The government wants money. Solution? Just retroactively “adjust” someone’s taxes from years ago! A good solid decade ought to do it.
Pure evil. If there was ac actual issue all this years ago, the IRS WOULD HAVE NOTIFIED THEM AND THEY COULD PAY WHAT WAS OWED. this isn’t that. This is an extortionist government.
Microsoft didn’t do anything illegal. They took advantage of the way the tax systems were set up, like any smart company would do.
The only theft is what Micro$oft did. And the sad part is that a company with $136 billion in profits in 2022 only has to pay $29 billion in penalties for their decade of theft.
Minimizing tax burden by storing your money in a more favorable location (still within US jurisdiction) wasn’t illegal at the time. Retroactively making it so is just theft by the government. Pure and simple. “Adjustment” my left buttock! Microsoft didn’t do anything wrong. They looked at options available to them and utilized them. anything else would just be dumb. But now you have the government retroactively changing things. If a company knew that would happen, of course they’d do things differently in the past. But they didn’t. Because it wasn’t wrong at the time. It’s like an entrapment feature of the government. Pure thievery.
You don't know that "Microsoft didn’t do anything wrong.". No one has said they were doing anything illegal, they simply didn't do the tax dodging in a manner the IRS thinks is correct. There will be a back and forth and eventually a settlement will be reached. There is no reason to ever place any faith or belief in corporations doing the right thing, that's not how they operate. All desisions are based on what makes or saves the most money - period. Apple are slightly less guilty of that than some mega-corporations, but MSFT? Come on, they are not going to follow the law to the letter if they think they can get away with it. Gates' legacy of hacking and gaming everything, always and forever lives on.
If that was so, it would have been caught the first year. The IRS watches big corporations like s hawk.
They are even calling this an “adjustment.” Thst means the government is changing things now. That can be applied moving forward but should never be retroactive. That’s wrong. If the rules for a gamrr we change next year, you shouldn’t lose your trophy thst you won playing by the rules in years prior.
The IRS has been intentionally underfunded for decades, specifically so that they lack the capacity to ‘watch big corporations like a hawk.’ It’s a bit willfully naïve not to recognize the likelihood that the scads of talented tax attorneys employed by big corporations would push the limits of loopholes to the extreme (and beyond) with the expectation that the IRS won’t catch things, nor have the capacity to do anything about it if they do. The reality is that this issue is probably just one of many more instances where big corporations have been coloring outside the lines with impunity.
This is not an ex post facto change in the law. This is an audit finding that Microsoft did their taxes wrong. The “adjustment” refers not to a retroactive change in the law, but to a revision in what MS owes, based on the audit finding that they did their taxes wrong.
IRS: “C’mon MSFT, just write us a check. Just think about what it will do for your country.”
MSFT: “Ok, we thought about it. The US government has spent about $5,495,977,156,207 USD this year, so far. We’re at day 285. This means you guys spent about $19,284,130,373 USD per day to keep everything going in the US so far this year. You know, just to maintain the status quo, keep the lights on.”
MSFT: “Tell you what guys, Microsoft will fork over the $29 billion. You’re welcome. This will keep the lights on in the US government, and especially in that dark stinky black hole of incompetence called the US Congress, for about 1.5 days at your current spending rates.”
IRS: “Thanks, MSFT. Much appreciated.”
IRS: “Oh crap, now all we have to do now is figure out who is going to pay for the other 363.5 days.”
Adjust to irs calculations. Not ms taxes. As you can see Microsoft believes the irs is pulling something here. Microsoft did right by the irs now the irs wants to retroactively recalculate how much ms should have paid to transfer money to its different locales. That is just a scam to steal money. It’s like buying a MacBook Pro at $3000 10 years ago. Now, they say you owe $1000 because that model MacBook Pro costs $4000 today. It’s theft. Just because it’s the government doesn’t change that.
and the irs is certainly not underfunded. They’ve been as big as they should be so as not to overreach. Now, we are looking at a juggernaut of an irs incoming to scrape every American over the coals and they were even planning to arm the agents before that bit became public.
I’ll repeat there is no way the irs missed Microsoft’s numbers nor is there a possibility of waiting a decade to audit one of the worlds largest companies. This “adjustment”is a sham.
The government wants money. Solution? Just retroactively “adjust” someone’s taxes from years ago! A good solid decade ought to do it.
Pure evil. If there was ac actual issue all this years ago, the IRS WOULD HAVE NOTIFIED THEM AND THEY COULD PAY WHAT WAS OWED. this isn’t that. This is an extortionist government.
