Microsoft's true goal

[ShaidarHaran]

translation, he cheats on his taxes...

LOL, bingo. My point is that cheating on taxes is rather common, especially for businesses. I mean, they hire accountants for a reason....

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Most business people are honest and pay their taxes. This other talk is lunacy.

 

[ShaidarHaran]

Most business people are honest and pay their taxes. This other talk is lunacy.

Whatever it takes to help you sleep at night. If you think businesses don't play games to cut down on or eliminate tax payments altogether then the lunacy is on your end.

 

[dobwal]

Whatever it takes to help you sleep at night. If you think businesses don't play games to cut down on or eliminate tax payments altogether then the lunacy is on your end.

Most small businesses try to cut thier tax liability for the purpose of personal gain by hiding profits. However, most businesses aren't public entities whose primary purpose is to increase thier value so that their shareholder's investments grow over time. Neither are most businesses as transparent as public corporations.

No business is motivated to reduce tax liability just for the sake of not paying the government. I could reduce my tax liability of my business by simply buying more expensive versions of the physical resources I need to run my business. But in doing so, I cut not only my tax liabilities but also my profits. In the end the gov't gets less money and so do I.

MS is investing into the console market to expand thier business with the express purpose of increasing the value of their company not just to avoid tax liability. Reinvesting your profits should never be confused as a simple method of limiting your tax hit.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

MSFT has high profits, they absolutely need to invest it somewhere.
So they are investing. Which leads to lower numbers in monthly report -> less taxes. Not too hard to get?

This is Bs. I allready told you how companies get away from taxes, maybe in your fantasy world, companies simply waste money in order not to pay taxes, but in the real world, it would be the most cost in-effective way to reduce taxes in history. Nobody does it. They may spend money in risky investments that may or may not yield a postive NPV, but thats a completely different thing than what your suggesting.

They dont actively waste money to reduce taxes.

You see, if management would waste money in order to reduce profits, and thus taxes, the value of their stockoptions would go down.

If you're a small company. If you buy stocks for 6B they won't cost even 1B next day.

What the hell are you talking about? I said that if you dont want to pay taxes as a company, you either aquire debt, or you buy high dividend stocks. Debt gives you direct tax reduction while dividends, when recieved by a corporation, have little to no taxes.

You DO NOT invest in nonpositive npv projects for the sake of throwing away money so you dont pay taxes. No company does this. Management would get fired instantly by the stockholders.

MSFT is a company which pulls 400% profit margin, eg. a lot of money they need to invest somewhere or they'll loose it.

See, your showing that you dont have a clue.

MSFT is a no debt, low dividend firm. They keep TONS and TONS of money within the firm, in fact, most stockholder\management conflicts have been about to low dividend, MS dont even bother to reduce tax payments by aquiring debt, which is by far the easiest and cheapest way to reduce tax.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Whatever it takes to help you sleep at night. If you think businesses don't play games to cut down on or eliminate tax payments altogether then the lunacy is on your end.

They aren't games. It's the law and most businesses follow that law. Take your political agenda into another forum please.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

Whatever it takes to help you sleep at night. If you think businesses don't play games to cut down on or eliminate tax payments altogether then the lunacy is on your end.

There is nothing wrong in minimizing your tax payment as long as you do it legally its simply good business.

Just because many mom and pop shops go around doing stuff semi-illegally (or outright illegally) doesn't mean most people do. The % of companies that are of significant size that do this under the books is small.

 

[ShaidarHaran]

There is nothing wrong in minimizing your tax payment as long as you do it legally its simply good business.

Just because many mom and pop shops go around doing stuff semi-illegally (or outright illegally) doesn't mean most people do. The % of companies that are of significant size that do this under the books is small.

I don't ignore tax shelters and loopholes, nor scumbags and accountants as some apparently do.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Take it to politics forum. This is not the place for you to pontificate about socialism.

 

[ShaidarHaran]

You may choose to believe what you like, but it is neither your job, your right, nor your responsibility to tell me what to say or when to say it.

 

[AlNom]

I believe this thread has run its course. Most of the last posts are wholly OT.