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Just to throw another rock at WalMart - they also arranged to own offshore companies which provided loans to themselves to run WalMart - turning profits into lo

Just to throw another rock at WalMart - they also arranged to own offshore companies which provided loans to themselves to run WalMart - turning profits into loan payments and avoiding taxes. Estimates are that they hid double digit billions offshore without paying taxes. Sadly, it is perfectly legal - and it is consistent with what I've seen in the software and hardware industry. Several companies and executives where I've worked freely talked about how they transferred money offshore before taxes, so that it would never appear as income to them in US accounting.

damm 9y ago
Exactly. They are hiding billions of dollars and Trump is poised to have the IRS come after the low dollar offenders and start aggressively collecting the poor This behavior where companies do everything they can to write off every bit of taxes; then pay their CEO millions dollars more per year than they paid their employee's as a whole. So then the rich start saying yeah we can throw money at you and let's call it a cool name. Trying to make them look better? to help you? I don't think so it's all about their self image. Money and self image build into EGO and pride
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- dang 9y ago
  Would you please stop using HN for political/ideological battle? It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for—thoughtful discussion for the intellectually curious. If you'd read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and abide by it when posting here, we'd be grateful.
  - MrTonyD 9y ago
    I've spent my entire life in high-tech in Silicon Valley. The techniques being discussed to hide cash are integral to Silicon Valley companies - and they definitely impact decisions at every level of the organization. It is naive to believe that these discussions are somehow unrelated to our lives in technical positions (or our careers and the decisions of the executives over us.)
  - damm 9y ago
    Then this whole article should be flagged and we should have never seen 'Why Wages Aren't Growing'. It's not a political article; it's stalking about the state of our society. If we cannot talk about the state of our society and the petrodollar here on HN then HN is censoring the truth.
prostoalex 9y ago
> turning profits into loan payments and avoiding taxes To loan any money from an offshore entity they would have to transfer the money to the offshore entity first, and to initiate that transfer they would have to earn that money elsewhere, which would generally involve paying taxes.
- MrTonyD 9y ago
  Isn't that an antiquated view of the way that the economy works? I can name a lot of counter-examples - but even the current articles in the press about bank assets vs outstanding loans is inconsistent with the view of credit being somehow related to currency transfers.
jacquesm 9y ago
I'm really beginning to wonder where you get your info. This is not the first - but hopefully it is the last - time that you make these incredible accusations against large companies, enough to put their execs in jail, only of course there is never any substantiation, just your allegation. Previous examples of stuff I suspect you either made up in part or whole: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15059549 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15059549 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14053716 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14053716 And plenty of others besides.
dang 9y ago
As jacquesm pointed out, you've been posting outrageous (if true) stories about famous companies and executives to HN for years. The first several times I read those, I thought 'holy shit!' But then—maybe it was the one where you told about Steve Jobs' collusions with Bill Gates that took place on an airplane so nobody would know?—something started to feel a bit off. Anybody can post anything on the internet, after all. We have no way of knowing whether such stories are tall tales or not, and alas, sometimes users make things up. On Hacker News, we start from an assumption of good faith (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), but we also care about substantive discussion. Our goal is good conversation—a forgiving medium—but eventually you need to substantiate what you're repeatedly posting. I don't assume that your stories are false, but by now you've built up a lot of narrative debt. So please don't post any more incredible claims to Hacker News without a significant reason for readers to believe them.
- MrTonyD 9y ago
  Well, I'm sorry that you feel that way. Really. I have spent an entire career in Silicon Valley, and I have held a lot of different positions and worked with many executive teams. It reminds me of when I worked at NeXT, and told someone that we were using the Leffler library in NeXTStep. He insisted that we weren't, since a company like NeXT and someone like Steve Jobs would never allow such a thing - Steve wouldn't allow a public library inside our product. He just couldn't believe it was true - and I had no proof to offer. I guess old-timers like me just need to be quiet and let you learn about these things over your 40 years in the business - I hope those lessons don't come too late for you.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    No problem with old timers, there are plenty of those here. But their stories check out and if they accuse someone it is as a rule backed up by some evidence. See the thread about Jerry Pournelle recently and some of the people commenting in it. But if you start making stuff up or making baseless accusations then you are devaluing your experiences. And the experiences you do have a probably far more interesting than the things that you throw out there to make it all look better than it was. To me it makes no sense. On another note, chances are that you'll run into people here that already know you from other places on the net or that know who you are in real life and who know for a fact that the things you write aren't the whole story. IT back then was a very small world and a lot of those old timers are now HN'ers, just like yourself.

