LOL, like they would ever do that! They will make MS customers pay for it, if they can't convince the IRS to lower the bill significantly, which they probably can.
If MS come up with significant technicalities or challenges to the amount due, the IRS will have to choose between litigating each one of them, which both costs them money and involves the risk of losing in court, or coming to an out-of-court agreement with MS.
Obviously if MS don't have anything that won't get laughed out of court, they shouldn't get much of a reduction. If your challenge to your tax bill doesn't involve anything where the rules are hard to interpret and precedent has not been set, you also won't. (If it does, your tax affairs are probably much more complicated than the average citizen. Which is obviously true for Microsoft.)
Worth bearing in mind too that the number might be an optimistic headline figure which has been rounded up in various ways by the IRS, to make themselves look tough, and to encourage MS to settle.
The IRS settles for lower amounts ALL the time, it wouldn't be even remotely exceptional if MS gets a discount. They have an entire department to handle these offers in compromise: https://www.irs.gov/payments/offer-in-compromise
Even with 30B cash in the bank, MS will do everything it can to lower that bill. First they will fight it, and take all the little wins they can get. Then whenever it's pretty clear what parts they can't win, they will then start negotiating with the IRS to try and pay 50 cents on the dollar or something.
Part of the tactic is delaying, the longer they can put off actually writing the check, the better, as money today is worth more than money tomorrow(inflation and time value of money).
I know I am in the minority but I cannot understand how mercilessly taxing providers of services that improve our lives is not... theft, honestly.
It is not about how much money they make but about about a third party appropriating what a company that provides such a big value does because, hey, you are "stealing me because I exist"...
Yeah, and if that takes a $30B hit to settle past accounting issues, that’s still $30B no longer poised for an acquisition or on hand to settle some EU action next year.
Losing a quarter of your cash reserves for no gain isn’t going to ruin today’s business but it sure will frustrate existing strategies for the future.
>that’s still $30B no longer poised for an acquisition
They accumulate that much cash because there are no acquisitions to be had in the current economic climate. I can't imagine a $30B+ company that Microsoft could acquire without massive regulatory scrutiny.
But I bet a lot of that is in long term treasuries which, if you want to use them as legal tender, are kinda down in price right now (if you don't hold them til maturity). And if they need to take a loan to pay it, those bonds are going to be at fairly high rates. Overall, it's gonna be a stock price haircut for sure. I'm guessing at least 10-20% because of all the money they could have MADE with that money.
Yep. Accounting standards dictate that a cash equivalent should be essentially as liquid as cash from the perspective of the holder. It’s safe to lump it in here.
Why should they do that? They should simply add more annoying advertising and other BS to their products, especially Windows OS. What are customers going to do, go elsewhere or switch to another OS that doesn't have ads?
No wonder why they’re talking about charging for windows 12 features, has to come from somewhere!