Bonum Certa Men Certa

More Microsoft Debt, Legalised Tax Evasion, and Investment in the SCO Case

Eye



Summary: A look at Brad Smith's lobbying, a loan of $1.25 billion, and Microsoft's involvement in the SCO case against Linux is revisited

The last post finished with a word about Brad Smith's lobbying for Microsoft.



It was only weeks ago that Brad Smith was lobbying for legalisation that gives Microsoft a green light to tax evasion -- an issue which is now being discussed by apologists of Microsoft's bad practices (who met Brad Smith for dinner):

As we pointed out in today’s Morning Fizz, Jeff Reifman, a former Microsoft employee who is on a crusade to get Microsoft to pay royalty taxes on software licenses, took me task for not asking Microsoft VP Brad Smith about their—estimated $100 million a year—tax dodge. (Reifman’s website has a helpful fact sheet on the issue.)

Here’s the deal: Microsoft has a shop in Reno, Nevada where it issues its software licenses. Even though dividends from those licenses come back to Redmond, the licensing transactions are not captured by Washington State because the business is technically generated out of Nevada. (I talked at length today with bureaucrats in Olympia who confirmed the situation.)

[...]

By the way, I take issue with Reifman’s assertion that I was “charmed” or “rolled over” by Smith and the dinner.


Microsoft really needs to start paying tax. The company's existing debt deepens based on this new report, so citizens might never see a penny.

The Bank of New York Mellon Trust will be trustee of $1.25 billion in Microsoft convertible debt after the software company offered them to investors last week, Microsoft announced Friday (PDF – 106 pages).


Pogson wrote about this company's famous case of legalised (using Microsoft veterans in the government) tax evasion:

I would like the USA to apply RICO to what M$ does, too. RICO covers fraud such as false advertising and tax fraud. Many of the “get the fud” ads, the layers of partners and kickbacks, and $billions “invested in research” could be fraudulent. Could a business really investing billions in research actually produce a product as faulty as that other OS? I expect a lot fewer billions have been invested in GNU/Linux research for a much better result. Is the research of M$ legitimate, or a tax dodge? Around the world, M$ has been pursued for dodging taxes. I would not be surprised to find they do it “at home”. The last annual report said:
“During fiscal year 2008, we reached a settlement with the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) on its 2000-2003 examination. As a result, we reduced our unrecognized tax benefits by $4.8 billion and recognized a tax provision reduction of $1.2 billion. As a result of the 2000-2003 settlement and the related impact on subsequent years, we paid the IRS approximately $4.1 billion during fiscal year 2009.”


One can go further and discuss Microsoft's funding of SCO, which is a serious issue. "Microsoft wished to promote SCO and its pending lawsuit against IBM and the Linux operating system," confessed Larry Goldfarb, a key investor in SCO who was approached by Microsoft. "Microsoft did not want to be seen as attacking IBM or Linux," he added. SCO is now dead or at least dying, but the damage caused by Microsoft's investment in SCO will never be undone.

I, personally, would like to see SCO die in a fire for all the expense, FUD and general heartache they brought to the free and open source community, but there's probably not enough left of the company to burn.


Over at ZDNet (now featuring Vista 7 ads in all blog pages), pseudonym Paul Murphy is told: "Come on “Paul”, you need to step up someday and admit that you have been wrong all along about SCO and their scheme against Linux. You can do it, I know you can!"

Pseudonym Paul Murphy has been promoting SCO's case for many years and he still refuses to acknowledge that it was all in vain. Groklaw responds with a mention of Novell's role:

He continues to insult, and he predicts SCO, or a new owner of Novell, will surely succeed yet in fulfilling SCO's plot, in what he believes, if I've understood him, will be a legal Hail Mary pass to go down in history. The new FUD is his article, Suicide by Victory: More on SCO, in which he predicts gloom and doom for Linux because Novell won at the jury trial in Utah.