Microsoft didn’t do anything illegal. They took advantage of the way the tax systems were set up, like any smart company would do.
The only theft is what Micro$oft did. And the sad part is that a company with $136 billion in profits in 2022 only has to pay $29 billion in penalties for their decade of theft.
Minimizing tax burden by storing your money in a more favorable location (still within US jurisdiction) wasn’t illegal at the time. Retroactively making it so is just theft by the government. Pure and simple. “Adjustment” my left buttock! Microsoft didn’t do anything wrong. They looked at options available to them and utilized them. anything else would just be dumb. But now you have the government retroactively changing things. If a company knew that would happen, of course they’d do things differently in the past. But they didn’t. Because it wasn’t wrong at the time. It’s like an entrapment feature of the government. Pure thievery.
You don't know that "Microsoft didn’t do anything wrong.". No one has said they were doing anything illegal, they simply didn't do the tax dodging in a manner the IRS thinks is correct. There will be a back and forth and eventually a settlement will be reached. There is no reason to ever place any faith or belief in corporations doing the right thing, that's not how they operate. All desisions are based on what makes or saves the most money - period. Apple are slightly less guilty of that than some mega-corporations, but MSFT? Come on, they are not going to follow the law to the letter if they think they can get away with it. Gates' legacy of hacking and gaming everything, always and forever lives on.
If that was so, it would have been caught the first year. The IRS watches big corporations like s hawk.
They are even calling this an “adjustment.” Thst means the government is changing things now. That can be applied moving forward but should never be retroactive. That’s wrong. If the rules for a gamrr we change next year, you shouldn’t lose your trophy thst you won playing by the rules in years prior.
It's always funny to watch someone so proudly announce to the world that they have no clue what they are talking about.
Am I supposed to know what “intercompany transfer pricing” means or how that adds up to billions of dollars?
If you do a search using the term "transfer pricing" it will bring up both the explanation of what it is, and instances where transfer pricing has attracted tax authorities and big bills.
Not to be an ass, but…It seems few people are capable of educating themselves anymore or have the patience to research something. A basic principle I was taught as a small kid, that has guided my whole life was “before you ever ask someone a question, apply critical thinking, try looking it up, and if you still can’t find the answer then ask”. It’s such a fundamental skill and so helpful, but it’s surprising how few people have even rudimentary critical reasoning abilities.
With 70 Billion of profit per year, 30 Billion sounds quite low for 10 years
I’m not a fan of Microsoft and I’m not defending them, but if it were that simple then we wouldn’t be reading an article about it. A company like Microsoft isn’t generally going to act like a crime family when it comes to taxes. They will use complex processes to try and minimize tax burden. Some of it may be unsightly, but it’s not like a citizen making $70 billion and paying 4% tax. Tax laws are complex and our current tax system needs that complexity to be fair.
Now I’d be quite happy to ditch the current tax system and use something like FairTax. But the government foams at the mouth for control and power and they’d currently never accept something like that.
Adjust to irs calculations. Not ms taxes. As you can see Microsoft believes the irs is pulling something here. Microsoft did right by the irs now the irs wants to retroactively recalculate how much ms should have paid to transfer money to its different locales. That is just a scam to steal money. It’s like buying a MacBook Pro at $3000 10 years ago. Now, they say you owe $1000 because that model MacBook Pro costs $4000 today. It’s theft. Just because it’s the government doesn’t change that.
and the irs is certainly not underfunded. They’ve been as big as they should be so as not to overreach. Now, we are looking at a juggernaut of an irs incoming to scrape every American over the coals and they were even planning to arm the agents before that bit became public.
I’ll repeat there is no way the irs missed Microsoft’s numbers nor is there a possibility of waiting a decade to audit one of the worlds largest companies. This “adjustment”is a sham.
That's not how any of this works. The IRS has 17,000 fewer agents than they did a decade ago, and lose out on an estimated $1 trillion in legally owed but uncollected taxes.
You can certainly identify the liberals in this audience based on comments. All of these “big evil corporations” fund the profitability of virtually everyone’s retirement savings. Ignorance is certainly bliss.
I love the part "Microsoft says that it has paid over $67 billion in taxes to the U.S. since 2004." So what? You can't just pay $67 on a grocery bill of $90.
You can certainly identify the liberals in this audience based on comments. All of these “big evil corporations” fund the profitability of virtually everyone’s retirement savings. Ignorance is certainly bliss.
