Microsoft CEO sells half his stock, weeks before WA state implements gains tax | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft CEO sells half his stock, weeks before WA state implements gains tax

geekwire.com

40 pointssamspenc56 comments

Sound like a move to avoid losses.

TL;DR: Nadella sold the shares “for personal financial planning and diversification reasons,” the Redmond-based company said in a statement Monday afternoon. “He is committed to the continued success of the company and his holdings significantly exceed the holding requirements set by the Microsoft Board of Directors.”

But then, in the next two paragraphs:

> It comes in advance of Washington state implementing a controversial new capital gains tax. Passed by lawmakers in April, it primarily targets stock and business ownership sales with a 7% tax on long-term capital gains of more than $250,000.

> The first such tax in state history, it’s set to take effect on Jan. 1, 2022. Microsoft’s statement on Nadella’s stock sale did not address whether the impending capital gains tax factored into Nadella’s personal financial planning. A Wall Street Journal report cited analysts who pointed to a possible connection.

He says why he did it. It's not a secret. We can speculate why he did it but with no proof how do we know? If he was trying to avoid the tax altogether why not sell all of it?

Capital gains tax is a bad idea because it hurts businesses. It takes money out of the economy and puts it into the government where it is spent less efficiently.

I'm sure your argument is deeper, but what you have written could be said about any tax, no? Is there something unique about capital gains tax in particular?

Capital gains taxes are double taxation...the company already pays income taxes on its profit.

That would be dividends. Capital gains (in theory at least) are the result of a company investing in its future earning capacity, eg. hiring scientists for R&D, building a new factory, spending money on SaaS upgrades, etc. These all come out of the income statement as expenses, and aren't recorded as profit, so the company doesn't pay corporate taxes on them.

You'd potentially have a point for buybacks, which are usually paid off of retained earnings that have already been taxed and yet raise the share price and cause capital gains. This is the same issue that qualified dividends have though.

Those future earnings from present investments, when finally realized, will be taxed unless the corporate income tax is eliminated.

But someone who sells a security backed by the cash flows from those future investments is receiving cash before the cash flows have materialized (or been taxed). There's also no guarantee that they will ever be taxed. Take, for example, a startup that continually reinvests all profits in additional R&D, sales, and marketing, gets increasing large revenue streams, but then sells the whole company to a bigger one before ever realizing a GAAP profit. Capital gains tax is Uncle Sam's way of taking a cut on all the intermediate owners who benefit from the business reinvestment but know how to turn profits into larger market share.

By that definition, everything is double-taxation. The check I get from my employer comes out of the company profits too.

In many jurisdictions, including the United States, an employer does not pay income tax on the money they pay out in payroll.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_tax

But that money will be taxed when it's used to pay your electrician. Then, that money will be taxed again when your electrician uses it to buy something from a shop keeper. And then, that money will be taxed again when that shop keeper pays his employee. Then that money will be taxed again when the employee gets his dry cleaning done. There's no law or sensible principle that a dollar should be taxed exactly once in its entire existence.

Double taxation is when one entity is taxed double, not when multiple independent entities are taxed based on value being transferred. I also pay tax on my income before I pay it to a company for their services, but they still need to pay tax on that money.

> Is there something unique about capital gains tax in particular?

The reason why we are seeing pushes to adopt capital gains tax right now is because Bernie Sanders, AOC, et. al. want to "Tax the Billionaires." This is obviously a popular slogan because people think "who the hell needs 1 billion dollars?" But it's not like billionaires literally have 1 billion dollars just sitting in their bank accounts not doing anything. In reality, billionaires are billionaires because they make their money work for them through various investments. Capital gains tax is not "taking some poor billionaire's leftover yacht money," it's a tax on _the businesses they own_. Although capital gains tax disincentives the growth of business (which is a bad thing because we want businesses to grow,) it's marketed as a "tax on fat-cat bastard billionaires."

It’s not a tax on the business. If Elon musk is forced to sell a percentage of his shares in Tesla that’s not going to change their bottom line, it just means someone else, other than him is buying that ownership.

It’s a tax on the billionaires just like it’s intended, and they are forced to either pay themselves a salary that will also be taxed, just like poor people, in order to pay the capital gains tax. They can’t just borrow money against their gains and pretend that it’s fair that they don’t pay any taxes “because Elon Musk has no income”.

There are a lot of reasons why that may not be a good idea. First off it’s his company, he bought it fair and square and invested literally everything he had in Tesla, bet it all on himself, in my book that means he gets to keep it.

Also then anyone could buy up his shares like a foreign government that doesn’t have our best interests at heart.

I think this stuff sounds nice but when you look at the implementation it doesn’t hold up.

Yes, it sounds like it only affects the wealthy, so it's low-hanging fruit.

Government spending isn’t about efficiency per se. First, there is the question about efficiency for whom exactly. Are these taxes less efficient for Microsoft shareholders (and large shareholders in general)? Almost certainly. But long-term investments in the populace, such as funding schools, can be more efficient on the whole in the long term if the investments pay off in the form of a more productive population. Second, efficiency is generally uncorrelated with equality at best and anti-correlated at worst. I’m not saying we need a totally equal society, but surely some work needs to be done to promote equality if we’re to have a meritocracy.

