Category Archive for: ‘Seattle’
The Seattle Times Executive Editor Covering Microsoft’s CEO Handshake
The Seattle Times failure to cover Microsoft’s $1.5 billion Nevada tax dodge is finally in the news again this week: The Stranger’s Slog Seattle Times Realizes Microsoft’s Running the Legislature, Slashdot Former Microsoft Managers Now In Charge of Washington State’s Budget and KEXP’s Mind Over Matter’s segment hosted me this morning for 30 minutes on the topic (mp3 to be posted).
In the past, I’ve written about my 2 hour meeting in 2010 with the paper’s Executive Editor David Boardman and a small group of his journalists, how his pledged coverage didn’t materialize and how the paper seems to have a conflict of interest with Microsoft’s Nevada tax dodge overseer Executive Vice President Brad Smith, staying silent on his tax dodge but publishing his editorial to raise sales taxes.
But finally today, with all of this in the news, I noticed that Boardman’s reporting on Microsoft through his twitter feed: The Bill Gates Handshake: Offensive, or Just Weird? A Photo Investigation. I agree with Boardman, Gates has a freaky handshake. Go ahead, read it. Then read about his paper’s coverage of Microsoft’s $4.37 billion in tax savings and Washington State’s $4 billion in education cuts.
Sighting of the Highly Elusive Pacific Northwest Sex Croissant
Pretty excited to see one of these today … usually quite rare:
Seattle Dance Clubs Fundraise to Pay Microsoft’s Tax Bill
In April 2010, Washington State’s Legislature changed the definition of its software royalty tax and effectively granted amnesty to Microsoft, helping the company lock up $1.51 billion in savings from its thirteen-year Nevada tax dodge - and more than $100 million annually each year into the future.
This is also when the state’s Department of Revenue began reinterpreting an obscure decades old tax on “the opportunity to dance” selectively auditing night clubs and dance clubs around the city and aggressively targeting them for back taxes.
The Century Ballroom, a popular Seattle dance club, was assessed $250,000 and is holding ongoing fundraisers to help pay its tax bill. Other popular clubs face tax bills of $30,000 and even $200,000:
The “Opportunity to Dance” is not in any law. It is only the DoR’s interpretation of the law in the Department’s rules. It is also impossible to clearly define what dance is, let alone what the opportunity to do so is. The DoR itself has acknowledged this.
From the time Microsoft opened its Nevada office until 2010, the company earned more than $509 billion – between 1/3 and 1/2 of that from software licensing. The Department of Revenue’s decision not to challenge the company’s Nevada accounting has contributed to repeated biennial deficits between $1 and $2 billion dollars and $4 billion in cuts to K-12 and Higher education. Yet, the state is using its resources to aggressively target the heart of Seattle’s music scene with bizarre tax legislation.
It works like this: If the state believes that you give your patrons the opportunity to dance, then you pay the tax even when people don’t dance. That’s according to Mike Gowrylow, with the Department of Revenue. Gowrylow: “You could have somebody go into a nightclub, or a bar, or tavern, and they pay cover charges. Unless you followed every person around, you wouldn’t know if they actually danced or not, so the only simple way we could have of defining this is if you give them the opportunity to dance, then the tax applies.”
It gets better:
Gowrylow says auditors search the Internet to find out whether people dance at specific clubs. One clubowner reports an auditor told him: “You have the opportunity to dance, and we verified it by 8 or 10 different references on Yelp.” - Dance Tax Causes Confusion Among Seattle Venues
From The Stranger:
“My auditor… came in with an obituary of a girl who committed suicide,” says another club owner. “When I argued that we aren’t primarily a dance club—we have ‘No Dancing’ signs up everywhere—she flashed this obit that said the girl liked to dance at [our club]. The auditor said, ‘I know this is ridiculous, but I have to do this.’”
Also from KUOW:
One club discourages dancing when it charges a cover, says owner Jason Llorin. “You put things where they think it’s a dance floor — you just put a stool, or you put a tabletop with stools all around it. That’s, you know, that’s all you can do.”
Since it gave away more than $100 million in annual taxes to shareholders of the country’s wealthiest, most profitable corporations, the Department of Revenue is now using its powers to target tiny little dance halls and night clubs – to find $880,000 in annual revenue. The Century Ballroom’s fundraising efforts are essentially paying for Microsoft’s Nevada tax dodge.
