Microsoft's tax avoidance schemes: national and in Washington State

(revised, 2014/10/28) Bloomberg reported in 2012: “A U.S. Senate committee memo said Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) used aggressive international tax maneuvers to avoid billions of dollars in taxes over the past three years. … Microsoft used transactions with subsidiaries in Puerto Rico, Ireland, Singapore and Bermuda to save at least $6.5 billion in taxes.” It “shifts…

Conservatives

Wasted trillions of dollars on corrupt, disastrous wars. Slashed taxes for rich people. Deregulated Wall Street and banking, causing the 2008 market crash. Continue to oppose regulation of Wall Street. Allow corporations to move profits and jobs overseas. Oppose funding of the IRS to investigate tax evasion. Gerrymander election districts and enact voter-id and other…

Quickie, on the corporate plan to destroy public education

A quotation from The Plot Against Public Education: How millionaires and billionaires are ruining our schools: Stephanie Simon, writing for Reuters in the summer of 2012, captured the excitement of investors eager to pounce: “The investors gathered in a tony private club in Manhattan were eager to hear about the next big thing, and education…

Our upside-down tax system

(published at the Bellevue Reporter) with the title “Blame politicians, poverty for school problems”) The fundamental economic fact of the last 30 years is the relentless transfer of wealth from the middle class to the rich. During the 1950s and early 1960s, the top bracket income tax rate was over 90%. Now the top rate…