Bill Gates' Taxes Require Special Computer 428
NightWulf writes "News AU claims Bill Gates said in an interview, his fortune is so big, that the IRS needs a special computer, because a normal one can't handle the numbers. The IRS must have had to switch from PC's to Macs just for Gates."
At last, I have something in common with Bill... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:At last, I have something in common with Bill.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:At last, I have something in common with Bill.. (Score:3, Funny)
Your Shell Script (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Your Shell Script (Score:4, Funny)
Re:At last, I have something in common with Bill.. (Score:5, Funny)
They send mine to this fellow [wikipedia.org].
Re:At last, I have something in common with Bill.. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Bistromathics (Score:4, Funny)
Re:At last, I have something in common with Bill.. (Score:3, Funny)
Funny (Score:2)
"Yeah? Well.... I'm SO rich that the IRS needs special computers to calculate my taxes! .. And they take up two warehouses near the docks!!"
Re:Funny (Score:2, Funny)
Hmmm, can Apple sue over a translucent dildo?
Re:At last, I have something in common with Bill.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:(Hint:) The OS on this computer is reliable (Score:3, Funny)
I tell you what would be news (Score:2, Insightful)
Money Fight! (Score:2, Funny)
Its not the numbers (Score:5, Funny)
I think... (Score:2)
I don't buy it (Score:5, Insightful)
This sounds ridiculous. Do Warren Buffet's taxes need the special computer also?
Re:I don't buy it (Score:2)
Re:I don't buy it (Score:2)
Re:I don't buy it (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I don't buy it (Score:3, Funny)
sooo...... you wear a bucket as a hat?
I don't buy it either. (Score:5, Interesting)
They do segregate some accounts because of the sheer volume of transactions but the database systems and transaction handling systems are on separate 'farms'
of machines so this article seems to be utter fabrication.
Re:I don't buy it either. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I don't buy it (Score:5, Interesting)
The IRS is apparently still using a computer system that became operational in 1967 (see this announcement [house.gov] for example).
Re:I don't buy it (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I don't buy it (Score:2)
Re:I don't buy it (Score:2)
Re:I don't buy it (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, but corporate taxes are probably held by a different division than personal taxes.
I worked for a year at the IRS in the early 90s and things are BAD. I wouldn't be surprised if he had to have his personal stuff moved over to the corporate computers.
Think about it this way, if you are running on older databases on older computers -- you have specific field sizes. Its hard to retroactively recode these without possible killing a large number of other items (I worked on modernizing some code at my department -- it was a pain in the ass). And beyond that, just because 0.00001% of the population needs a field size of a few hundred digits to calculate a value -- this will mean EVERYONE gets the same value size and require the same sorts of calculations slowing down the whole process and requiring a lot more memory (on computers that are no longer manufactured or were custom pieces -- because when I worked there, it was the battle of the lowest bidder and they ALWAYS made sure that just because they were lowest, it didn't mean they didn't make up for this fact a few years down the road with purposely propriatary parts they never told anyone about even though it was against the original spec sheet).
So I wouldn't be surprised to know a few dozen billionaires had their own computer system and were managed by a single individual (where as a single individual might manage a few million from a data perspective otherwise). And when you think about it, as much taxable income that man is bringing into the gov't -- it makes PERFECT sense that they'd put a $30k employee on to manage one guy that is chipping in a hundred million a year in taxes...
I could say more, but I won't because I still have security clearance with the IRS...at the same time, I'm going to post this anonymously even though I didn't give out any information that was secret (or even all that interesting).
Re:I don't buy it (Score:3, Interesting)
Yep- and it's because the IRS does not have the job you think they have. Collecting taxes is the minor, unimportant job. The important job is catching people who cheated on the Earned Income Tax Credit, and other low-income loopholes.
Re:I don't buy it (Score:5, Interesting)
Bill didn't say that his tax records were the *only* one on that special computer. It is very likely that Mr. Buffet's records are on that computer too, as well as the records for any high net worth individual with complicated tax situations. I completely buy the story. I work in estate and gift tax planning and at least from that perspective, there are myriad of complicated structures (ie LLCs, FLPs, trusts, promissory notes) that require incredibly intense accounting. And I'm not even exposed to the more esoteric tax issues.