Related Links
- Dancers Protest Washington ‘Dance Tax’
- A New Tax on Dancing
- Dance Tax Causes Confusion Among Seattle Venues
- Business owners struggling to pay so-called ‘dance tax’
- Dummies Guide to Microsoft’s Nevada Tax Dodge
- The Third Anniversary of Washington State’s Big Tax Gift to Microsoft
- Microsoft Won’t Release Royalty Tax Payments
- Hunter’s Promised Royalty Tax Revenue Never Materialized
The Third Anniversary of Washington State’s Big Tax Gift to Microsoft
Wednesday will be the third anniversary of the biggest corporate tax break in Washington State history. On April 10, 2010, the Legislature changed the definition of the state’s royalty tax and effectively granted amnesty to Microsoft, helping the company lock up $1.51 billion in savings from its thirteen-year Nevada tax dodge. The changes were led by Rep. Ross Hunter, Chair of the Finance Committee and a 17 year ex-Microsoft veteran. If you include the impact of the company’s 1997 lobbying to cut the royalty tax rate by 2/3, Microsoft’s Nevada accounting has saved the company more than $4.37 billion.
Coincidentally, Washington State has had to cut $4 billion from K-12 and Higher Education in the last five years.
So, as Governor Inslee and the Legislature look for $1.2 billion in court-mandated funding for education, let’s not pretend that we don’t know where the money went. Washington State slowly gave away critical funds to Microsoft’s global shareholders through non-enforcement of the state’s pre-2010 royalty tax, which required the company pay .484% of its licensing revenue on worldwide sales. The company claimed the revenue was earned in its Nevada office, a state with no corporate revenue tax.
Dummies Guide to Microsoft’s Nevada Tax Dodge tells the whole story and includes audio of my 2004 interview with Microsoft’s General Counsel Brad Smith (mp3), where he acknowledges the company’s Nevada tax haven.
There are three ways to look at this story:
1. Ethical Issues: Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, CEO Ballmer and General Counsel Brad Smith have all called for the state (and taxpayers) to step up and fund education. Education is also a key priority of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Microsoft’s recorded more than $579 billion in revenue since 1998. Why aren’t we calling these community leaders to account for the difference between their rhetoric on education and their actions on tax dodging?
2. Corporate Influence in Olympia: Should we have concerns about transparency and Microsoft’s influence in Olympia given the impact of Rep. Hunter’s 2010 legislation and his 17 year history with the company? State law treats Microsoft as a corporate person, entitled to the same privacy of other taxpayers – its actual royalty tax payments are secret. Shortly after signing Hunter’s bill, former Gov. Gregoire appointed another Microsoft Executive, Suzan Delbene (now in Congress), to run Washington State’s tax department. Delbene is married to Microsoft President Kurt Delbene. And, Gregoire regularly praised Microsoft for its $5 million annual scholarship fund saying it helped mitigate all the unfortunate cuts to higher education – while failing to mention Microsoft’s been saving $100 million annually through its Nevada tax office and the changes Hunter made to the law.
3. Legal Issues: The Department’s Communication Director Mike Gowrylow used to assure me that DoR audits large taxpayers like Microsoft regularly; so I knew right away why Hunter’s 2010 bill included language granting amnesty to companies “that were included in a completed field audit conducted by the department [before 2010].” If there was no legal exposure to Microsoft, why grant it amnesty? Recently, when Microsoft-owned Skype was accused of helping the chinese government eavesdrop on dissidents, it responded that it was acting under “established procedures to meet its obligations under local laws.” Similarly, when reporters ask it about its Nevada tax dodge, it says only ”[it] pays all due taxes in all jurisdictions in which we operate including our home state of Washington.” Should the Department of Revenue been more aggressive in enforcing the state’s worldwide royalty tax on Microsoft’s licensing revenues? I’ve made my case here and here that it should have.
In the past the company has told reporters that I’m spreading misinformation but I continue to stand completely behind my reporting on Microsoft’s Nevada tax dodge. If the company would like to refute these claims, it should just release its actual state royalty tax payments from 1998 – 2010 and settle the issue once and for all.
In Closing
I often say Washington State doesn’t have a budget deficit. It’s just that it’s given its tax revenues over to a variety of corporate benefactors. In Microsoft’s case, this has amounted to all the money the state’s cut from our education system.
So, as you read the standard coverage of legislative handwringing over the budget and finding money for education this spring, don’t fall for it. The legislature knows where the money is.
Just as Microsoft’s used Nevada to dodge state taxes, it uses a variety of means to dodge federal taxes. In 2011, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found Microsoft’s federal filings so laughable that it had to exclude the company from its reports: ”We [had] to leave out from the study companies whose geographic allocations were obviously ridiculous (e.g., almost all or even more than all of their pretax profits were reported as foreign, even though most of their revenues and assets were in the United States). Google and Microsoft are two examples of such apparently ‘liar companies’ that we left out of the study. For such companies, it may be that they reported in their annual reports how they misallocated their profits on their tax returns, rather than where their profits were really earned.”
