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Microsoft SEC 8-K: IRS is seeking an additional tax payment of $29B

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201–210 of 334 posts

Re: Microsoft SEC 8-K: IRS is seeking an additional tax payment of $29B

#201
post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unfairly profits from having important information other investors don't have. It all depends how you come to know the thing, no? If you can infer something from public information others haven't, then bully for you. I'm pretty sure that if that information is not public, then you're liable. IANAL though so I may be wrong.

That's totally wrong. If you make inferences from non-public information (e.g. talking to the CEO) you can freely trade on that, provided the CEO hasn't shared MNPI with you directly. Every public company has an Investor Relations department that talks to institutional investors every day. Investors wouldn't bother talking to IR if they could get the same information somewhere else. And these communications are not m…

> MNPI with you directly.

Abbreviating that is so misleading, it's incredibly hard to not see it as bad faith! MNPI means "material non-public information". You're saying "non-public information is fine but material non-public information is not", without making it as obvious.

Yes, it has to be material. "Owes $30b in taxes" is ABSOLUTELY material. If on top of that you learn about it from IRS insider contacts, enjoy your time in prison.

Please do read the Wikipedia article; it has a section on the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insider_trading

> SEC regulation FD ("Fair Disclosure") requires that if a company intentionally discloses material non-public information to one person, it must simultaneously disclose that information to the public at large.

Re: Microsoft SEC 8-K: IRS is seeking an additional tax payment of $29B

#202
post #149

The infraction happened in 2004-2013. So that would be over three billion dollars per year. Microsoft’s operating income in fiscal year 2005 was about $15B and in 2013 almost $27B. So you can kind see where the IRS is getting this number: if they believe that Microsoft evaded tax worth about 10-15% of its earnings before taxes, that’s how it would add up to this whopping sum. It seems like Microsoft believes they can…

> The stock price doesn’t seem to be hurting pre-market at all. Big investors will have eyes and ears inside the IRS, so will have known for years about this already.

It was likely known about and also is a small percent of the market cap. The present value will also be reduced by the time value of money, which is not inconsequential over the quite a few years this will take to settle.

Re: Microsoft SEC 8-K: IRS is seeking an additional tax payment of $29B

#203
post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of the market is people pointing at other people as if they had done the due diligence that they couldn't be bothered with, and those people pointing back.

The more you believe that the more you should expect the stock price to move on announcements like this one.

I think the other users point was that in the past the prices didn’t move because people assumed that other people knew what was going on (and they were not selling or driving prices down).

Accordingly the price might not move because of similar assumptions.

To be clear that’s just how I read that comment. I know nothing about this situation with Microsoft.

Re: Microsoft SEC 8-K: IRS is seeking an additional tax payment of $29B

#204
post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's quite that simple. After the offer was submitted he famously tried hard to NOT buy Twitter. In the end his attempts to back out of the purchase because of the supposed undisclosed bot problem were thrown out in court, but iirc he could still have pulled out by paying "only" a couple billion dollars in fines or something. I guess it comes down to "do you believe Elon Musk when he says something" and…

> but iirc he could still have pulled out by paying "only" a couple billion dollars in fines or something. That clause was clearly for things outside of Elon (or former Twitter)'s control. Like if a government stepped in to stop the purchase. Elon never had a good counter argument. So it was simply a case of those who were able to read the public court documents vs the ones who believed Elons out-of-court media blitz…

[flagged]

Re: Microsoft SEC 8-K: IRS is seeking an additional tax payment of $29B

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At what point does information such as this become "insider information" and illegal to share? These "eyes and ears" need to have their taxes audited...

Martha Stewart: Convicted in 2004 for insider trading related to the biopharmaceutical company ImClone Systems. Raj Rajaratnam: Founder of the Galleon Group, convicted in 2011 on 14 counts of conspiracy and securities fraud. Jeffrey Skilling: Former CEO of Enron, convicted in 2006 for insider trading among other charges. Michael Milken: Financier and investment banker known as the "Junk Bond King," convicted in 1990…

Point of order - Martha Stewart was convicted of obstruction of justice and lying to an investigator, not insider trading.

This might not be the most authoritative website but it lines up with what is in wikipedia: https://www.yourdictionary.com/articles/martha-stewart-jail-...

Re: Microsoft SEC 8-K: IRS is seeking an additional tax payment of $29B

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but iirc he could still have pulled out by paying "only" a couple billion dollars in fines or something. That clause was clearly for things outside of Elon (or former Twitter)'s control. Like if a government stepped in to stop the purchase. Elon never had a good counter argument. So it was simply a case of those who were able to read the public court documents vs the ones who believed Elons out-of-court media blitz…

[flagged]

On the contrary. I was not arrogant enough.

The biggest winners were those who short sold Tesla, knowing that Elon would be forced to sell Tesla stock to afford a $44 Billion purchase (even if $13 Billion was covered in loans and maybe $9 Billion in handshake agreements with other investors like Saudis or Larry Ellison etc. Etc.)

If you short sold Tesla and bought TWTR in preparation for the buyout event, you'd have made even more money. Etc. Etc. And some people did do that.

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Anyway. AMC/APE was the more recent event a few weeks ago proving the illiterate stock market traders. It's happening again and again. Tons of opportunities exist if you have the ability to read, and comprehend, the public legal text. This is absolutely not a thing typical traders can do, the price fluctuations are proof of that.

I dunno what the next event will be, but I'm keeping my eyes open for easy money.

Re: Microsoft SEC 8-K: IRS is seeking an additional tax payment of $29B

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s why a scam startup is able to rocket as soon as 1 named investor signs on. See the juice squeezing bag company etc.

Hey Juicearoo was a great product! It solved the problem of me having a bag of juice and needing to get the juice out.

I’m this close to having this printed and framed, but I can’t find framearoo.com.

Re: Microsoft SEC 8-K: IRS is seeking an additional tax payment of $29B

#209
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much all cases? If you're an institutional investor you can just call the CEO or investor relations and ask them tough questions about their business. Sometimes you can figure out within minutes that the CEO is a bozo. You can visit their offices and talk to the employees. Are they smart and passionate and hard-working, or demoralized and looking to jump ship? You can also derive material information for insta…

Is there any reason why based on the last example you would want to short?

Because it implies that they're putting a lot of effort into making bad numbers look good for the report, and the assumption is that they'll either fail or the truth will come out at some point to make the short pay off.

Re: Microsoft SEC 8-K: IRS is seeking an additional tax payment of $29B

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The stock price doesn’t seem to be hurting pre-market at all. Big investors will have eyes and ears inside the IRS, so will have known for years about this already.

At what point does information such as this become "insider information" and illegal to share? These "eyes and ears" need to have their taxes audited...

In the market you can buy and hold, exploit “grey” edge, be RenTec, or lose money.
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