I'd say damn near 20yrs. I used it quite extensively about 10yrs ago and it was an odd one then, but was very useful for the purpose we had (semantic validation of XML payloads).
Disagrees with the public finances above: the issue is that the document says "$ 000".
It's a typo, the numbers are just dollar amounts.
And the text of the report proves it, it explicitly says profit of the year was 13bn.
EDIT: the report is very confusing. It looks like there could be an argument to say it is genuinely 300bn -- the issue is there's *operating profit* of 13bn... but a secondary "profit" from the liquidation of subsidy companies.
So the issue is the article presents this as an operating profit, but it isnt.
Microsoft did not even make that much revenue in the 2020 fiscal year. Total global revenues were $143B and total global net income (aka profit) was $44. It was the a very good year for Microsoft. But £220B (apx $310B) in profits is laughable.
The reporters might have been looking at the "total assets" line of MSFT's financials, which was $301B at the end of FY2020. But you don't pay tax on total assets. Just speculation on my part.
The Guardian is an English newspaper with a political agenda on the left side of the spectrum. So articles like this serve to support a narrative its readers feel comfortable with. Similar to Fox News.
Turnover was $13.606B and operating profit was $13.604B
From the financial report "Profit after tax increased .. to $314.73Bn reflecting gains made upon liquidation of two subsidiaries".
I'm guessing this is a company that exists to receive licensing fees from around the world and the profit just about equals revenue apart from cost of the accountants.
Many corporate tax evasion systems operate by setting up subsidiaries in countries where profit is taxed and licensing their own IP from a "company" in a country where you can cut nice tax deals. Because there's no good way to rate the value of IP, you can basically charge any amount to your other "companies" so that they don't make a dime of profit.
It figures that the "company" licensing all of this IP has very little in the way of operating costs. Maybe they need to pay the rent of the local mailbox that they've registered themselves to, or maybe they even need to rent an office in an office complex somewhere, but the entire operating exists purely to redirect the flow of money.
This approach is evil, nothing less. Companies benefit from government infrastructure all around the world and pay nothing back. The bookies that set up these schemes will tell you that they're perfectly ethical because they're totally legal, but their moral compass has stopped functioning years ago. It's not just Big Tech either, most companies operating worldwide use tactics like these.
I think that 220bn is the profit of that particular Irish subsidiary. They got their revenue from all other Microsoft's subsidiaries around the world and only need very little expense ("directors", etc). Hence, profit.
Still that makes no sense as others have pointed out ... MSFT as a whole made $143 billion in revenue and $40 billion in profit for 2020, so not sure where the €220 billion number is coming from.
The company is tax "resident" in Bermuda, a British Overseas Territory.
In fact I'm not even sure what the Ireland connection is here except that there is a registered office in Dublin. It seems like all the action is taking place in Bermuda, so this is really a story about UK overseas tax havens.
The Irish part is there to allow it to funnel EU profits, and ireland allows for countries to be registered there, but not tax-resident.
Interestingly enough though, almost all of the zero tax places are British Crown dependencies, so presumably the UK government could exert pressure on them, if it really wanted to.
Again, for clarity, the Crown Dependencies are the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. Bermuda is a BTO.
Bermuda has been self-governing since 1620. Britain has very little in the way of exerting any pressure on them short of imposing direct rule (which it seems to have done only twice: on Anguilla in 1968 after it was invaded and only partially on the Turks and Caicos in 2009-2012 due to systematic corruption).
They've been trying for a while. Ultimately, taxation is a national prerogative, and requires unanimity in Council, so it's unlikely to change any time soon.
Just for clarification, British Overseas Territories are not part of the UK. They set their own laws and manage their own internal affairs while their foreign relations and defence are managed by the UK.
