Microsoft – Tax Evader Par Excelence

I’m not a tax law expert. I’m especially not a U.S. Law tax expert, Canadian Tax law I know a bit about. However the people over at Microsofttaxdoge.com appear to know a fair bit about the tax laws, specifically in regards to Washington State law. Now they may be a bit biased, but the article ‘Washington to Give Microsoft a $100 Million Annual Tax Cut…and Possible Amnesty on Past Tax Evasion‘, if accurate, is troubling.

Microsoft plays a good game, trying to market their company as a responsible corporate citizen. Using the rules to avoid paying taxes by having an office in another state to collect one type of revenue may be legal (I’m not familiar with the local rules). It may not be legal. But avoiding taxes when your home state as a horrible budget deficit is not the act of a responsible corporate citizen.

Read it. Think about it. There could be 1.2 billion owed, depending upon how the law is interpreted. And the assemblyman responsible for the newest legislation used to work for Microsoft. The optics on this one are really bad.

Wayne Borean

Tuesday February 16, 2010

About Wayne Borean

Over the past 35 years Wayne Borean has held a variety of positions, in a variety of industries. In addition to be one of the few people in North America capable of designing catalytic converter cores, he has travelled all over North America, spent time in China, was involved with the Industrial Truck Standards Development Foundation, was a parent representative on his children's School Council, helped start and run FilKONtario, has edited Wikipedia (but then who hasn't), plays guitar (badly), is married, has three adult children, has a 20,000+ book library, and writes articles on just about anything that catches his fancy. He's also a bad tempered old bastard. This is Liberty Hall. You can spit on the mat, and call the cat a bastard.

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