Speaking of ignorant, that was a non sequitur as well as inappropriate use of quotation marks. Better luck next time.
Seems as if wealthy firms and individuals think white collar crime (including evading tax) is good, but they hate it when they experience blue collar crime, such as shoplifting, theft from employees, or smash and grabs. I see no difference between the two, except the former is usually MUCH larger theft. If they don't want blue collar crime, then pay the taxes and don't cheat customers.
Is there some allegation that they stole the money? They DO pay taxes. Microsoft isn’t the problem here. The problem, as always is the government. Congress and the IRS develop Byzantine tax structures that it takes armies of lawyers to figure out. Even then, disputes go on for years. The entire system —both personal and corporate—is a giant scam. Taxes are literally an industry. It’s why we never see a simple and unavoidable tax system. It supports too many people. In any case, businesses are going to business. Any for profit corporation is going to try to pay as little in taxes as possible. The government creates the system, and then freaks out when people actually follow it. 87,000 new IRS agents aren’t going to pay for themselves.
Seems as if wealthy firms and individuals think white collar crime (including evading tax) is good, but they hate it when they experience blue collar crime, such as shoplifting, theft from employees, or smash and grabs. I see no difference between the two, except the former is usually MUCH larger theft. If they don't want blue collar crime, then pay the taxes and don't cheat customers.
Is there some allegation that they stole the money? They DO pay taxes. Microsoft isn’t the problem here. The problem, as always is the government. Congress and the IRS develop Byzantine tax structures that it takes armies of lawyers to figure out. Even then, disputes go on for years. The entire system —both personal and corporate—is a giant scam. Taxes are literally an industry. It’s why we never see a simple and unavoidable tax system. It supports too many people. In any case, businesses are going to business. Any for profit corporation is going to try to pay as little in taxes as possible. The government creates the system, and then freaks out when people actually follow it. 87,000 new IRS agents aren’t going to pay for themselves.
The government wants money. Solution? Just retroactively “adjust” someone’s taxes from years ago! A good solid decade ought to do it.
Pure evil. If there was ac actual issue all this years ago, the IRS WOULD HAVE NOTIFIED THEM AND THEY COULD PAY WHAT WAS OWED. this isn’t that. This is an extortionist government.
Microsoft didn’t do anything illegal. They took advantage of the way the tax systems were set up, like any smart company would do.
The only theft is what Micro$oft did. And the sad part is that a company with $136 billion in profits in 2022 only has to pay $29 billion in penalties for their decade of theft.
Minimizing tax burden by storing your money in a more favorable location (still within US jurisdiction) wasn’t illegal at the time. Retroactively making it so is just theft by the government. Pure and simple. “Adjustment” my left buttock! Microsoft didn’t do anything wrong. They looked at options available to them and utilized them. anything else would just be dumb. But now you have the government retroactively changing things. If a company knew that would happen, of course they’d do things differently in the past. But they didn’t. Because it wasn’t wrong at the time. It’s like an entrapment feature of the government. Pure thievery.
You don't know that "Microsoft didn’t do anything wrong.". No one has said they were doing anything illegal, they simply didn't do the tax dodging in a manner the IRS thinks is correct. There will be a back and forth and eventually a settlement will be reached. There is no reason to ever place any faith or belief in corporations doing the right thing, that's not how they operate. All desisions are based on what makes or saves the most money - period. Apple are slightly less guilty of that than some mega-corporations, but MSFT? Come on, they are not going to follow the law to the letter if they think they can get away with it. Gates' legacy of hacking and gaming everything, always and forever lives on.
If that was so, it would have been caught the first year. The IRS watches big corporations like s hawk.
They are even calling this an “adjustment.” Thst means the government is changing things now. That can be applied moving forward but should never be retroactive. That’s wrong. If the rules for a gamrr we change next year, you shouldn’t lose your trophy thst you won playing by the rules in years prior.
The IRS has been intentionally underfunded for decades, specifically so that they lack the capacity to ‘watch big corporations like a hawk.’ It’s a bit willfully naïve not to recognize the likelihood that the scads of talented tax attorneys employed by big corporations would push the limits of loopholes to the extreme (and beyond) with the expectation that the IRS won’t catch things, nor have the capacity to do anything about it if they do. The reality is that this issue is probably just one of many more instances where big corporations have been coloring outside the lines with impunity.
This is not an ex post facto change in the law. This is an audit finding that Microsoft did their taxes wrong. The “adjustment” refers not to a retroactive change in the law, but to a revision in what MS owes, based on the audit finding that they did their taxes wrong.
