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

devblogs.microsoft.com

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

#51

Post by Propelloni »

rickdeckard wrote: post #31
ido wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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..."

Thank the gods for 4DOS https://wiki.preterhuman.net/4DOS_Introduction_and_Installat...

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

#52

Post by rjst01 »

londons_explore wrote: post #40

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.

The IRS decided in 2002 that taxing air miles was too difficult: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/a-02-18.pdf , but I wonder if this might change in the future if airlines continue to shift towards programs that reward dollars spent rather than miles flown + ticket class.

Some countries have specific legislation to exclude air miles.

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

#53

Post by londons_explore »

rjst01 wrote: post #52
londons_explore wrote: post #40

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.

The IRS decided in 2002 that taxing air miles was too difficult: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/a-02-18.pdf , but I wonder if this might change in the future if airlines continue to shift towards programs that reward dollars spent rather than miles flown + ticket class. Some countries have specific legislation to exclude air miles.

I'd just make a new law targeting schemes to enable/encourage tax evasion.

It would hit airlines who sell $$$$ worth of tickets each year, but then hand out discount vouchers/points/miles to customers (many of whom bought the original tickets on business expenses, but take the vouchers/points/miles personally, thereby evading tax). The tax authority would be able to estimate the 'value' in vouchers handed out (not the book cost or stated face value, but what customers value them at), the percentage of those vouchers that represent tax evasion, and then fine the airline 3x the lost taxes.

Same for starbucks loyalty cards etc.

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

#54

Post by chungy »

rickdeckard wrote: post #31
ido wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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..."

Windows 95's DOS virtual machines provided pretty close to a full 640KB of free conventional memory to each VM launched. You could even control how much they get through PIF settings (right click the shortcut, go to Properties). There was also no need to fiddle with, eg, mouse and CD-ROM drivers; the DOS VM outsourced the support of those devices to Windows, and did not occupy conventional memory in the way it would under MS-DOS itself.

Unless you're booting into MS-DOS Mode, in which case, you're back to all the old awfulness.

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

#55

Post by balderdash »

yardstick wrote: post #28
gamblor956 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the correct answer, in the U.S. A sales discount is not income, nor is it a gift (which are not taxable to the recipient, but are possibly taxable to the giver ). In dsign's example, where the pizza is from your employer: in the U.S., it would generally be de minimis if it's a one-off or infrequent event. If it's a regular thing though, it generally is considered income unless it's very low value. The I.R.S.…

Does the IRS take into account losses by the company? Eg if A Jewellery shop gave employees a special 2-for-1 / BOGOF gold bars, I expect that’d raise lots of red flags?

Why? now the employee has a large taxable embedded gain on their gold bar when they sell it.

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

#56

Post by hnbad »

robertlagrant wrote: post #35
kazinator wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

More specifically, it's not below market value if the market offers it for that amount. If a restaurant has a "buy one, get one free" deal, that's the market settings its market value. If a restaurant sells you specifically two for the price of one outside their standard offer, that's a gift.

I think the better question is how what most companies do with "enterprise pricing" fits in where there is no official price (i.e. nothing that obviously establishes a market price) and all offers are specific to each inquiry. What happens if the company decides to sell the same thing to one company at the fraction of the usual price but the prices aren't public. What if the company buying it is a one-person company?

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

#57

Post by robertlagrant »

hnbad wrote: post #56
robertlagrant wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

More specifically, it's not below market value if the market offers it for that amount. If a restaurant has a "buy one, get one free" deal, that's the market settings its market value. If a restaurant sells you specifically two for the price of one outside their standard offer, that's a gift. I think the better question is how what most companies do with "enterprise pricing" fits in where there is no official price (…

Good question - I don't know. E.g. if Google paid me by giving my hypothetical one man band company a billion dollars' worth of GPU credits with GCS? Isn't that just...payment? Don't I have to declare it as some form of such?

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

#58

Post by tux3 »

mdekkers wrote: post #37
tux3 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Right. But this position applies equally to all taxes. So that's a general "taxation is theft" type position.

Which is fine in general, just not specific to this particular tax.

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

#60

Post by galeos »

x-egghead wrote: post #6

Interesting. So the Egghead store in San Jose on Blossom Hill Road had 2 interesting employee perks: 0. Vendor reps, including those from Microsoft, were happy to see you cheap NFR copies ($10-25 USD mostly, with some expensive packages going for $50-150) of almost their entire catalog of retail and semi-retail channel software. 1. Here's the shady one: since 99.9% of software was only "sealed" by shrink wrap and hav…

We were also allowed to borrow and re-shrinkwrap games at the Game store I worked in, in the UK, in 2000. Seemed like official company policy to give us better product knowledge!
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