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Wow. “The IRS says Microsoft owes an additional $28.9 billion in tax for 2004 to 2013, plus penalties and interest.” No wonder why they’re talking about chargi
by spandextwins 3y ago
Wow. “The IRS says Microsoft owes an additional $28.9 billion in tax for 2004 to 2013, plus penalties and interest.”
No wonder why they’re talking about charging for windows 12 features, has to come from somewhere!
- us0r 3y agoThey have over 115 Billion cash on hand.
- notaharvardmba 3y agoBut I bet a lot of that is in long term treasuries which, if you want to use them as legal tender, are kinda down in price right now (if you don't hold them til maturity). And if they need to take a loan to pay it, those bonds are going to be at fairly high rates. Overall, it's gonna be a stock price haircut for sure. I'm guessing at least 10-20% because of all the money they could have MADE with that money.
- DennisP 3y agoLong-term treasuries are generally not considered "cash." Short-term, sure, but t-bills are doing fine.
- ojbyrne 3y agoRandom googling finds “Cash equivalents are any short-term investment securities with maturity periods of 90 days or less.” They have $35 billion in Cash & Cash Equivalents.
- tmpX7dMeXU 3y agoYep. Accounting standards dictate that a cash equivalent should be essentially as liquid as cash from the perspective of the holder. It’s safe to lump it in here.
- swatcoder 3y agoYeah, and if that takes a $30B hit to settle past accounting issues, that’s still $30B no longer poised for an acquisition or on hand to settle some EU action next year. Losing a quarter of your cash reserves for no gain isn’t going to ruin today’s business but it sure will frustrate existing strategies for the future.
- quickthrower2 3y agoYou can acquire with shares though. They or they could raise 30Bn pretty easy.
- itsoktocry 3y ago>that’s still $30B no longer poised for an acquisition They accumulate that much cash because there are no acquisitions to be had in the current economic climate. I can't imagine a $30B+ company that Microsoft could acquire without massive regulatory scrutiny.
- sensanaty 3y agoGood! Hopefully Microsoft burns through as much of their cash paying penalties as possible and dies as a result, as they should've a decade+ ago.
- queuebert 3y agoThey have ~$35 billion in cash per their cash flow statement: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/MSFT/cash-flow?p=MSFT https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/MSFT/cash-flow?p=MSFT They could in effect write a check today for it.
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- lib-dev 3y agoOnly if "penalties and interest" is less than ~2% annually.
- zie 3y agoLOL, like they would ever do that! They will make MS customers pay for it, if they can't convince the IRS to lower the bill significantly, which they probably can.
- justinclift 3y ago"Lets put aside $2B for legal costs, as they should be able halve that or better over the next decade..." ;)
- g232089 3y agoOf course they will make their customers pay for it. That's how companies work: the customers pay for the expenses of the company.
- robertlagrant 3y agoNo, they pay for the value the company provides them. That only bears mild relation to what it cost the company to provide that value.
- wheelerof4te 3y ago
- no_wizard 3y agoThis is before any negotiated settlement, if they are found to have to pay at all, which will be, in all likelihood, substantially lower
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ssss11 3y agoMaybe it could come from those huge executive salaries and bonuses that are many multiples higher than regular employees.
- shiroiuma 3y agoWhy should they do that? They should simply add more annoying advertising and other BS to their products, especially Windows OS. What are customers going to do, go elsewhere or switch to another OS that doesn't have ads?
- robertlagrant 3y agoThat won't cover billions of dollars. Multiples don't matter.