Groklaw also refers to this article which cites Rob Enderle (big SCO booster and Linux agitator). "The link is to Rob Enderle's old article," writes Groklaw. "His point is that litigation is a skill, and most CEO's don't have skill in that field."

Well, Microsoft has been claiming to 'embrace' "Open Source" while litigiously attacking "Open Source" [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] and clearly describing it as a competitor. SCO did something similar with Linux. That was probably before Microsoft approached SCO with cash. That's just how Microsoft operates.

Based on a new report, the judge who became famous partly for his role in convicting Microsoft is being tapped by Oracle in its case against Microsoft's ally SAP (which lobbied against Oracle and Sun last year). To quote part of the article: (also in [1, 2])

Oracle has brought in the big guns to assist in its intellectual-property lawsuit against rival applications vendor SAP, hiring attorney David Boies, well-known for his high-profile role prosecuting the U.S. government's landmark antitrust case against Microsoft.

[...]

The attorney's role in the Microsoft case, where he served as a special trial counsel for the U.S. Department of Justice, was just one highlight in a career many legal industry observers have called legendary.


Oracle has just been sued for overcharging the government, but that's another story. We hope to see Microsoft sued for the role it played in the SCO case, which happens to have hurt Oracle. Microsoft has a tradition of sending attack dogs or vultures to attack its competition.

