Tax consequences of WIN95 team members keeping a piece of software for testing • Hacker News Board

Re: Tax consequences of WIN95 team members keeping a piece of software for testing

#31

Post by rickdeckard » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 7:48 AM UTC

ido wrote: post #4

jbm wrote: post #3

Wait, they managed to get Wing Commander 3 working on Windows 95?? > Bonus chatter: During one of the many iterations of this story being retold, someone remarked that they got a copy of the video game Wing Commander III through this exercise. I immediately remembered that they fulfilled their expectation by filing a bug against Windows 95: When you earned the cloaking device on level 58 or something, you couldn’t ac…

Would it have been worse? I don’t recall dos games running any slower under windows 95 than under dos.

On the Hardware I had it was definitely worse to run a game from within Win95.

Oh, the flashbacks of tweaking config.sys and autoexec.bat to cram as close to 640KB RAM as possible just to execute a game...

The "and here comes the HIMEM.SYS, here EMM386.EXE, then I need MSCDEX to get my CD-ROM...damn...okay, I don't really need the keyboard driver for this..."

Re: Tax consequences of WIN95 team members keeping a piece of software for testing

#32

Post by wmil » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 7:58 AM UTC

londons_explore wrote: post #30

> changing Windows 95 so that it installed the Ctrl+C hotkey handler only when a clipboard paste operation was active, My understanding of the windows clipboard is that at boot time, the clipboard was empty, but at any other time the clipboard would retain the last thing copied. That presumably means this game would work after a fresh boot, but any other time the game wouldn't get past level 58. Doesn't sound fixed t…

I think there are two Ctrl+C actions. The normal copy, which wouldn't be active for an ms-dos application. However there's a second Ctrl+C to cancel a long paste operation.

Pasting in Windows / Mac is more complex than most devs these days realize, you can copy vector graphics between MS Office and Adobe Illustrator and it will work out a transfer format.

Being able to cancel a long paste was an important feature.

Re: Tax consequences of WIN95 team members keeping a piece of software for testing

#33

Post by miga » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 8:12 AM UTC

Sharing software to be tested for free seems an unalienable right of the company, and indeed many companies distribute free keys to testers.

Here author talks about taxing software that remains with the employee, as if it were "gift" or "taxable benefit" of employment, not an exercise of unalienable right to share software for testing.

Sounds more like tax office logic, instead of common sense.

Taxable benefit would occur if Microsoft bought software of others and gifted it to employee. Or if Microsoft could not reasonably expect people to actually test the software, or allowed them to resell it.

It seems like this article does not distinguish non-monetary "benefit" from employment from necessity that the company gives free license to use its software for testing.

Re: Tax consequences of WIN95 team members keeping a piece of software for testing

#34

Post by michaelt » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 8:13 AM UTC

londons_explore wrote: post #30

> changing Windows 95 so that it installed the Ctrl+C hotkey handler only when a clipboard paste operation was active, My understanding of the windows clipboard is that at boot time, the clipboard was empty, but at any other time the clipboard would retain the last thing copied. That presumably means this game would work after a fresh boot, but any other time the game wouldn't get past level 58. Doesn't sound fixed t…

It's a long time since I've pasted something into a Windows 95 DOS terminal, but I don't think it worked the way you're thinking.

IIRC by default you couldn't just select text with the mouse - as DOS had never had mouse support, and didn't really have the concept of text being selected.

You had to click a particular button to activate text selection before it was possible to copy.

The GUI looked like this: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Microsoft_Windows_95... you'll note there's a toolbar at the top; the dotted square to the right of the 'Auto' dropdown let you select text, then the copy and paste buttons to the right of that let you copy and paste. You'll note that, with no text selected, the copy button is greyed out.

I am confused by the article, though - Ctrl+C is famous as the copy key combination, and yet apparently it's the 'cancel active paste' key combination? - so perhaps someone with an even better memory will correct me :)

Re: Tax consequences of WIN95 team members keeping a piece of software for testing

#35

Post by robertlagrant » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 8:21 AM UTC

kazinator wrote: post #25

dsign wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It it's not your employer, then for tax purposes it will be considered that you bought your pizzas at $12.5. You always get to pay sales taxes on the $25 amount. If it is your employer giving you the pizza, there is a different story. I can't tell you how it would work in USA, but I'll tell you how it would work in Sweden. In a few cases, which include you being an employee of United Nations, you wouldn't pay taxes o…

> You always get to pay sales taxes on the $25 amount. But that $12.5 per pizza is below market value, so you got a gift, which is income.