I did some work for a billionaire with only a *fraction* of Bill Gates' fortune once and I had to invent a whole new set of models for keeping track of the spider web of entities. The guy's accountants had it even worse, because they had to keep track of transactions in hundreds of entities by and among various family members...I just had to track the data for one individual. It was my understanding that if this particular family ever underwent a Section 754 Election, where the cost basis of the underlying assets is adjusted to market value (or something like that), the cost in legal, accounting and IT resources could run into the millions.
Nah, this is BS (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I don't buy it (Score:3, Funny)
I have a new purpose in life, I will direct all my efforts to becoming an extreme, hardcore accountant.
Bring it on.
Re:I don't buy it (Score:3, Informative)
W.ealth O.verload P.lanned R.esponse (Score:5, Funny)
I have an idea, if your fortune gets to be so large that even the IRS can't figure it all out, you should be required to give some of it away to the poor until they can do the necessary calculations.
That being said, I will accept cash and postal money orders only please.
You can't be serious. (Score:5, Informative)
Part of the problem is likely that Gates gives so much to the poor already. [gatesfoundation.org] He's the richest man in the world, but name someone that gives more money to the poor than he.
WHO (Score:4, Informative)
Re:WHO (Score:4, Informative)
Re:You can't be serious. (Score:3, Informative)
Name someone who has as much money to give as he has. If I had half as much money as Bill, I'd give more than he does.
I don't think it would be hard to find lots of people who give a larger percentage of thier wealth to the poor.
Some people give 'tell it hurts. I don't think Bill fells the pain.
I do remember Ted Turner giving $1 Billion over ten years [cnn.com] to the UN (a little less than a third his net worth at the time). The UN is not exactly "t
Re:W.ealth O.verload P.lanned R.esponse (Score:2)
Re:W.ealth O.verload P.lanned R.esponse (Score:3, Informative)
Re:W.ealth O.verload P.lanned R.esponse (Score:2)
I'm sure BG's taxes are complex and he probably has a staff of CPA's and likely get audited every year as well. But a special computer is BS. And ppl say my boss (McNealy) is full of it, he's an amateur compared to Gates (and Ellison).
Re:W.ealth O.verload P.lanned R.esponse (Score:2)
He and Melinda have 3 children. I read somewhere that they have a max inheritance of less than 1%, and the rest is set for charaties (though it will probably be given away as stock with strings, as the mass sale of gates stock would destroy microsoft.
Re:W.ealth O.verload P.lanned R.esponse (Score:2)
http://www.microsoft.com/billgates/bio.asp [microsoft.com]
I don't think the BMGF is meant to put them in the poorhouse, though. The kids will have plenty when it's over.
- Zarq
Trolling in obsolescence for +1 Informative.
Re:W.ealth O.verload P.lanned R.esponse (Score:2)
Re:W.ealth O.verload P.lanned R.esponse (Score:2)
Re:W.ealth O.verload P.lanned R.esponse (Score:3, Funny)
WOPR? A mere abacus. Mention it not.
Requires a special display and keyboard (Score:2, Funny)
Pure fluff (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this the Intel Math bug??? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Is this the Intel Math bug??? (Score:2)
Re:Is this the Intel Math bug??? (Score:4, Interesting)
Bill's salary is given away.
Bill's home mortgage (if it exists) does not exist.
He earns roughly: $705,000,000 per year.
That quite certainly puts him in a high tax bracket:
If taxable income is over-- But not over-- The tax is:
$326,450 no limit $88,320.00 plus 35% of the amount over 326,450
(So he pays $705M - $326,450)*35% + $88,320
246635742.5+$88,320 =
$246,724,062.50 in taxes
Since we don't use the cents collumn in fed tax does anyone know whether the
I make about $42K a year.
So dear billy pays in taxes what I make in over 5 _THOUSAND_ years.
Yeah, I'd say your guess was conservative alright. We haven't even figured in state taxes and I think he earns more than 1.5% in interest and divadends per year.
-nB
Half accountant, half philosopher... (Score:4, Funny)
Whoa, man, you're blowing my mind!
