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‘Making Amazon look bad’: Microsoft supports a state tax on businesses

seattletimes.com

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Re: ‘Making Amazon look bad’: Microsoft supports a state tax on businesses

#11

Post by CPLX »

_bxg1 wrote: post #2

> I don’t know what’s gotten into Microsoft lately. Remember when it was the Death Star, monopolistically glowering over technopolis and threatening to cut off the air supply of competitors and regulators alike? Microsoft is a relative underdog now (among the tech giants). Underdogs tend to benefit more, personally, from the greater good, and also have less clout with which to push others around. This makes them come…

> Microsoft is a relative underdog now (among the tech giants)

lol

Re: ‘Making Amazon look bad’: Microsoft supports a state tax on businesses

#12

Post by MagicPropmaker »

jermaustin1 wrote: post #7
_bxg1 wrote: post #2

> I don’t know what’s gotten into Microsoft lately. Remember when it was the Death Star, monopolistically glowering over technopolis and threatening to cut off the air supply of competitors and regulators alike? Microsoft is a relative underdog now (among the tech giants). Underdogs tend to benefit more, personally, from the greater good, and also have less clout with which to push others around. This makes them come…

> Microsoft is a relative underdog now How so? According to NASDAQ, MSFT is valued higher than all of the FAANG companies. It's north of $900B right now.

If that's what people believe, it's brilliant! Part of the strategy of Apple's resurrection was making people think they were the little guy; the hip, cool alternative for people who "think different." Now Microsoft can play the same game.

As of right now, MSFT market cap is $895B and AAPL is $888B. Some underdog!

Re: ‘Making Amazon look bad’: Microsoft supports a state tax on businesses

#13

Post by seanmcdirmid »

influx wrote: post #10

How much tax are you going to get when Amazon shifts to HQ2? Bezos deliberately started Amazon here in Washington because there was no state tax. I’ve been an Amazon employee and I’ve paid a lot of taxes here and have seen the government waste that money. Our property tax has gone up by hundreds of dollars a month and our schools, roads, and police forces are still in disarray. I don’t mind paying tax as long as it’s…

Property and sales tax are necessary in Washington in lieu of an income tax.

If you live in Seattle, schooling, roads and even the police aren’t that bad (compared to other cities), heck, you can choose to live in Bellevue where all those things are better (though at the cost of being boring). In general, taxes get used pretty darn well in WA, at least compared to other states.

Re: ‘Making Amazon look bad’: Microsoft supports a state tax on businesses

#14

Post by polyomino »

_bxg1 wrote: post #9
rlanday wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft is a relative underdog now (among the tech giants). Microsoft is currently the largest company in the world by market cap.

Hmm, that's surprising. It has a dodgy foothold in mobile, Amazon (and possibly also Google?) has it beat in cloud services, Google Docs has taken a chunk of Office's territory, Chrome OS is overtaking Windows in education, Mobile+Apple+Chrome OS are swallowing it in personal computing and (I believe) gaining some ground even in enterprise. It doesn't seem like Microsoft has dominance in anything but desktop OS right…

Microsoft used to be a boxed software business, now they're transitioning to saas. It's really that simple.

Re: ‘Making Amazon look bad’: Microsoft supports a state tax on businesses

#15

Post by _bxg1 »

_bxg1 wrote: post #9
rlanday wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft is a relative underdog now (among the tech giants). Microsoft is currently the largest company in the world by market cap.

Hmm, that's surprising. It has a dodgy foothold in mobile, Amazon (and possibly also Google?) has it beat in cloud services, Google Docs has taken a chunk of Office's territory, Chrome OS is overtaking Windows in education, Mobile+Apple+Chrome OS are swallowing it in personal computing and (I believe) gaining some ground even in enterprise. It doesn't seem like Microsoft has dominance in anything but desktop OS right…

Maybe it's just better diversified than its competitors, and it's only an underdog in each individual product category (except desktop OS, for now at least), and not as a whole.

Re: ‘Making Amazon look bad’: Microsoft supports a state tax on businesses

#16

Post by _bxg1 »

polyomino wrote: post #14
_bxg1 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, that's surprising. It has a dodgy foothold in mobile, Amazon (and possibly also Google?) has it beat in cloud services, Google Docs has taken a chunk of Office's territory, Chrome OS is overtaking Windows in education, Mobile+Apple+Chrome OS are swallowing it in personal computing and (I believe) gaining some ground even in enterprise. It doesn't seem like Microsoft has dominance in anything but desktop OS right…

Microsoft used to be a boxed software business, now they're transitioning to saas. It's really that simple.

Right, but Amazon and Google are arguably better than them at SaaS. AWS is second to none for cloud hosting, and Google is second to none for AI.

Re: ‘Making Amazon look bad’: Microsoft supports a state tax on businesses

#17

Post by seanmcdirmid »

chihuahua wrote: post #8
hbosch wrote: post #3

Isn't the general argument that state taxes mean almost nothing to businesses like Boeing, Microsoft, Amazon, et al (in Washington State) but are actually a huge pain in the ass for small/mid-size businesses? The quote featured in this headline underscores an editorial bias that is pro-Microsoft (who keeps their campus in the suburb of Renton) and anti-Amazon (the scapegoat for rising Seattle real estate).

Most of the Microsoft main campus is in Redmond, not Renton. They have some buildings in Bellevue and Seattle. But as far as I know, Microsoft has no office space at all in Renton.

Reminds me of this classic Almost Live segment about the 425 area code switch over: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V9jlo4Ht2YA

At the end, an east side Bellevue woman snobbishly complains about 425 containing Renton.

Re: ‘Making Amazon look bad’: Microsoft supports a state tax on businesses

#18

Post by wlesieutre »

RHSeeger wrote: post #4

> Let’s ask the largest companies in the tech sector, which are the largest employers of high-skilled talent, to do a bit more I do not understand how people can not understand that a percentage tax, by it's definition, does have the largest companies pay more.

I'm quite sure that the President and CLO of Microsoft who said that understands exactly what he said. "More" in context means more than they're doing now. Not "do more than a lemonade stand that made $200 last quarter," which no shit, they're doing already.

Re: ‘Making Amazon look bad’: Microsoft supports a state tax on businesses

#19

Post by cwyers »

_bxg1 wrote: post #16
polyomino wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft used to be a boxed software business, now they're transitioning to saas. It's really that simple.

Right, but Amazon and Google are arguably better than them at SaaS. AWS is second to none for cloud hosting, and Google is second to none for AI.

Only if you ignore the categories of software where Microsoft leads -- Active Directory and Office 365 are SaaS offerings that Microsoft has that are seeing massive adoption, and Microsoft is using that to leverage businesses onto their other cloud offerings.

Re: ‘Making Amazon look bad’: Microsoft supports a state tax on businesses

#20

Post by ABCLAW »

RHSeeger wrote: post #4

> Let’s ask the largest companies in the tech sector, which are the largest employers of high-skilled talent, to do a bit more I do not understand how people can not understand that a percentage tax, by it's definition, does have the largest companies pay more.

>I do not understand how people can not understand that a percentage tax, by it's definition, does have the largest companies pay more.

They don't understand it because it isn't true on a proportional basis (and in some cases on an absolute dollar value basis, too).

Larger companies have access to tax avoidance strategies which are unavailable to smaller companies[1] which substantially changes the calculus.

I've gone through the books of plenty LargeCos. The playing field is not even.

[1] issues include inability to finance high-end tax structuring advice, writing of grants or negotiate valuations, lack of ability to amortize risk associated with an unfavourable tax ruling, lack of capital to access directorship services in tax havens etc.

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