Mojave desert, Nevada

Summary: Microsoft's practices of tax avoidance and 'Internet tax' continue to be defended by former Microsoft managers who are now running parts of the government or vice versa

Nobody is born a Microsoft employee and those who worked for Microsoft typically stay loyal to their friends and colleagues from the company, not just the company's products. One type of conflict arises when a Microsoft employee enters a competitor and in turn changes that competitor's priorities. We have seen many examples like that. Another conflict of interests may arise when people move back and forth between Microsoft and the government/s (or offer gentle bribes). To give an example, Microsoft's Charney, who wanted to tax all computer users for Microsoft to think how to resolve the botnet problem it created [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6], used to work for the government just before he joined Microsoft. A more recent example is a senior government employee becoming a Microsoft lobbyist on the company's payroll.

Another last example which we last mentioned yesterday is Gov. Hunter, who decided to run (part of) the country after he had spent 17 years at Microsoft. He currently supports [1, 2, 3] allowing Microsoft to dodge tax while increasingly taxing all those who are poorer.

Last week, the Washington State House of Representatives passed a bill which would impose a 10% tax on custom software while all but eliminating a $100 million yearly tax obligation that some say Microsoft is wrongfully avoiding by routing large chunks of business through an office in Nevada.

More here.

"We don’t think we’d win a court case on this," Hunter said, noting that losing a lawsuit against Microsoft could jeopardize other potential cases involving what the state might consider more legitimate claims.

Hunter, who worked at Microsoft for 17 years, disagreed with any implication that he's improperly influenced by his former employer.

Judging by his actions alone, the bias is at the very least subconscious. ⬆