Ballmer Says Tax Would Move Microsoft Jobs Offshore

[DainBramaged]

Chief Executive Officer Steven Ballmer said the world’s largest software company would move some employees offshore if Congress enacts President Barack Obama’s plans to impose higher taxes on U.S. companies’ foreign profits.

“It makes U.S. jobs more expensive,” Ballmer said in an interview. “We’re better off taking lots of people and moving them out of the U.S. as opposed to keeping them inside the U.S.”

Obama on May 4 proposed outlawing or restricting about $190 billion in tax breaks for offshore companies over the next decade. Such business groups as the National Foreign Trade Council, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable have denounced the proposed overhaul.

U.S. tax rules let companies defer paying corporate rates as high as 35 percent on most types of foreign profits as long as that money remains invested overseas. Obama says he wants to end such incentives to keep foreign profits tax-deferred so that companies would invest them in the U.S.

Barry Bosworth, an economist in Washington at the Brookings Institution research center, said many software companies such as Microsoft have exploited tax and trade rules in the U.S. and other countries to achieve a low overall tax rate.

Ireland Subsidiary

Typically, he said, a company like Microsoft develops a product like Windows in the United States and deducts those costs against U.S. income. It then transfers the technology to a subsidiary in Ireland, where corporate tax rates are lower, without charging licensing fees. The company then assigns its foreign sales to the Irish subsidiary so it doesn’t have to claim the income in the United States.

“What Microsoft wants to do is deduct the cost at a high tax rate and report the profits at a low tax rate,” Bosworth said.


http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a3yutzL3xApI

[sharp_stick]

1. I thought Micro$oft

already did most of their work offshore - well I guess they at least bring some of the offshore onshore. At least this way they could just hire all the people and not bother wasting H2 Visa applications on them.

[Zodiak]

2. In other words...we wants to keep cheating, or we are taking our ball and going home

So I say good fucking riddance. If you weren't playing your fair share of taxes, then you weren't contributing much, anyways....just exploiting our labor force. Get the fuck out.

Next?

Seriously...I have no compassion for corporate assholes, and 10X less compassion for Microsoft.

[Deja Q]

10. See post #9. Along with everything else, they condone and encourage piracy of their own products

With evidence.

[SoCalDem]

3. Fine, then just slap an "import" tax on anything "re-imported"

from the offshored facility...and then remove any and all "subsidies/grants" etc for research.

If a company wants to play games, we need a gamesman to counteract their moves.

Either they want to be an American company, or they don't.

If a company wants a no-tax environment, then they should also have to EXIST in that no-tax society, as well.

Having one foot in each community, and shifting their weight onto whichever side benefits them , is why we are in the fix we have now.

Fair wages and responsible taxation will mean less for the corporate CEOs, but ONLY they have the "ability" to shift production to pennies-on-the-dollar workers, while still raking in huge profits.

Workers cannot "outsource" their labor. They just have to accept the fact that a living wage for them, is apparently not something their bosses aspire to, and yet those same bosses expect them to max out their credit cards, buying the stuff they used to make.

[Deja Q]

12. And an immediate halt on ALL "subsidy" payments from the government.

Welfare queens are blamed by corporate kings.

[GodlessBiker]

4. Fuck Ballmer. Asshole.

[sellitman]

5. Now I remember why I stopped buying this companies products years ago.

Besides the fact that they are inferior.

[OhioChick]

6. Ballmer's a jackass. n/t

[DainBramaged]

7. Balmer is a douchenozzle with a capital D

:patriot: :hug:

[OhioChick]

8. Yep.

An unpatriotic SOB.

[Deja Q]

11. Thank you for posting the OP - K&R. This post needs MANY of K&Rs.

[Deja Q]

9. The self-praising monkey will offshore them anyway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvsboPUjrGc

Their products have been increasingly on par with corn-filled pig shit anyway; the culmination of Vista alone is damning evidence.

Given decades' worth of vaporware, bloatware, false promises, empty promises, supporting of piracy while claiming to be against it, anyone who still supports their company is ignorant.

By 2001, Microsoft executives were coming to the conclusion that China's weak IP-enforcement laws meant its usual pricing strategies were doomed to fail. Gates argued at the time that while it was terrible that people in China pirated so much software, if they were going to pirate anybody's software he'd certainly prefer it be Microsoft's.

Today Gates openly concedes that tolerating piracy turned out to be Microsoft's best long-term strategy. That's why Windows is used on an estimated 90% of China's 120 million PCs. "It's easier for our software to compete with Linux when there's piracy than when there's not," Gates says. "Are you kidding? You can get the real thing, and you get the same price." Indeed, in China's back alleys, Linux often costs more than Windows because it requires more disks. And Microsoft's own prices have dropped so low it now sells a $3 package of Windows and Office to students.

Globalization, why isn't it $3 here too?

[wuvuj]

29. "Globalization" only works one way?

Increase corporate profits....screw the worker and the consumer. And the planet.

[Canuckistanian]

13. I think he means "move jobs offshore FASTER"

Ballmer is such a dick. He's everything I HATE in a mega-corporation.

[Deja Q]

14. He's moving Steve Jobs offshore too?

:(

(bad joke)

But in seriousness, I thought Ballmer had no dick...

[Canuckistanian]

16. He's a tireless cheerleader for greed

And then he releases Vista.

[Deja Q]

17. Which requires greedy amounts of system requirements and still crawls anyway

Comparing the Gates era to the Ballmer era, Gates' era is far more ethical...

