Summary: Microsoft pays less than 1% tax; other financial irregularities discussed

Microsoft's notorious tax evasion practices are an issue we previously explored in many posts that include:

• Number One Lobbyist Gets Tax Breaks, Government Deals, Innocent Children
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• Comes, Iowa, Suppression of Truth, Collusion and Tax Evasion
• Summary of Microsoft Tax Evasion Stories
• How Microsoft Harms American Workers, Taxpayers, and the Environment
• Microsoft, a Notorious Tax Evader, Takes Money from Taxpayers to Help Its Own Business (Updated)

The Irish Times has this latest update on the subject.

Microsoft Ireland Operations Ltd (MIOL) had turnover of €11.3 billion and paid corporation tax of €63.5 million according to accounts just lodged with the Companies Office and seen by The Irish Times.

Read that again. A lot of the revenue is deliberately being funneled through Ireland, which has a special relashionship with Microsoft. Microsoft is therefore paying less than 1% tax, leaving the actual tax-paying obligations to other people with limited means of providing for their families.

And Microsoft still wonders why many people don't like it.

To be fair here, Google and Intel were very recently caught doing similar things, albeit in a more localised scope:

i. Intel accused of massive tax evasion

Professor Mikkelsen described the level of Intel's tax evasion – believed to be Denmark's biggest ever case of transfer pricing – as "shocking".

ii. Google avoids millions in UK taxes

GOOGLE HAS AVOIDED paying over €£100 million in UK tax through employing an elaborate revenue billing structure, an accountant reckons.

A Microsoft president, Robert Bach, was previously caught inside-trading [1, 2] and the following new report from Forbes brings back memories.

A Connecticut divorce judge ordered Tuesday that $250,000 be placed in escrow that a hedge fund planned to pay a former Microsoft employee amid a federal investigation of possible insider trading.

[...]

The Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this year reopened its probe of possible insider trading at Pequot. It's investigating if Pequot traded Microsoft Corp. ( MSFT - news - people ) shares on confidential information provided by Zilkha, whom it had hired.

Microsoft and finance are not a happy couple if one looks closely enough. There is a lot of bending of the law. ⬆

"The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax."

--Albert Einstein

"My background is finance and accounting. As a socially conscious venture capitalist and philanthropist, I have a very good understanding of wealth management and philanthropy. I started my career in 1967 with the IRS as a specialist in taxation covering many areas of the tax law including the so-called legal loopholes to charitable giving. […] However, the Gates Buffet foundation grant is nothing more than a shell game in which control of assets for both Gates and Buffet remain the same. […] The only difference is that the accumulation of wealth by these two will be much more massive because they will no longer have to pay any taxes."

The Gates and Buffet Foundation Shell Game