Eagle

Recent Techrights' Posts

India.com a Click-baiting, SEO-Spamming, Slopfarming Heap
They do this almost every day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 25, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, October 25, 2025
Without XBox Consoles, XBox is No More, It's Just a Brand (More Rumours of Microsoft Ending XBox, Then Laying Off Lots of Staff)
All signs indicate that Microsoft wants to "exit" the XBox business (not brand), but it does not want to publicly admit this as it would alarm staff and shareholders
Gemini Links 25/10/2025: Portugal, Midnightpub, and "Tech Right Admins"
Links for the day
Almost 2026 Already (When We Turn Twenty)
In just over a year the site will turn 20
When "Sponsored Feature" in The Register MS Means Ponzi Scheme Promotion From the Communist Party of China (CPC)
the promotion of a financial scam
Week of EPO Leaks: Workers of the EPO Are Getting a Pay Cut While Prices Rise Fast
More to come in the next few days
Microsoft is Finally Giving Up on XBox, The Chief Says the Grapes Are Sour Anyway
Microsoft loses hundreds of dollars on each XBox that it sells
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, and Various Slopfarms Propped up by Google News
Why can't Google News do better than this?
Links 25/10/2025: Two New Smokescreens for Scam Altman and ‘TikTok USA’ Remains in Limbo
Links for the day
Bad faith: can't change Debian Social Contract (DSC) without unanimous consent of every joint author
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Confirmed: Very Close Friend of Bill Gates and Microsoft's Biggest Patent Troll Nathan Myhrvold Flew the Lolita Express (a Gateway to Pedophilia), According to Bill Gates-Sponsored Seattle Times
There is no speculation or any "conspiracy theories" here;' those are verified facts
Gemini Links 25/10/2025: "The Highest Leader of The Global Civil Society Community", SSL Certificates Causing Bitrot
Links for the day
Links 25/10/2025: Target Layoffs and "Shutdown Sparks 85% Increase in US Government Cyberattacks"
Links for the day
"Big Data" Was a Big Lie
Remember "Big Data"? Remember "Data Scientists"...?
statCounter Has Been Broken for a Long Time
Considering the huge proportion of Web requests that come from LLM bots (more so this past year or two), statCounter may struggle to justify the operating costs
Techrights Anniversary Party on November 7th
Let us know if you need any accommodation-related arrangements
Trends That Must Alarm Microsoft and Mozilla
Expect Firefox to no longer be supported by various sites in the US
Why Microsoft Became the Layoffs Leader
The corporate media is projecting or signalling its own dishonesty when it tells us that Microsoft is a very "valuable" company while the data shows Microsoft is also a "market leader" in layoffs
Speaking for Ourselves and Letting the Facts Speak for Themselves
we've already published over 50,000 pages
For Second Time in a Day The Register MS Takes Money From Private Companies to Sell a Ponzi Scheme
Do not have empathy for those who have zero empathy towards you
IBM is Misleading IBM Shareholders
IBM is still all about vapourware and buzzwords
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 24, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, October 24, 2025
The Serial Slopper Starts Up - or Restarts - His Plagiarism Machine (LLMs)
Serial Sloppers like these don't belong in news sites. That's why he got sacked by BetaNews.
Links 24/10/2025: Esperanto Music History, Anxiety, and New Portals
Links for the day
[Video] Richard Stallman's Talk in Sweden, Attended by Nearly 700 People, is Now Online
The Web page is in Swedish, but the talk is in English
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity.com, Linux Journal, and Pet Slopfarms of Google News
Why does Google News still advance these fake sites to the top of search results?
Links 24/10/2025: Inequality Grows, Billion-Dollar Scam Center Industry
Links for the day
Links 24/10/2025: "Independent Media in Cambodia is Collapsing" and Serious F5 Breach
Links for the day
Coping With the Site Going More Mainstream
Fame is no laughing matter
They Never 'Put Down' Corporations
There are "pests" that are traded in Wall Street
21 Pages in Less Than 7 Hours is No Joking Matter
We've become a lot more effective and efficient
Correct Information is a Valued Asset in the Age of Slopfarms and Public Relations (PR) or Spin
Publishing suppressed facts is never easy
The Register MS Continues to Bag Money to Promote a Ponzi Scheme, Even Money From China
Today in the front page
analytics.usa.gov: The Only Supported Version of Windows (This Past Week) is Only Used by About 13.9% of People in the US, the Home Base of Windows
Even Vista 7 is still used more
Rust is Very Secure
If only Rust itself is secure
Who Will be Held Accountable for Breaking Ubuntu by Imposing Rust on Otherwise-Functional Programs, in Effect Replacing GNU With Proprietary Microsoft (GitHub)?
they're practical people who merely point out that a bunch of buffoons not only ruin Ubuntu but also every future distro based on Ubuntu
Generation Chaff - Phase VIII: In Summary
Like "Science" with a capital "S", what we see here commercial interests usurping everything
Generation Chaff - Phase VII: Curtailing Alternative Media
There was always an obligation - a collective duty of sorts - to uphold independent journalism
Generation Chaff - Phase VI: Centralisation of Information (X, Cheetok/Fentanylware)
Would you trust information when controlled by such people?
Generation Chaff - Phase V: Censorship of Dissent (Painted as Harassment or Terrorism)
Censorship is all around us now
Generation Chaff - Phase IV: Apps Only Few Companies Decide On
Tools are being collectively confiscated, under the premise or false prospect of "security"
Generation Chaff - Phase III: Slop and Plagiarism
A lot of the current so-called 'economy' is built upon false valuations
Generation Chaff - Phase II: "Cloud", Blockchains and Other Hype
For those of us who turned down those propositions there was a struggle; we needed to justify not having skinnerboxes or "social" accounts in some site run by a private company
Generation Chaff - Phase I: Social Control Media
IRC predates the Web
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 23, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 23, 2025
More Clues Shed on Collapse of Microsoft XBox
XBox is basically circling down the drain as Microsoft implements 2-3 waves of layoffs each month
'Vibe Coding' Doesn't Work
In a lot of ways, so-called 'Vibe Coding' is already considered vapourware or a passing fad promoted in the media by managers who try to justify mass layoffs, especially ridding companies of "very expensive" software engineers
Links 24/10/2025: Microsoft's Killing of XBox Connected to Revenue/Profit Problems, "How Elon Musk Ruined Twitter"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/10/2025: 86,400 Seconds and "Society's Task"
Links for the day