[Canuckistanian]

21. Right, good example

Gates is Windows NT, WFW, Windows 98SE and XP.

Ballmer is Windows ME and Vista.

[The Traveler]

15. No problem

But microsoft products should now be persona non-grata with US government agencies. Period. Think of the innovation that would spark in companies that support standards like Open Office. Screw Microsoft. Oh ... and crank up that anti-trust litigation again.

Trav

[DainBramaged]

18. Microsoft. We think Win 7 will be the operating system that works as advertised.

we think, we hope.

[Deja Q]

25. I've been a tech working with Windows products since 3.0... during the OS/2 debacle too...

(1993 and earlier)

Trust me. They have a history of vaporware, empty promises, and bloatware that's second to none. And the last 6 years have shown Microsoft can indeed outdo itself.

Don't spend a dime on Windows 7. Or a penny. Don't even pirate it. It's not worth anyone's time.

This is the same company that promoted Windows 2000 by openly spitting on its own Windows 95 product. "Our new operating system won't crash like how our previous one always did!!!"

People bought it anyway.

I was a fanboy back then, despite it all - the NT line is stable... but the bloat in Vista and no real work done on any of their products except for their appearance... enough is enough. (I'd go on about lots of technical details, but MS already expects people to give them free advice in that area. Amongst other things. No, they have the money and the means to have their own support staff -- that isn't the job of the end user.)

[Greyhound]

20. Yes, it is time for us to join with the other sane nations that have banned their

crap from their systems. Our government, and therefore the citizens of the US, pay an extraordinary premium, in licensing, maintenance, and unnecessary hardware costs, to subsidize this moribund producer of crap.

And in their gratitude for our tolerating their existence, they hinder development and build in inefficiency in their products and then turn around and off-shore and skirt employment laws with impunity. Fuck them, we can do far better without them.

[The Traveler]

22. Spoken like

a veteran of the computer industry. :)

Bravo, I say.

Trav

[Greyhound]

23. LOL, literally. There's two of us here with combined 40 years industry experience.

Needless to say, neither of us is employed in anything even close to our areas expertise.

(But, there is something in the works)
;)

ETA; and it doesn't involve any M$ products whatsoever.

[The Traveler]

32. Best regards

I've been doing software development for longer than I care to think about. :)

But it has taken me to some great places and through some really interesting projects ... everything from servo controlled satellite trackers to telephone switches and in between. Software people tend to be rather eclectic, in my experience. Frankly, I love the profession. But I would never recommend it to a young person at this point.

Look, man, I have nothing against competing against the script kiddies from Bangalore. Some of those guys are real good but let's face it most of them don't come close to the management hype. To hear the suits tell it, American programmers are dumber than dirt and these punks from India are the best thing since Edsgar Djikstra.

They're smart.

But they aren't that smart, on average. Like us, they follow a Bell curve.

Between currency variances and tax laws, it is really difficult to compete on the balance sheet. I understand that. But it burns my ass when I am told (in addition) that people I know who are freakin' brilliant programmers just aren't as good as the script kiddies, and that is why they are still unemployed. That, my friend, is ... in my experience ... a completely screwed up statement. I have spent a lot of time debugging, cleaning up, and re-writing H-1B code over the years. But now I am in danger of ranting and babbling ...

Good luck with your "something in the works".

Trav

[lumberjack_jeff]

19. Save the jobs! About a million H1-b visa holders are counting on you Obama!

The rest of us are more interested in daytime TV.

[Deja Q]

24. Others are right; he'll do what he wants either way. His own quote proves he doesn't give a shit:

“(tax on foreign profits) makes U.S. jobs more expensive,” Ballmer said in an interview. “We’re better off taking lots of people and moving them out of the U.S. as opposed to keeping them inside the U.S.”

How the frig does taxing foreign profits make US jobs more expensive?

His same company lets China pirate as many copies and they turn a blind eye (I posted the direct link w/quote elsewhere, will not repeat/spam too much), and the legal licenses of Windows+Office are $3 a pop. No foreign profits there... and without Americans with living wage jobs to pay $399 for Vista and $499 for Office Pro, where will Steve get his money from?????

The guy is smoking LSD-laced CRACK.

Given how crappy their products have become, by and large, they can offshore themselves too. Google, Apple, and the rest are still here and most of them still think Americans aren't worthless either.

[Dukkha]

26. Bye! I don't use your crap anyway

I ditched Office this year in favor of iWork effectively making myself 100% free of their bloated unstable wares.

[Deja Q]

27. I still like Office 2007, but O2010 looks like a big nothing... and don't get me started on their OS

:evilgrin:

I have iWork, but never got used to it...

Haven't installed Mac Office 2008 from school either; Fusion + XP + O2007 runs just as fast as a native install...

[Dukkha]

28. Office 2008 is so bloated it took twice as long to run anything

So I decided to give iWork a try and was surpised how well it worked. Much better than the Appleworks app of yesteryear, though admittedly I've never tried Keynote. Ballamer better learn to keep that bloated ego in check or he's in for a rude awakening. Their not the monopoly of the 90's anymore with all the open source OS and apps out there. Same goes for Adobe which their seriously overpriced CS4 packages. Photoshop has a lot of free alternatives out there now.

[DainBramaged]

31. I use 2003 for all of my important work, it is simply elegant

2007 is bullshit, and any variant going forward is bullshit too.

Oh for the days of Office 97...........

[marmar]

30. Corporate terrorism.....

n/t