damm 9y ago

Exactly. They are hiding billions of dollars and Trump is poised to have the IRS come after the low dollar offenders and start aggressively collecting the poor This behavior where companies do everything they can to write off every bit of taxes; then pay their CEO millions dollars more per year than they paid their employee's as a whole. So then the rich start saying yeah we can throw money at you and let's call it a cool name. Trying to make them look better? to help you? I don't think so it's all about their self image. Money and self image build into EGO and pride

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
dang 9y ago
Would you please stop using HN for political/ideological battle? It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for—thoughtful discussion for the intellectually curious. If you'd read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and abide by it when posting here, we'd be grateful.
- MrTonyD 9y ago
  I've spent my entire life in high-tech in Silicon Valley. The techniques being discussed to hide cash are integral to Silicon Valley companies - and they definitely impact decisions at every level of the organization. It is naive to believe that these discussions are somehow unrelated to our lives in technical positions (or our careers and the decisions of the executives over us.)
- damm 9y ago
  Then this whole article should be flagged and we should have never seen 'Why Wages Aren't Growing'. It's not a political article; it's stalking about the state of our society. If we cannot talk about the state of our society and the petrodollar here on HN then HN is censoring the truth.

prostoalex 9y ago

> turning profits into loan payments and avoiding taxes To loan any money from an offshore entity they would have to transfer the money to the offshore entity first, and to initiate that transfer they would have to earn that money elsewhere, which would generally involve paying taxes.

MrTonyD 9y ago
Isn't that an antiquated view of the way that the economy works? I can name a lot of counter-examples - but even the current articles in the press about bank assets vs outstanding loans is inconsistent with the view of credit being somehow related to currency transfers.

jacquesm 9y ago

I'm really beginning to wonder where you get your info. This is not the first - but hopefully it is the last - time that you make these incredible accusations against large companies, enough to put their execs in jail, only of course there is never any substantiation, just your allegation. Previous examples of stuff I suspect you either made up in part or whole: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15059549 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15059549 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14053716 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14053716 And plenty of others besides.

dang 9y ago

As jacquesm pointed out, you've been posting outrageous (if true) stories about famous companies and executives to HN for years. The first several times I read those, I thought 'holy shit!' But then—maybe it was the one where you told about Steve Jobs' collusions with Bill Gates that took place on an airplane so nobody would know?—something started to feel a bit off. Anybody can post anything on the internet, after all. We have no way of knowing whether such stories are tall tales or not, and alas, sometimes users make things up. On Hacker News, we start from an assumption of good faith (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), but we also care about substantive discussion. Our goal is good conversation—a forgiving medium—but eventually you need to substantiate what you're repeatedly posting. I don't assume that your stories are false, but by now you've built up a lot of narrative debt. So please don't post any more incredible claims to Hacker News without a significant reason for readers to believe them.

MrTonyD 9y ago
Well, I'm sorry that you feel that way. Really. I have spent an entire career in Silicon Valley, and I have held a lot of different positions and worked with many executive teams. It reminds me of when I worked at NeXT, and told someone that we were using the Leffler library in NeXTStep. He insisted that we weren't, since a company like NeXT and someone like Steve Jobs would never allow such a thing - Steve wouldn't allow a public library inside our product. He just couldn't believe it was true - and I had no proof to offer. I guess old-timers like me just need to be quiet and let you learn about these things over your 40 years in the business - I hope those lessons don't come too late for you.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- jacquesm 9y ago
  No problem with old timers, there are plenty of those here. But their stories check out and if they accuse someone it is as a rule backed up by some evidence. See the thread about Jerry Pournelle recently and some of the people commenting in it. But if you start making stuff up or making baseless accusations then you are devaluing your experiences. And the experiences you do have a probably far more interesting than the things that you throw out there to make it all look better than it was. To me it makes no sense. On another note, chances are that you'll run into people here that already know you from other places on the net or that know who you are in real life and who know for a fact that the things you write aren't the whole story. IT back then was a very small world and a lot of those old timers are now HN'ers, just like yourself.