It's not below market value if the market sells you it for that amount.

Re: Tax consequences of WIN95 team members keeping a piece of software for testing

#36

Post by tux3 » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 8:27 AM UTC

mdekkers wrote: post #22

bjornsing wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds surprisingly logical to me as a Swede. Here you can be taxed for income even if you didn’t receive anything at all. Take for instance a company office with a canteen exclusively for employees. Let’s say the canteen charges 20% under market price for a meal. In that case the employees can be taxed for having access to that canteen, even if they don’t eat there. This access is considered a taxable income.

> This access is considered a taxable income. Sounds like this meets the definition of racketeering

There is no coercion or deception in this situation, so it can't be racketeering. Unless you want to classify all taxation as an extortion racket.

It's just a bad tax policy that creates weird incentives ("use the canteen even if you don't need it"). Let's keep the word racket for criminal enterprises and antivirus companies.

Re: Tax consequences of WIN95 team members keeping a piece of software for testing

#37

Post by mdekkers » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 8:30 AM UTC

tux3 wrote: post #36

mdekkers wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This access is considered a taxable income. Sounds like this meets the definition of racketeering

There is no coercion or deception in this situation, so it can't be racketeering. Unless you want to classify all taxation as an extortion racket. It's just a bad tax policy that creates weird incentives ("use the canteen even if you don't need it"). Let's keep the word racket for criminal enterprises and antivirus companies.

No coercion? Try not paying it.

Re: Tax consequences of WIN95 team members keeping a piece of software for testing

#38

Post by michaelt » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 8:33 AM UTC

kazinator wrote: post #7

What does it mean to "keep" the software? You can return the installation media, and say you erased the program, without having erased it. I would say that if you work for Microsoft and they give you a program free in order to test, then it's not a form of income. The program doesn't represent monetary value in that situation. Microsoft, the copyright holder, is licensing you to have a copy of that program under term…

> Microsoft, the copyright holder, is licensing you to have a copy of that program under terms which do not involve exchange of money.

As I recall, this anecdote is part of a larger story:

* This was at a time where it was common to buy software in retail stores, it would come in a fancy cardboard box with a stack of floppy disks (or a CD-ROM), a printed manual, a warranty card you could mail in, and so on.

* Microsoft wanted Windows 95 to have good compatibility so someone went to a software store and brought one copy of everything the store sold.

* Then Microsoft handed these out to Windows 95 testers and told them "You can have this for free if you report any bugs you encounter"

* The employees received (and got to keep) the physical box, installation media, manual etc.

> I would say that if you work for Microsoft and they give you a program free in order to test, then it's not a form of income.

Tax authorities have fairly strict (and complicated) rules about this sort of thing, to stop companies/employees dodging income tax using 'free' gifts.

If I could give my employees a $50k cash bonus and it got taxed at 24% or I could gift them a $50k car "for testing" and it was tax free, everyone would be getting paid in cars.

Re: Tax consequences of WIN95 team members keeping a piece of software for testing

#39

Post by lb1lf » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 8:35 AM UTC

rrr_oh_man wrote: post #13

jbm wrote: post #3

Wait, they managed to get Wing Commander 3 working on Windows 95?? > Bonus chatter: During one of the many iterations of this story being retold, someone remarked that they got a copy of the video game Wing Commander III through this exercise. I immediately remembered that they fulfilled their expectation by filing a bug against Windows 95: When you earned the cloaking device on level 58 or something, you couldn’t ac…

I remember playing (and finishing) it on a 166 MHz Win 95 machine.

As do I, on a 166MHz MMX with a whopping 64MB of RAM.

First computer I bought with my own money, pored over computer magazines for weeks to figure out how to get the best bang for my buck.

Ended up with a Matrox Millenium 4MB graphics card with a 3dfx Voodoo on top, if memory serves.

The budget was maxed out to the extent that the owner of the shop I purchased all the parts at agreed to drive me the two miles back to the ferry home as I had no money for a taxi.

Good times.

Re: Tax consequences of WIN95 team members keeping a piece of software for testing

#40

Post by londons_explore » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 8:40 AM UTC

Tax agencies don't go after air miles and other points schemes clearly designed to waste $$$'s of company money to get $ in their own pocket tax free.

Considering that, I don't think they really care too much about a few engineers being allowed to keep loaner copies of software they used for testing.