Nailed it.
Uh, no. The problem is not that the IRS isn’t funded well enough. The problem is the law and the way the IRS operates to begin with. The tax system is intentionally a disaster. You can’t fault corporations, or individuals for minimizing their tax liability. Everybody does it. The real question is not why they have lawyers for this, but why they need them? After all, corporations don’t really pay taxes anyway. People pay taxes. The solution is a simple and unavoidable tax system, to which nearly everyone contributes. Everyone knows this, but it will never happen because the government doesn’t want it to happen (nor does the entire tax industry). Do you have any idea how much we spend on the IRS by the way? We’re going to spend even more while the IRS goes after Microsoft on this for years.
You can certainly identify the liberals in this audience based on comments. All of these “big evil corporations” fund the profitability of virtually everyone’s retirement savings. Ignorance is certainly bliss.
Just as you can identify the morons in any audience.
The government wants money. Solution? Just retroactively “adjust” someone’s taxes from years ago! A good solid decade ought to do it.
Pure evil. If there was ac actual issue all this years ago, the IRS WOULD HAVE NOTIFIED THEM AND THEY COULD PAY WHAT WAS OWED. this isn’t that. This is an extortionist government.
Microsoft didn’t do anything illegal. They took advantage of the way the tax systems were set up, like any smart company would do.
The only theft is what Micro$oft did. And the sad part is that a company with $136 billion in profits in 2022 only has to pay $29 billion in penalties for their decade of theft.
Minimizing tax burden by storing your money in a more favorable location (still within US jurisdiction) wasn’t illegal at the time. Retroactively making it so is just theft by the government. Pure and simple. “Adjustment” my left buttock! Microsoft didn’t do anything wrong. They looked at options available to them and utilized them. anything else would just be dumb. But now you have the government retroactively changing things. If a company knew that would happen, of course they’d do things differently in the past. But they didn’t. Because it wasn’t wrong at the time. It’s like an entrapment feature of the government. Pure thievery.
You don't know that "Microsoft didn’t do anything wrong.". No one has said they were doing anything illegal, they simply didn't do the tax dodging in a manner the IRS thinks is correct. There will be a back and forth and eventually a settlement will be reached. There is no reason to ever place any faith or belief in corporations doing the right thing, that's not how they operate. All desisions are based on what makes or saves the most money - period. Apple are slightly less guilty of that than some mega-corporations, but MSFT? Come on, they are not going to follow the law to the letter if they think they can get away with it. Gates' legacy of hacking and gaming everything, always and forever lives on.
If that was so, it would have been caught the first year. The IRS watches big corporations like s hawk.
They are even calling this an “adjustment.” Thst means the government is changing things now. That can be applied moving forward but should never be retroactive. That’s wrong. If the rules for a gamrr we change next year, you shouldn’t lose your trophy thst you won playing by the rules in years prior.
The IRS has been intentionally underfunded for decades, specifically so that they lack the capacity to ‘watch big corporations like a hawk.’ It’s a bit willfully naïve not to recognize the likelihood that the scads of talented tax attorneys employed by big corporations would push the limits of loopholes to the extreme (and beyond) with the expectation that the IRS won’t catch things, nor have the capacity to do anything about it if they do. The reality is that this issue is probably just one of many more instances where big corporations have been coloring outside the lines with impunity.
This is not an ex post facto change in the law. This is an audit finding that Microsoft did their taxes wrong. The “adjustment” refers not to a retroactive change in the law, but to a revision in what MS owes, based on the audit finding that they did their taxes wrong.
Nailed it.
Uh, no. The problem is not that the IRS isn’t funded well enough. The problem is the law and the way the IRS operates to begin with. The tax system is intentionally a disaster. You can’t fault corporations, or individuals for minimizing their tax liability. Everybody does it. The real question is not why they have lawyers for this, but why they need them? After all, corporations don’t really pay taxes anyway. People pay taxes. The solution is a simple and unavoidable tax system, to which nearly everyone contributes. Everyone knows this, but it will never happen because the government doesn’t want it to happen (nor does the entire tax industry). Do you have any idea how much we spend on the IRS by the way? We’re going to spend even more while the IRS goes after Microsoft on this for years.
In taxation we need to deal with how things currently are and not how we hope they might be one day, and which I'm in general agreement with (along with addressing asset hoarding while we're at it, an entirely different discussion). As it stands, it is pretty likely MS stepped over the legal line in their use of transfer pricing, and almost certainly were advised of the risk vs. reward of potentially doing so by their attorneys.
