[PLUG] Microsoft Earnings Report

david pool dpool at hevanet.com
Thu Oct 23 15:13:02 UTC 2003


Jeme A Brelin wrote:

> Microsoft (and MANY other companies... probably MOST large corporations)
> have been lying to the SEC or publishing highly misleading financial data
> for the last fifteen or twenty years.  The regulators have been turning a
> blind eye to that sort of thing because it made "the economy" look better,
> but situations like those with Enron and WorldCom and so forth coming to
> the surface, companies have been slightly reluctant to lie as about their
> earnings.

You want to be a little careful lumping all the lies in together. 
WorldCom lied by shifting operating expenses into capital expenses that 
they could depreciate over time, thus making current year figures look 
better, even though it meant potentially paying taxes when they didn't 
have to.

Microsoft, as i understand it, was going the other direction, shifting 
current revenues into future years. Thus, they were likely trying to 
hide oversized profits into the future (ie now) when they knew they'd 
lose grip on the monopoly. More significantly, it would defer tax 
payments into the future if ever.

Where's the outrage?

d





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