Financial Transparency Coalition

Bill Gates likes to be thought of as a great philanthropist. He’s referred to as such, so I guess he’s happy about it. And in some senses he is. But remember he gets tax relief as a result. Remember something else too: the value of Microsoft has undoubtedly been inflated by its tax planning. Low taxes equals higher value is a golden rule of the stock market: it’s the motive for tax avoidance. So ask a question: how much of Gates’ philanthropy has been paid for by the US Exchequer? Quite a lot, I suspect. It’s still philanthropy, but not quite as it first...

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Billionaire Bill Gates on Thursday agitated for state governments to adopt “clear and honest” accounting of their budgets, saying states’ true finances are being obscured from voters and threaten America’s public-education system. Speaking at a meeting here of leading thinkers known as the TED conference, Mr. Gates said that state budgets need more scrutiny and should follow more-transparent accounting principles, such as those used by GoogleInc. and Microsoft Corp, which Mr. Gates co-founded.

Software giant Microsoft has issued a stern threat to the Obama administration over its concerns of the US income tax deferral regime.