You can that say about any tax. The most economically efficient tax system is one where workers are taxed the least, and the profiting companies the most. Individual taxes are what stifle business, because we cannot afford to even take the risk to start small. Therefore we cannot dedicate full time to a business venture and we lose.

These massive companies use the most public resources and hardly contribute back. An entity has to exist to enforce they do, which are taxes. Massive companies like Microsoft are not stifled, they do that themselves through significant mismanagement and bullying of the market.

"The most economically efficient tax system is one where workers are taxed the least, and the profiting companies the most."

Hmm. I don't think this is true. According to the article below, you can see that economists on the right and left favor a complete elimination of the corporate income tax. In fact, the article points out that it's one of the few areas of overlapping agreement!

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/07/19/157047211/six-...

It's no wonder that in progress Europe, corporate taxes are low and income+consumption taxes on the middle class are very high.

American economists are pretty much all on the right, as are virtually all American when it comes to economy. From a European point of view, the USA has no major party economically on the left. You can chose between center right and right bordering on far right.

> It takes money out of the economy and puts it into the government where it is spent less efficiently.

Who do you think the government buys goods and services from?

I predict that people will leave Washington State in droves. Not because of the tax increase, but because the amount of taxes you pay goes into never ending government pit of inefficiency and incompetency. I’m down with paying more taxes but in return I want no homelessness, no chadzone, less crime, better roads, straight forward education (math is racist apparently), spotless streets, safety, eradication of poverty, no power cuts, and better law enforcement.

Better yet, instead of increasing taxes, how about we improve the efficiency of the government? For same budget, we can get more done. We never seem to ask this question.

Good point, it is rarely talked about how we increase efficiency.

I wish there was a better way to inject free market competition into the government. Government contracts seem to also favor inefficiency and poor implementation.

Something I’ve been thinking on lately, if anyone has resources on this I would love to read them.

>I wish there was a better way to inject free market competition into the government

it's called immigration, people move to states/nations with the best functioning governments if they are allowed free movement. Historically voting with your feet has been the best way to change government. See Illinois and it's massive budget shortfall due to people leaving the state

also look at the Soviet Union which needed border security to keep people IN. The exact opposite situation that the US has, which is that millions of people want to live here through any means necessary

> See Illinois and it's massive budget shortfall due to people leaving the state

Does this really make them think of changing stuff, or will they just increase taxes and try get more money? I mean, most governments will do the latter before fixing the issue (they don't want to admit the issue is with them...)

[NOTE] not a US citizen, so cant don't know much about US politics

Illinois budget problems are due primarily to pension promises made decades ago. The current state government is reasonably well run, for the most part.

If you look at the 2020 Census data, the Chicago metro area grew slightly while the rural areas and small towns lost population. The state saw a growth in high earners that pay lots of taxes, and a loss in lower income folks that pay relatively low taxes.

Since you mention politics: Illinois will send 1 fewer person to the US Congress next year. Currently, there are 13 Democrats and 5 Republicans from Illinois. After the elections next year, there are almost certainly going to be 14 Democrats and 3 Republicans. Knowing that might help understand some of the criticism…

In my cynical view within the US, it's often more like locusts destroying their environment and moving on e.g. the Californian exodus to other western states that is negatively regarded by most people born & raised in those states.

People vote for crap politicians and policies that lead to issues noted in the OP, then go somewhere else and do it again - watching it first-hand in my state over the past decade.

Journalists should be holding governments accountable. Just the way Carreyrou (WSJ) single handedly brought down Theranos, I want journalists to go after government corruption and high impact inefficiencies. Notice how NYTimes and the like are not interested in actual journalism of this sorts. Government is a de facto monopoly and we need 10x more eyes on it than anyone else. There needs to be mechanisms for firing bad actors from high up positions.

Instead, the focus is always on increasing taxes. As a liberal, I want my taxes to go into exceptional and super high quality services that even the Scandinavians would envy. Otherwise, I will vote for lower taxes and that could mean vote for republicans. Our governments suck so much.

The government has become pay to play for journalists. Piss the government off and your not allowed into press briefings anymore.

Some dedicated investigative journalism group could do it, but any larger media company cannot.

I could see folks on YouTube doing a good job of it?

None of those issues (with the possible exception of roads, depending on which roads you mean) are state-level problems. I live in a smaller locale in Washington and these Seattle-area laments are not problems here.

the same goes for CA as well.

What's chadzone?

Pretty sure they're referencing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Hill_Occupied_Protest

Not because of the tax increase, but because the amount of taxes you pay goes into never ending government pit of inefficiency and incompetency.

From my POV, having lived here for 20 years, WA residents used to get a reasonable deal on their taxes. Sure, they were high from the perspective of this Midwestern boy, but the ferries ran on time and shit got done. I do not feel that's the case anymore (well, the ferries are probably still timely).

