wow. they stole almost a hundred dollars worth of taxes from every american man, woman, and child. $87 by my calculation, that will be up well over 100 dollars accounting for inflation. Depending on how long they drag it out for in the courts maybe even 200
Microsoft SEC 8-K: IRS is seeking an additional tax payment of $29B
231–240 of 334 posts
Re: Microsoft SEC 8-K: IRS is seeking an additional tax payment of $29B
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
Why is it bad that corporations pay taxes? Ignoring your use of sexual language to that effect, I don’t see why companies get to use tax havens to avoid paying for the Common Good that serves everyone (regardless of how much % you think it should be).
I didn’t write it was bad, I wrote very specific words. They aren’t the recipient, just like Brazil, or Canada, or any random country isnt. If thats hard for you to understand, thats exactly what I’m trying to point out: it shouldnt be hard to understand.
The “Common Good” isnt paid for by taxes, its paid by debt issuance and the taxes and other revenues pay the interest. This means that the things that would be funded already are funded, and no tax collection influences that.
Regarding “tax havens”, this is also hubris. A high tax country that doesnt know how to balance its budget has a term for a low tax nation that operates within the confines of its budget. The Cayman Islands has legislated a tax, its just at 0% right now because they dont need the money that way. They found something competitive to raise enough revenues and didnt get involved in other things. Its nobodies problem that this is now impossible for the other country from its poor spending habits.
Maybe one day you’ll see your blind spots. What I described is the reality that exists, it is already compliant to operate this way and that’s very unlikely to change. Countries compete on competitiveness for business.
Re: Microsoft SEC 8-K: IRS is seeking an additional tax payment of $29B
#233When was the last time a major corporation went bankrupt for failing to pay its taxes?
Well even if MS are found to be liable for this tax bill, MS has in the region of $100 billion "Cash on hand" so I doubt that they will go bankrupt over this.
This sounds to me like an gigantic amount of money. I looked it up and apparently it was $136B in 2019¹ and $111B today². And Microsoft, although it is the company with the most cash on hand, is not an outlier here with Alphabet at $121B and Apple at $100B².
I really don't know why they do this though.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/07/microsoft-apple-and-alphabet...
[2] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MSFT/microsoft/cas...
Re: Microsoft SEC 8-K: IRS is seeking an additional tax payment of $29B
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It seems like Microsoft believes they can settle for something much lower. The stock price doesn’t seem to be hurting pre-market at all Given the Stock Markets inability to predict the Twitter buyout despite public documents stating Elon Musk's contract to buy at $54.20/share throughout 2022, I'm pretty sure that stock market investors are literally illiterate, unable to read public documents. Anyone who bought Twi…
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…
>iirc he could still have pulled out by paying "only" a couple billion dollars in fines or something.
He couldn't have. That clause protected Twitter, not him. It ensured Twitter would still get something in case outside forces, like government regulators or financing falling through, prevented the deal. It did not give Musk the right to pay a penalty and back out.
Twitter explicitly reserved the right to sue for specific performance, i.e. to force the deal through rather than merely getting damages. Musk explicitly signed away any rights to investigate or back out. Twitter was honest and forthright so any fraud claims were nonsense. Musk didn't have a leg to stand on, legally or factually.
The most he could have done was tie things up in court. But the courts can throw out bad-faith lawsuits pretty quickly.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/11/business/dealbook/elon-mu...
The other guy you're talking to is being a dick. There was a concerted disinformation campaign from Musk and friends, and the papers were not willing enough to call "bullshit" on the front page. The truth was out there but hardly staring you in the face.
But hedge funds have teams of lawyers reading this stuff all day long. They have no excuse for not seeing through Musk's chicanery.
Re: Microsoft SEC 8-K: IRS is seeking an additional tax payment of $29B
#235Earlier 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.
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.
On paper it makes sense to have a microprocessor guide the pressure used on fruit and vegetable pulp [0]. Between that and the introduction of software to manage the fruit supply chain, the Juicero embodied Marc Andreessen's prophecy [1].
Unfortunately, they got the verb wrong: software is eating _not_ drinking the world.
Re: Microsoft SEC 8-K: IRS is seeking an additional tax payment of $29B
#236The 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…
> It seems like Microsoft believes they can settle for something much lower.
They could hire the best lawyers, accountants, lobbyists, etc in the world. Unless someone at microsoft did something criminal, it's likely they could knock a significant portion off the tax bill.
> The stock price doesn’t seem to be hurting pre-market at all.
Microsoft's market cap is $2.5 Trillion. The one-time tax bill amounts to about 1% of its 'total value'. It's like a one time $1000 special property tax on your $100K rental property. It sucks but it's not the end of the world. Besides, even if they had to pay $30 billion in back taxes, MSFT's customers are utlimately going to pay for it, not microsoft. It doesn't affect microsoft's market share in OS, Office, Servers, etc.
Re: Microsoft SEC 8-K: IRS is seeking an additional tax payment of $29B
#237No message about how greedy Europe wants to steal money from big tech, yada yada yada. Oh, it's the USA this time? Wait, does this mean that these big tech were really not paying their fair share and the USA was just slow to get caught to it? I guess so.
What is a "fair share" in your opinion?
Re: Microsoft SEC 8-K: IRS is seeking an additional tax payment of $29B
#238Earlier 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.
They had outstanding product-market fit. The _only_ problem is that the market of people who have juice bags and do not know how to open them (I.e. two year olds) do not make purchasing decisions.
Re: Microsoft SEC 8-K: IRS is seeking an additional tax payment of $29B
#239Earlier 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…
>iirc he could still have pulled out by paying "only" a couple billion dollars in fines or something. He couldn't have. That clause protected Twitter, not him. It ensured Twitter would still get something in case outside forces, like government regulators or financing falling through, prevented the deal. It did not give Musk the right to pay a penalty and back out. Twitter explicitly reserved the right to sue for spe…
> and the papers were not willing enough to call "bullshit" on the front page. The truth was out there but hardly staring you in the face.
It kinda was, though. A bunch of lawyer-reacts at the time basically were "this isn't financial advice, but lol Musk is fucked and the Delaware court doesn't screw around or delay"
Re: Microsoft SEC 8-K: IRS is seeking an additional tax payment of $29B
#240The 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…
> It seems like Microsoft believes they can settle for something much lower. The stock price doesn’t seem to be hurting pre-market at all Given the Stock Markets inability to predict the Twitter buyout despite public documents stating Elon Musk's contract to buy at $54.20/share throughout 2022, I'm pretty sure that stock market investors are literally illiterate, unable to read public documents. Anyone who bought Twi…
>AMC / APE for another example. Anyone who short sold AMC and bought long APE made bank this past year (before the AMC/APE stock ticker merge there were public documents in December 2022 stating AMCs intention to merge the two one-for-one)
This is called "pairs trading", right? Is there any way it can blow up? Remember that this is AMC, which could be out of business in six months or could go up 3000% in another idiotic bubble.
I made a fair bit of money off Twitter because it was as simple as buying stock at the market rate. Anyone who reads the papers knew the price of Twitter to the penny and could have bought in with a phone call. The sort of trade you're talking about sounds harder to pull off safely. That's no excuse for the hedge funds, of course.