If there's one thing I took away from ProPublica@newsie.social's explosive #IRSFiles, it's that #TaxAvoidance (which is legal) isn't a separate phenomenon from #TaxEvasion (which is not), but rather a thinly veiled euphemism for it:
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
For one thing, the Puerto Rico scam was led by ex-CEO #SteveBallmer, a man possessed of so little executive function that it's a supreme irony that he was ever a corporate executive. Ballmer is a refreshingly plain-spoken corporate criminal who is so florid in his blatant admissions of guilt and shouted torrents of self-incriminating abuse that the exhibits in the Microsoft-IRS cases to come are sure to be viral sensations beyond even the Gates deposition's high-water mark.
God bless #stablediffusion. Look at this potential rework of the X-Box interface. It's beautiful. Someone get this to Microsoft. @shanselman put this in front of your work friends. Someone get Steve Balmer on the line. This is important. Some art designer please fine tune this with some real icons and fonts and stuff. This could be your magnum opus.
Washington State enacted a 7% capital gains tax levied on annual profits in excess of $250,000, and made a fortune, $600m more than projected in the first year, despite a 25% drop in the stock market and blistering #InterestRate hikes:
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
And then there's clowns like #SteveBallmer, star of Propublica's #IRSFiles, whose creative accounting let him claim $700m in paper losses on his basketball team, allowing him to pay a mere 12% tax on $656m,, while the workers who made his fortune on the court paid 30-40% on their earnings.