they have the ability to hire lots of lawyers and accountants to do clever tricks avoiding taxes does not mean it should be acceptable. Finding clever loopholes that force others to make up the slack in civil society is not something to be applauded.

But if you're going to attack someone else for not paying more tax than they are legally obligated to

I'm not. I'm attacking them for paying less than they are ethically obligated to. I don't care for a moment that they aren't technically breaking the law. The fact that the laws were imperfectly written does not excuse their behavior. I assure you that I am paying a FAR larger portion of my income in taxes than Microsoft is AND even if we paid the same percentage Microsoft would feel less financial pain from doing so. So until Microsoft starts paying an amount of tax that hurts them as much as what I pay hurts me your argument is bogus.

Re: Very similar strategy to Cisco

[Penguinisto]

Like Germany, where they spent $14 million to save $11 million?

Guessing they'll save a lot more than that in the long run - mostly by not having to re-up a massive Microsoft EA multi-million-euro contract every 3 years or so...

In other words, you've fallen for the same short-sighted 'next quarter' BS that the MBAs tend to fall for. Look further out...