I was just asking my wife the other day, "I don't mind high gas taxes per se, but for having some of the highest fuel taxes in the country, why is this highly-trafficked road such a piece of shit? They haven't paved it since we moved here." As one example; but where the hell is that money going? We don't even have hard winters to tear the roads up. Why are four-banger compact cars running practically open exhaust and rattling windows? Don't we do inspections anymore? Or have cops that pull people over for such things? Speaking of which, in Redmond I'm kind of surprised when I see a cop driving around anymore.

Blah, blah, blah, no one outside of WA cares and those that live here know what I'm on about, so I'll cut it short. I'm with parent: I'll gladly pay taxes, they buy civilization. But lately I don't feel I'm getting as much civilization for my tax dollar as I used to, not even close.

> well, the ferries are probably still timely

Someone isn't on the wsdot ferry email list (anymore?). Most of the lines are currently running single boat service, or only announcing both boats will be running in the morning. I don't personally count it as being on time if you're doing half the normal number of sailings, but those are mostly on time.

I'll give a pass for the regular delays on friday afternoon and sunday evening though. As far as I know, those delays are like clockwork, and we're stuck with them. (Maybe when coleman dock construction finishes, the super peak times will run more smoothly, but I'm ok with just pretending the ferry doesn't run during those times, cause I don't want to be there)

> I was just asking my wife the other day, "I don't mind high gas taxes per se, but for having some of the highest fuel taxes in the country, why is this highly-trafficked road such a piece of shit? They haven't paved it since we moved here."

Suburbs in the US have too much roads per capita (thanks to SFH obsession), you'll end up with this issue almost no matter how much taxes you raise.

Yes 100%. I’m not familiar with Washington state specifically but if you Google “induced demand” you’ll see why building more lanes and repaving them doesn’t really solve the problem.

I’ve heard of this and I’m skeptical of this narrative. And then being applied in pretty much any infrastructure. Unchecked.

It’s a great way to build nothing and leave the next generation without good infrastructure.

American cities are infested with lack of spirit that led to huge infrastructure projects in post-world war between 1945-1980.

If you talk about building anything new in SF Bay Area, you’ll be met with contempt.

The Bay Area is a dense region with earthquakes and it’s share of NIMBYs which complicates planning but they’re still opening four new stations next year as part of the Central Subway.

I’d certainly like to see a lot more infrastructure projects but building more lanes on highways is not actually the solution according to the vast majority of urban planners. Try visiting cities that went all in on highways. For example, here in Bangkok they’ve been investing a ton into the metro systems (MRT and BTS) because even after covering the city in highways the traffic doesn’t move in many areas.

I see you deleted your other comment where you said I’d clearly never left the United States. It’s a bizarre thing to assume about someone you’ve never met who has spent six months in European and Asian cities this year. Next time read the content of what is written instead of inventing things.

Michigan solved their shitty road problem: they created a state insurance fund that you could file claims against if a pot hole tore up your car. Some of their pot holes were (and I assume still are) more like craters.

I moved back home to Indiana in 2005 and don't miss the shitty weather or roads.

New York State here.

Some of the highest property and income taxes in exchange for

- shitty expensive roads

- just "meh" state university

- the worst subway I saw in any country (and there were a few)

and I can keep whinging for another half an hour.

Stony Brook, Binghamton and the publicly funded colleges at Cornell provide excellent educations, and that’s disregarding the historical excellence of the CUNY schools. I’ll grant you the subways though.

You’re saying NYC has the worst subway? If so, you’re seriously taking it for granted.

It’s the only subway I’m aware of with two sets of tracks so it can run 24 hours even while maintenance is performed usually. It’s better than basically any other subway in America as a start and certainly better than many others as well.

That said, the United States is clearly terrible at public transport overall.

people will also be leaving due to lord inslee's neverending "emergency powers"

Inslee has improved his margin in his 3 statewide elections so clearly the more WA citizens see of him the more they like him. His COVID response was excellent and the best in the country, IMHO.

Washington has one of the best universities in the country, excellent secondary education, and is home to two of the largest tech companies in the world. It’s a shining example of American excellence to the world, and you think people will leave because of capital gains? This is silly.

Then campaign for election. The democratic experiment failed because people believe the government is a separate entity from them. Once you get involved you will see how complicated everything actually is. It turns out that people vote and do things purely from belief, regardless of if it's wrong. Therefore good policy gets labeled "leftist" or "conservative", and the private interests that profit from the chaos know how to prey on beliefs far better than you can.

Think about the consequences of what you said. We can never know unless we get involved. It is too complex. So the door for criticism is shut and only the people inside the government can possibly know the intricacies and therefore have the right to criticize. This is also a classic defeatist perspective - we can never fix this, it is too complicated.

We should all be for greater efficiency of government. But ... is WA actually less efficient than other states? If so, how and why?

In terms of overall tax burden, until now WA has been pretty middle of the road (ranked 24 and 27 out 50 in two estimates). https://taxfoundation.org/publications/state-local-tax-burde... https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-highest-lowest-tax-bur...

The burden has been middle of the road thanks to the income tax ban. It’s also resulted in the state pursuing taxes even worse than income tax, in terms of regressivity and who they target.

Seattle is not Washington State. I invite you to visit the Methow Valley. I will buy you a beer.

I just googled Methow Valley. Breathtaking. I'll take your offer.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com