Summary: A rehearsal of why Microsoft does not pay tax -- the story as told by a former employee who turned into a campaigner

THE overwhelming evidence of misconduct when it comes to Microsoft tax tricks is surely beyond overwhelming, but even as communities are destroyed there is reluctance to report on and take action against systemic corruption. To quote: "In 1997, Microsoft et al. lobbied to reduce Washington State's Royalty Tax from 1.5% to .5%, a threefold reduction. This wasn't low enough. The company decided to open a small Reno, Nevada office to dodge the tax completely.

"Between 1997 - 2011, the company used its Nevada office to avoid $1.51 billion in Washington state taxes, interest and penalties. If you include impacts from the company's lobbying and calculate its savings at the original 1.5% rate, it's saved $4.37 billion."

"The sad thing is that all this news gets normalised and therefore no longer reported on; the crimes carry on."And here is where cronies come in: "In 2010, after we raised these issues to the legislature, Democratic State Representative Ross Hunter, Chair of the Finance Committee and a former Microsoft executive, led the Legislature to change the state's Royalty Tax from a tax on sales to worldwide customers to just a tiny tax on sales to Washington State customers. This reduced Microsoft's effective Nevada tax dodge by about 99%. He also included language that gave Microsoft amnesty on its back taxes."

Any regulator should be able to identify the conflict of interest and initiate an investigation. But regulation is part of (complicit in) systemic corruption, so all we can do is report on the situation and be all cynical about illegal behaviour -- such as insider trading by Microsoft -- going on without punishment. The sad thing is that all this news gets normalised and therefore no longer reported on; the crimes carry on. ⬆