X.Com Shuts Down/Microsoft Pays No Tax
By Late Nite LeRoy
November 12, 2000
The continuing obituary of dot com shut downs now includes a bank I had great hopes
for. I haven't seen any official reason for the closure, but apparently they couldn't cut
it with banking regulations and chose to shut down the entire banking operation. Everyone
must close their account now by the end of November or a check for the balance in their
account will be mailed to the address on record on December 1, 2000. The same people also
own PayPal.com which will continue in operation. That division has many more members and
is apparently showing a profit.
Besides the inconvenience of closing a checking account, mutual fund holders will now be
forced to sell out their holdings now during a depressed market. This could be a
considerable loss to some. I wish I had a good bank to recommend to readers, but at this
time, all have annoying fees attached. One bank was giving away $40 or $50 to open an
account, only to see the monthly fees would eat the up the bonus in only 3 or 4 months.
Other recent dot com shut downs include furniture.com, politics.com and pets.com. All were
spending more to operate than the revenue they could bring in. Which I guess leads to some
advice to any dot com operation, keep your operating costs to a minimum and don't spend
into fantasy land.
Tech TV reports that Microsoft and Cisco systems paid NO corporate income tax last year.
They both utilized a tax loop hole that allowed them to shift taxable corporate profit
onto the shoulders of their EMPLOYEES. It seems that when an employee exercises a stock
option, the difference between the strike price and the current trading price is
considered by IRS to be a profit for the employee and a LOSS to the corporation.
Don't forget one of the Constitution party's platforms was to ELIMINATE federal income tax
altogether. But no, femi-nazis would rather have the right to butcher a baby and sleep
around like tramps than to consider a fair taxation process to help everyone.
--LateNiteLeroy
You may send LateNite email at: leroy@commutefaster.com
LateNite Leroy is webmaster for http://www.commutefaster.com
http://www.888webtoday.com