The government wants money. Solution? Just retroactively “adjust” someone’s taxes from years ago! A good solid decade ought to do it.
Pure evil. If there was ac actual issue all this years ago, the IRS WOULD HAVE NOTIFIED THEM AND THEY COULD PAY WHAT WAS OWED. this isn’t that. This is an extortionist government.
Microsoft didn’t do anything illegal. They took advantage of the way the tax systems were set up, like any smart company would do.
The only theft is what Micro$oft did. And the sad part is that a company with $136 billion in profits in 2022 only has to pay $29 billion in penalties for their decade of theft.
Minimizing tax burden by storing your money in a more favorable location (still within US jurisdiction) wasn’t illegal at the time. Retroactively making it so is just theft by the government. Pure and simple. “Adjustment” my left buttock! Microsoft didn’t do anything wrong. They looked at options available to them and utilized them. anything else would just be dumb. But now you have the government retroactively changing things. If a company knew that would happen, of course they’d do things differently in the past. But they didn’t. Because it wasn’t wrong at the time. It’s like an entrapment feature of the government. Pure thievery.
You don't know that "Microsoft didn’t do anything wrong.". No one has said they were doing anything illegal, they simply didn't do the tax dodging in a manner the IRS thinks is correct. There will be a back and forth and eventually a settlement will be reached. There is no reason to ever place any faith or belief in corporations doing the right thing, that's not how they operate. All desisions are based on what makes or saves the most money - period. Apple are slightly less guilty of that than some mega-corporations, but MSFT? Come on, they are not going to follow the law to the letter if they think they can get away with it. Gates' legacy of hacking and gaming everything, always and forever lives on.
If that was so, it would have been caught the first year. The IRS watches big corporations like s hawk.
They are even calling this an “adjustment.” Thst means the government is changing things now. That can be applied moving forward but should never be retroactive. That’s wrong. If the rules for a gamrr we change next year, you shouldn’t lose your trophy thst you won playing by the rules in years prior.
The IRS has been intentionally underfunded for decades, specifically so that they lack the capacity to ‘watch big corporations like a hawk.’ It’s a bit willfully naïve not to recognize the likelihood that the scads of talented tax attorneys employed by big corporations would push the limits of loopholes to the extreme (and beyond) with the expectation that the IRS won’t catch things, nor have the capacity to do anything about it if they do. The reality is that this issue is probably just one of many more instances where big corporations have been coloring outside the lines with impunity.
This is not an ex post facto change in the law. This is an audit finding that Microsoft did their taxes wrong. The “adjustment” refers not to a retroactive change in the law, but to a revision in what MS owes, based on the audit finding that they did their taxes wrong.
Nailed it.
Uh, no. The problem is not that the IRS isn’t funded well enough. The problem is the law and the way the IRS operates to begin with. The tax system is intentionally a disaster. You can’t fault corporations, or individuals for minimizing their tax liability. Everybody does it. The real question is not why they have lawyers for this, but why they need them? After all, corporations don’t really pay taxes anyway. People pay taxes. The solution is a simple and unavoidable tax system, to which nearly everyone contributes. Everyone knows this, but it will never happen because the government doesn’t want it to happen (nor does the entire tax industry). Do you have any idea how much we spend on the IRS by the way? We’re going to spend even more while the IRS goes after Microsoft on this for years.
Think harder. Who benefits from Byzantine tax laws that require armies of lawyers to sort out? Think think think. It’s the people and corporations who can afford to pay armies of tax lawyers and still save scads in taxes by taking advantage of the Byzantine tax laws. That’s not poor people. That’s not even regular middle class people. Those laws aren’t written for the purpose of insufferable government bureaucracy. They’re written because wealthy people and corporations paid lobbyists and donated to politicians to get them inserted into the tax laws. Then they paid tax lawyers to find and file for their bespoke exceptions and loopholes.
The government wants money. Solution? Just retroactively “adjust” someone’s taxes from years ago! A good solid decade ought to do it.
Pure evil. If there was ac actual issue all this years ago, the IRS WOULD HAVE NOTIFIED THEM AND THEY COULD PAY WHAT WAS OWED. this isn’t that. This is an extortionist government.
Microsoft didn’t do anything illegal. They took advantage of the way the tax systems were set up, like any smart company would do.
The only theft is what Micro$oft did. And the sad part is that a company with $136 billion in profits in 2022 only has to pay $29 billion in penalties for their decade of theft.
