From dhenwood at panix.com Thu Aug 3 10:16:47 2000
>Not sure where you got this, but Cisco, like most of the tech
>powerhouses, pays a TON of federal income tax. Their last 10-Q
>says that their most recent provision for income tax was $395M for
>the quarter.
>
>$1.6B/year isn't "little or no" tax in my book.
It came from Bill Parish, the guy who is convinced Microsoft
is insolvent, thanks to stock options. In a recent missive,
he said Cisco was going to pay little or no tax this year.
MSFT pays even more; their largest expense is arguably federal income tax. Their latest 10-Q filed May 12 shows $3.6B if income before taxes for the quarter and a $1.2B provision for income taxes.
So we're talking $5B for the year 2000 ... that's a significant percentage of the total the IRS collects, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's the most tax paid by any corporation in this country.
MSFT has an issue vis options, but it sure does pay tax. Think about it: the cost of revenue is something like 16% for MSFT. How on earth could they avoid paying taxes?
/jordan