Jeff Reifman

To Refute Claims, Microsoft Should Disclose Its Royalty Tax Payments

Last week, after John Burbank, Executive Director of the Economic Opportunity Institute, wrote an editorial condemning the company's hypocritical record of tax dodging while advocating for more education funding, Jeffrey Reading, Microsoft's Senior PR Manager wrote The Herald to refute the claims Burbank made (Burbank based his article on my reporting):

"Mr. Burbank does not include sourcing to support his claims regarding Microsoft’s Nevada licensing, which is part of a very complicated piece of state tax law. Much of the information regarding this issue is misinformation primarily spread by a blogger, and no state official has ever provided any factual data supporting his claims."

I stand behind my research and all of my claims. If Microsoft wishes to prove that it paid Washington State Royalty Taxes during the years 1998 - 2010, it should disclose its worldwide licensing revenue and its Royalty Tax payments for this time period. It would be quite simple for the company to provide these two sets of numbers and would put the issue to rest once and for all (as I have done here). 

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John Burbank Tells Legislature to Target Microsoft

In his Everett Herald column today, John Burbank, Executive Director of the Economic Opportunity Institute, zeroes in on Microsoft's tax dodge and its harmful effects on the state's educational system. Read more

Model Community Bill of Rights Template for Occupy Communities

It's out: We’ve published the model Community Bill of Rights template for Occupy communities that wish to begin mobilized initiative campaigns in their region. Think of the template as a menu to pick and choose what’s important in your community. It’s meant to provide a framework and a starting point, not necessarily to be used in its entirety. The text is derived from ongoing national and global work by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) such as Ecuador adding Rights for Nature to its Constitution, Pittsburgh stripping drilling corporations of corporate constitutional “rights,” such as corporate “personhood” and Spokane’s Community Bill of Rights initiative which narrowly missed passing by 1,000 votes last month. Those efforts have joined over a hundred other municipal campaigns that have driven into law local bills of rights.

WooT!

Ballard Banner Calls Attention to Microsoft's Nevada Tax Dodge

Microsoft is a huge Washington State tax dodger (about $6.1 billion dodged to date), it's just sad the banner is technically incorrect and incomplete ((photo courtesy of Geekwire):

Hypocritical, Tax-dodging Microsoft Supports Increased Sales Tax to Fund Higher Education

Apparently, Microsoft's Brad Smith thought it was safe to start making hypocritical political statements in public again ... 

Turning Occupation into Lasting Change

Update: Thanks BoingBoing & Yes Magazine for running this too!

Thomas Linzey and I are offer up our ideas to the Occupy movement on how they can convert street level momentum into lasting change.

 

Save the Internet: Envision Seattle's Net Neutrality Ordinance

Update: Great posts to this from Slashdot and BoingBoing.

Envision Seattle has posted a model legal ordinance (pdf) for communities wishing to enshrine status quo net neutrality as law. The ordinance is co-authored by the legal group that helped Pittsburgh's city council ban fracking and corporate personhood last November. The concept of local municipalities defying FCC authority is troubling to some but the group counters that FCC authority actually violates certain rights that we hold as people, and the right to govern our own communities as an element of the right to community and local self-government. If we have a 'right to internet access' or a 'right to communicate' via these pathways, there are certain actions that can be taken by government which infringe on those rights. In our view, it's up to us to create these rights frameworks, and then enforce them at higher levels.

How much do corporations pay in tax in Washington?

    In the Merchant of Venice, the moneylender Shylock seeks to extract a pound of flesh from defaulted debtor Antonio but is stopped when a disguised Portia notes that the contract specifies not a jot of blood. It seems these days that Governor Greogire and Washington legislators are intent on extracting a pound of flesh from the most vulnerable Washingtonians.

    Gregoire and the Legislature seem eager to interpret the voters will (as if there was just one of us with a single point of view) as wanting a cuts only budget. The effect of the result of the 2010 election was not that we were against tax increases but that any tax increases need to be packaged as an initiative to the voters.

    So, theoretically, the state could roll back billions in tax exemptions on business in an initiative to the voters. But would that be fair? What share of Washington State's $14 billion in tax revenue do businesses pay today?

    I asked Mike Gowrylow at the Department of Revenue and the reports he sent me indicate that businesses paid about 45.87%. Individual citizens (households) pay 50.56% and the government actually pays 3.57%.

    So, while corporations like Microsoft have record profit and nearly $40 billion on hand while dodging approximately $1.25 billion in taxes from Nevada, do you think Washington State businesses should being contributing a larger share towards our revenue picture? More to the point, would you vote for an initiative package that closed legal and illegal tax exemptions on Washington State companies? Or, would you prefer we decimate our social services and leave more people on the street at risk? Just asking.

    Seems to me that in a state with no income tax, corporate taxes should be well over 55%. In fact, increasing corporate tax collection to a 55% share of state revenues would close about half our current budget deficit.

Charges Against WikiLeaks Founder Suspicious

I'm certainly no expert at journalistic coverage of rape accusations but I've never before read charges such as those the New York Times reports against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Essentially, it seems that he's being accused of twice failing to renegotiate consensual sex acts related to the use or discontinued use of a condom.

According to accounts the women gave to the police and friends, Swedish officials have said, they had consensual sexual encounters with Mr. Assange that became nonconsensual. One woman said that Mr. Assange had ignored her appeals to stop after a condom broke. The other woman said that she and Mr. Assange had begun a sexual encounter using a condom, but that Mr. Assange did not comply with her appeals to stop when it was no longer in use. 

Sweden Issues Warrant for WikiLeaks Founder (New York Times)

Given Mr. Assange's involvement in leaks against the U.S. government & military, the unusual nature of these charges raise serious questions for me. I think The Times does a disservice to its readers by not further exploring the nature of the charges in the context of Assange's role in leaking secret documents.

I would like to see The Times to do a follow up with experts on whether these charges are unusual. How often before has the Swedish government charged an individual with failing to renegotiate consensual sex with respect to the use of a condom? How might Assange's extradition to Sweden and involvement by Interpol affect U.S. involvement in his custody?

It sure seems like Assange is being set up to me.

 

 

Now for what really matters...

As the country focuses on today's election results, I've posted my thoughts about what really matters at Tales of Change:

I'm not too concerned about the outcome of Tuesday’s election. There's only one major issue facing America today and it's not that the Democratic congressional majority is too slim. It’s time to put to rest the myth that electing more democrats will lead to the change we believe in.

What’s most notable to me about the first two years of Obama’s presidency is the near complete and utter failure of key progressive groups. Anti-war activists, climate activists and health care activists pretty much all failed to effect change.

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