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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

#31

Post by cheeze »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #13
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.

> police aren’t that bad (compared to other cities)

You mean the police department that was investigated by the DOJ for being engaged in a "pattern or pratice" of violating constitutional rights through excessive force, specifically against minorities?

The same police department that turns a blind eye to _any_ property crime?

Just making sure that we're talking about the same Seattle Police Department here. SPD has been a disgrace for the past 10+ years.

In fairness, they are improving IMO.

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

#32

Post by skookumchuck »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #17
chihuahua wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Looking back on Almost Live, its local humor is an unintentional treasure of what Seattle was like in the 90's.

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

#33

Post by donavanm »

cheeze wrote: post #31
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> police aren’t that bad (compared to other cities) You mean the police department that was investigated by the DOJ for being engaged in a "pattern or pratice" of violating constitutional rights through excessive force, specifically against minorities? The same police department that turns a blind eye to _any_ property crime? Just making sure that we're talking about the same Seattle Police Department here. SPD has b…

1) i presume youre talking about the consent decree and mou dating from ~2011. Which spd has been in full conpliance with. And IIRC this is the last year of “sustainment” monitoring.

2) thats SPD abiding by prosecutor enforcement priorities. Go ask the king county DA why they dismissed 1500 misdemeanors last year, why they wont prosecute theft or vandalism, or why illegal firearm possession is book and release.

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

#34

Post by ABCLAW »

RHSeeger wrote: post #25
ABCLAW wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 gon…

There seems to be a repeated response to what I said, so I'll just respond once. The fix for companies using loopholes to avoid taxes is not to raise the tax rate. The fix is to remove the loopholes.

>The fix is to remove the loopholes.

Is it, though? This is a situation where Chesterton's Fence is important to consider.

No single government regulates tax worldwide, and each is iteratively attempting to balance a multitude of concerns, while remaining competitive to capital.

Additionally, many of the loopholes aren't legislative tax exemptions on the books. They're determinations regarding how and when certain things are recognized on the books. 'Fixing' those problems doesn't 'remove' loopholes. It just creates new rules which are then exploited.

Finally, with respect to tax simplification in general: Simplifying the tax code is akin to refactoring code. Sure, there are some areas where it could be engaged in without causing problems (and which would result in efficiency gains!), but much of the appeal of refactoring code lies in how we ignore the tricky edge cases when designing a new utopic system in our heads.

The legal project of re-digesting a highly complicated body of law and producing a more functional version would take, at the very least, a decade of work. So now we're hitting the complexity limits of an administration's compute ability too. Shit.

All in all: it's a bit harder than that. I wish you were right, though.

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

#35

Post by brianberns »

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.

Amazon nearly doubled its profits to $11.2 billion in 2018 from $5.6 billion the previous year and didn’t pay a single cent of federal income taxes.

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

#36

Post by anth_anm »

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…

If he can convince thousands and thousands of employees to pack up everything and move across the country on a whim, then he can go ahead. No stopping that.

Washington state has already been through this shit with Boeing.

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

#37

Post by anth_anm »

_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…

It's not surprising if you pay attention.

> Amazon (and possibly also Google?) has it beat in cloud services

No, not google.

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

#38

Post by cjarrett »

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.

Correct. I live in Renton, which is very far and terrible drive to redmond 6:15-10 am and from redmond 2pm-6:30pm.

They might have a marketing area, but I haven't seen it in the downtown area.

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

#39

Post by mallocfree »

_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).

How do you define a Tech giant?

By Market cap they are #1. Here are top 5.

1. Microsoft $895B 2. Apple $888B 3. Amazon $867B 4. Google $816B 5. Facebook $473B

They have been in top 3 for last 30 years with a robust business model. They missed on Mobile and search but hey it would be hard for any tech company to top in each market.

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

#40

Post by techsupporter »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #17
chihuahua wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or this one ("Cops in Redmond"): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pxGDSucCEI

> And if you cannot afford a lawyer...well, uh, what are you doing living in Redmond? Maybe you meant Renton? They do sound similar, Redmond, Renton...

Also, Pat Cashman is a treasure. "Did you have to dial a one...before?"

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