Minimizing tax burden by storing your money in a more favorable location (still within US jurisdiction) wasn’t illegal at the time. Retroactively making it so is just theft by the government. Pure and simple. “Adjustment” my left buttock! Microsoft didn’t do anything wrong. They looked at options available to them and utilized them. anything else would just be dumb. But now you have the government retroactively changing things. If a company knew that would happen, of course they’d do things differently in the past. But they didn’t. Because it wasn’t wrong at the time. It’s like an entrapment feature of the government. Pure thievery.
You don't know that "Microsoft didn’t do anything wrong.". No one has said they were doing anything illegal, they simply didn't do the tax dodging in a manner the IRS thinks is correct. There will be a back and forth and eventually a settlement will be reached. There is no reason to ever place any faith or belief in corporations doing the right thing, that's not how they operate. All desisions are based on what makes or saves the most money - period. Apple are slightly less guilty of that than some mega-corporations, but MSFT? Come on, they are not going to follow the law to the letter if they think they can get away with it. Gates' legacy of hacking and gaming everything, always and forever lives on.
If that was so, it would have been caught the first year. The IRS watches big corporations like s hawk.
They are even calling this an “adjustment.” Thst means the government is changing things now. That can be applied moving forward but should never be retroactive. That’s wrong. If the rules for a gamrr we change next year, you shouldn’t lose your trophy thst you won playing by the rules in years prior.
The IRS has been intentionally underfunded for decades, specifically so that they lack the capacity to ‘watch big corporations like a hawk.’ It’s a bit willfully naïve not to recognize the likelihood that the scads of talented tax attorneys employed by big corporations would push the limits of loopholes to the extreme (and beyond) with the expectation that the IRS won’t catch things, nor have the capacity to do anything about it if they do. The reality is that this issue is probably just one of many more instances where big corporations have been coloring outside the lines with impunity.
This is not an ex post facto change in the law. This is an audit finding that Microsoft did their taxes wrong. The “adjustment” refers not to a retroactive change in the law, but to a revision in what MS owes, based on the audit finding that they did their taxes wrong.
Nailed it.
Uh, no. The problem is not that the IRS isn’t funded well enough. The problem is the law and the way the IRS operates to begin with. The tax system is intentionally a disaster. You can’t fault corporations, or individuals for minimizing their tax liability. Everybody does it. The real question is not why they have lawyers for this, but why they need them? After all, corporations don’t really pay taxes anyway. People pay taxes. The solution is a simple and unavoidable tax system, to which nearly everyone contributes. Everyone knows this, but it will never happen because the government doesn’t want it to happen (nor does the entire tax industry). Do you have any idea how much we spend on the IRS by the way? We’re going to spend even more while the IRS goes after Microsoft on this for years.
Think harder. Who benefits from Byzantine tax laws that require armies of lawyers to sort out? Think think think. It’s the people and corporations who can afford to pay armies of tax lawyers and still save scads in taxes by taking advantage of the Byzantine tax laws. That’s not poor people. That’s not even regular middle class people. Those laws aren’t written for the purpose of insufferable government bureaucracy. They’re written because wealthy people and corporations paid lobbyists and donated to politicians to get them inserted into the tax laws. Then they paid tax lawyers to find and file for their bespoke exceptions and loopholes.
Yep. Every single tax loophole exists because somebody put it there.
Comments
MSFT: “Ok, we thought about it. The US government has spent about $5,495,977,156,207 USD this year, so far. We’re at day 285. This means you guys spent about $19,284,130,373 USD per day to keep everything going in the US so far this year. You know, just to maintain the status quo, keep the lights on.”
MSFT: “Tell you what guys, Microsoft will fork over the $29 billion. You’re welcome. This will keep the lights on in the US government, and especially in that dark stinky black hole of incompetence called the US Congress, for about 1.5 days at your current spending rates.”
IRS: “Thanks, MSFT. Much appreciated.”
IRS: “Oh crap, now all we have to do now is figure out who is going to pay for the other 363.5 days.”
IRS: “Hey Tim Apple, let’s have a little chat.”
It’s such a fundamental skill and so helpful, but it’s surprising how few people have even rudimentary critical reasoning abilities.
Now I’d be quite happy to ditch the current tax system and use something like FairTax. But the government foams at the mouth for control and power and they’d currently never accept something like that.
https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/11/microsoft_irs_tax_bill/
You can't just pay $67 on a grocery bill of $90.