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Microsoft Hits $1 Trillion In Total Cumulative Revenue: Reports (mspoweruser.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft has hit a major milestone: $1 trillion in all-time cumulative revenue. The finding was first spotted by Jeff Reifman, a tech consultant. According to him, Microsoft hit the milestone in its last quarter. Interestingly, Apple also hit $1 trillion in revenue in 2015. As for profits, Microsoft currently leads the chart with $265.2 billion with Apple trying to close in with $261.6 billion. "You might expect a company to announce a milestone like this and bask in this incredible accomplishment -- but not Microsoft," writes Reifman. "It chose to stay silent as it faces increased public scrutiny for holding $108.3 billion in earnings offshore (an incredible 41% of its all-time profit) and its history of tax dodging at home in Washington State."Microsoft blog MSPowerUser says it independently verified the numbers. According to which, Microsoft's total cumulative revenue as of last earnings call is 1001.569 billion.
How much does MS get paid for every Android phone sold?
Depending on the features included, Microsoft makes from $5 to $15 per Android phone. They get about $2B per year from Android licensing fees.
Here's an example. Irish corporate tax rate is around 10% and in the US it's about 35% [...]
That's a good start... but its incomplete:
USA Corp earns $1,000 in profit in sales in the US, they pay $350 to the IRS and keep $650 as profits to either reinvest in the company by building new capabilities in the US, or distribute as a dividend to shareholders etc
Well you forgot about the part where technically the Corp in Ireland owns the company Trademark and charges USA corp $500 to license it. So USA corp only earns $500 in profits locally. They pay $175 in taxes and keep the balance to reinvest locally etc.
Now USA Corp also earns $1,000 profit in Ireland.
Well $500 in Ireland. The other $500 was actually earned in the USA but was transferred to Ireland in the aforementioned licensing fees. So only $500 was in Ireland... well actually no ... $495 of that was actually earned in Canada, UK, France, Germany, etc, and similarly transferred to Ireland.
Only $5 was earned from activities actually in Ireland though, and yes they paid their fair $0.50 share for that.
But the other $99.50 in taxes corp in ireland was all basically a tax dodge of much higher taxes in many other countries.
So how does USA corp get the money into the USA from Ireland, since if it transfers it, it pays taxes!!? Well.. it could borrow it from Irish corp? Then its just a loan; the money comes into the US, and a debt to ireland is added to the balance sheet. But since they're really borrowing it from themselves,... and that's just an example of one of the games they can play.