On April Fools Day 2010, just before the legislature voted on Hunter’s tax bill, Microsoft gave $125,000 to save the Fourth of July Fireworks in Seattle. This year there’s no tax break on the table … and apparently there will be no fireworks.
Links and Resources
- Dummies Guide to Microsoft’s Nevada Tax Dodge (Summary)
- Audio mp3 clip of my 2004 interview with Microsoft’s General Counsel Brad Smith, where he acknowledges the company’s Nevada tax haven
- Summary of Media Coverage of Microsoft’s Nevada Tax Dodge
- Financial History of Microsoft’s Nevada Tax Dodge - My Google Drive spreadsheet detailing Microsoft’s revenue history, licensing revenue and it’s Nevada tax dodge
- Washington State Doesn’t Have a Budget Deficit - describes how I calculated the $1.51 billion and $4.37 billion tax dodge figures
- Summary of the Impact of Budget Cuts on Washington State’s Education System, by the Economic Opportunity Institute – shows the $4 billion in cuts to K-12 and Higher Education
- Corporate tax-dodgers Microsoft, Boeing throw colleges a bone, by the Economic Opportunity Institute’s John Burbank – discusses Gov. Gregoire’s praise of their $5 million education scholarships
- Bread & Circus: Microsoft Donates $125,000 to Save Seattle Fireworks Show
- Microsoft chooses key time to remind Olympia of its clout (Seattle Times)
- Rep. Hunter Makes April 10th Tax Freedom Day for Microsoft
- Microsoft Wins Nevada Royalty Tax Cut and Tax Amnesty; Reports Record Revenue
- The Case Law Against Microsoft and its Nevada Tax Dodge is Extremely Clear
- To Refute Claims, Microsoft Should Disclose Its Royalty Tax Payments
- Microsoft Won’t Release Royalty Tax Payments
- Corporate Taxpayers & Corporate Tax Dodgers 2008-10 (ITEP)
- Gov. Inslee’s Press Packet on the 2013 Budget
- Citizen Microsoft (Seattle Weekly) by Jeff Reifman
Disclosures and Contact Information
I’m a former employee of Microsoft and one of its multi-millionaire alumni. I also used to work with Suzan Delbene and for Kurt Delbene at Microsoft. You can read more about me and my full list of disclosures. I am willing to to brief reporters or officials on the history of Microsoft’s Nevada tax dodge. Please contact me for more information.
Strange Fish Eating Birds at Green Lake
Does anyone know what kind of birds these are? On Monday, I saw about forty of them at Green Lake. You could literally see them scooping up fish in the shallows, bobbing their necks back and forth in swan-like fashion and resembling Loch Ness Monsters at a distance. They looked a bit like Blue Heron but seemed smaller.
Strange, fish-eating birds at Green Lake
Is The Seattle Times scaling back its street distribution?
I’ve been noticing some neglected Seattle Times newspaper dispensers on Phinney Ridge and Capitol Hill. I’m wondering if in addition to the coming paywall, they are planning to reduce their street circulation.
Phonebook Lawsuit Cost Seattle $264,503 in Legal Fees
Update: Seattle Weekly reports that the city has announced a $517,500 settlement with the phonebook companies. The total cost of the settlement and legal fees to the city therefore is $781,503. City says phonebook opt-out service will be taken offline soon.
In response to my public records request, the City of Seattle reports it has paid $264,503 in outside counsel fees during the Yellow Pages Lawsuit.
Cost of Third Party Seattle City Legal Fees in Phonebook Lawsuit
The Seattle Times report of a rumored $500,000 settlement did not include these costs. Neither do these costs account for the city’s own in-house legal/oversight. Thus, we can say that the Yellow Pages ruling may cost the city more than $764,503.
While the City may be restricted in how it can appeal the Court’s ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, this might be an opportunity to lead a national challenge of corporate personhood, corporate constitutional rights and the standing of foreign companies to seek equal protection rights. Similar precedents are at issue in the city’s inability to pass laws that regulate escalating coal train exports.
I believe the Court of Appeals decided this case on the wrong basis and issued an obtuse, narrow-minded ruling. I’d personally be happy to have the city spend my tax dollars on a broader appeal. Tell the Mayor and Council what you think.
Related Links
- Why You Should Care About Seattle’s Phonebook Debacle
- City of Seattle Response to Public Records Request: Invoices Paid to Summit Law Group for Legal Representation in Yellow Pages Lawsuit
- Court Rules Yellow Pages Are Protected Speech (TechDirt)
- Seattle will pay $500,000 to settle yellow pages lawsuit (Seattle Times)
- Seattle’s stand against treating corporations as people (Crosscut)
- Seattle’s Perkins Coie Secures Victory in Ninth Circuit First Amendment Case (Perkins Coie Website)
- Seattle’s Phonebook Opt Out Site
