Do they owe the U.S. anything more than corporate taxes?
Get real. Microsoft doesn't pay taxes. One of the most profitable companies in the world, and they don't pay taxes. They use transfer pricing from other countries to get out of it. Off-shore labor and subisidaries is how they arrange it.
They develop products or print CDs in places like China, shipping it to the US through a subsidiary in a country that doesn't have taxes. The US division "buys" it at an intra-company price that is nearly the same as their wholesale price. The US division then resells it at 0 profit.
Don't believe me? Read the Annual Reports for the past few years. That's why there's a nominal number (like 0) listed in the tax paid line.
And you wonder why the US has budget and trade deficits? Our tax system incentivizes companies to ship off jobs.
When you have excessively high rates (like with cable or phone), it attracts competition. Without elevated profits, no one would invest to try to take those profits away. Those investments are in new technologies that obsolete the old.
So, short run you get overcharged. Long run you get a lot more choices.
We're about to be getting fiber to the home (thx to last year's rejection of must carry rulings for the telcos) and high bandwidth, long distance wireless. Cable companies will soon need to make large investments to carry a full lineup of HDTV channels. There will likely be other data transport schemes in the future that we can't see now.
5 years from now, when you all have HDTV sets, internet in your car and high bandwitdh phones, I bet most of you would opt out if you were told you could only use the c.2005 cable infrastructure, 802.11g and GSM e-mail. And I'll bet some of you will be rich because you're building the tech that causes the transition or apps that could only run top of it.
Let's respond with absurd capitalist attacks to match their absurd legal attacks.
One possible response in this vein is for us to request cuecats from Radio Shack and other sources whenever we can. CueCat's per-consumer costs are a function of the number of cuecats that they distribute. If we request and receive multiple cuecats each, we'll drive up their capital investment costs. Then, by not using them, we will reduce the per-consumer revenues. Their funding and financial models may be dependent on some per-cuecat usage or revenue targets. It sure would be too bad if they had capital crunch and problems with their bankers because they missed their targets.
If the Radioshacks of the world run out of the cuecats, then we'll also save those unwitting consumers from the dangers that they present to the general public.
Slashdot Mirror
Do they owe the U.S. anything more than corporate taxes?
Get real. Microsoft doesn't pay taxes. One of the most profitable companies in the world, and they don't pay taxes. They use transfer pricing from other countries to get out of it. Off-shore labor and subisidaries is how they arrange it.
They develop products or print CDs in places like China, shipping it to the US through a subsidiary in a country that doesn't have taxes. The US division "buys" it at an intra-company price that is nearly the same as their wholesale price. The US division then resells it at 0 profit.
Don't believe me? Read the Annual Reports for the past few years. That's why there's a nominal number (like 0) listed in the tax paid line.
And you wonder why the US has budget and trade deficits? Our tax system incentivizes companies to ship off jobs.
Most of you are missing the big picture here.
When you have excessively high rates (like with cable or phone), it attracts competition. Without elevated profits, no one would invest to try to take those profits away. Those investments are in new technologies that obsolete the old.
So, short run you get overcharged. Long run you get a lot more choices.
We're about to be getting fiber to the home (thx to last year's rejection of must carry rulings for the telcos) and high bandwidth, long distance wireless. Cable companies will soon need to make large investments to carry a full lineup of HDTV channels. There will likely be other data transport schemes in the future that we can't see now.
5 years from now, when you all have HDTV sets, internet in your car and high bandwitdh phones, I bet most of you would opt out if you were told you could only use the c.2005 cable infrastructure, 802.11g and GSM e-mail. And I'll bet some of you will be rich because you're building the tech that causes the transition or apps that could only run top of it.
My mom never bought me those sets when I was a kid.
Maybe that's why I never wanted to go goth.
Let's respond with absurd capitalist attacks to match their absurd legal attacks. One possible response in this vein is for us to request cuecats from Radio Shack and other sources whenever we can. CueCat's per-consumer costs are a function of the number of cuecats that they distribute. If we request and receive multiple cuecats each, we'll drive up their capital investment costs. Then, by not using them, we will reduce the per-consumer revenues. Their funding and financial models may be dependent on some per-cuecat usage or revenue targets. It sure would be too bad if they had capital crunch and problems with their bankers because they missed their targets. If the Radioshacks of the world run out of the cuecats, then we'll also save those unwitting consumers from the dangers that they present to the general public.