Oblig. Simpsons Reference (Score:5, Funny)
Barney: "Oh ho, oh yeah. We all had a good laugh, Moe."
Moe: "The results came back today."
I've got negative money! (Score:3, Funny)
And now that I've RTFA while I waited for
Funny story, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
IRS Computers. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:IRS Computers. (Score:2)
Re:IRS Computers. (Score:4, Funny)
Can Bill get more braggily weird? (Score:2)
"My taxes can beat up your taxes!"
Right (Score:3, Funny)
Begging (Score:3, Funny)
"Oh, please, please, Mr. IRS Man, please give me the latex glove audit."
Re:Begging (Score:2)
I've got the VAT people visiting me next Valentine's day. Do I want to be the recipient of a large dose of VAT-love? Nu-uh!
Justin.
I want my money back (Score:2, Insightful)
If their automated system can't handle one return, then why the hell don't they just do that one by hand? Lazy bastards.
As an aside, if this story were about Steve Jobs, all the replies would be bitching about how much press he gets.
Re:I want my money back (Score:3, Funny)
One of the MS Money Editions might suffice (Score:5, Funny)
MS Money Small Business Edition.
MS Money Enterprise.
MS Money Multi-national Edition.
MS Money Dr. Evil Edition.
MS Money Dr. Evil Edition with Laser Beams.
A joke? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A joke? (Score:2)
Re:A joke? (Score:2)
Not even they do, it would seem...
Re:A joke? (Score:3, Informative)
They still can't calculate my taxes. (Score:5, Funny)
In other news, Steve Balmer threw a chair at the IRS computer so he could also claim they needed a new "special" one for him too.
Reminds me of.. (Score:5, Interesting)
When Seymour Cray was told this he supposedly replied with "That's funny, because I'm using an Apple computer to design(the Cray supercomputers)".
Re:Reminds me of.. (Score:2)
But I thought... (Score:5, Funny)
I wonder (Score:3, Funny)
Separate System (Score:3, Insightful)
He's not Chuck Norris, because... (Score:5, Funny)
...when Chuck Norris sends in his taxes, he sends blank forms and includes only a picture of himself, crouched and ready to attack. Chuck Norris has not had to pay taxes, ever.
And 'Trojan' has to make a special... (Score:2)
15 decimal places for Treasury Dept (Score:2)
P.S. Incidentally they've just reached the current legal debt ceiling of $8.184 trillion and wont be able to issue new bonds until Congress raises it.
I call BS. (Score:2)
2. Even if it is a VERY old system most likely it uses BCD. No floating point rounding errors and used to be the standard for accounting system. Might still be for the high end ones.
3. Lots of entities have been that rich in the past. I can imagine that the IRS needed special software for GM, Ford, and IBM long before Mr. Gates was more than a Yuppie.
Say what you will (Score:3, Insightful)
The couple's Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has a $US29 billion ($38.8 billion) endowment making it the world's biggest charity.
So BG is putting more than half of his money into the Foundation (assuming he's the sole contributor). We may all not like him, but at least he's trying to do some good with the money he's fleeced from us. I just wish I still had the money so I could donate it and get the tax writeoff!
Just Upgrade the Processor and OS (Score:2)
Maybe the IRS is still buying from Dell and can't get a proper AMD64 processor.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Bill Gates' tax computer (Score:4, Funny)
That taxes requires a computer at all is a shame (Score:5, Insightful)
My finances are not very complex, but apparently enough that I'm relegated to the long-form return. I've got to search various forms for fields labelled with numbers to copy out numbers and add them together, copy those to other numbered fields into another form, add them together, altogether having to read an instruction for each field that often reads: "refer to IRS document X to see if this applies to you", or "complete worksheet X and if you get a number between -100 and 325, ignore this line". PLEASE, GOD, WHY?!?!
In my wife's home country, all taxes are collected at whatever transaction takes place. At the end of the year, you get a receipt to review. If everything seems in order, you are all set.
Personally, I'd like to see the entire body of personal tax law reduced to 2 pages. If you can't fit it in 2 standard-size pages in 10-pt type, you can't tax it. Further, taxes should be collected at transaction time (payment, sell investment), and the rate ought to be flat and without deductions. Do that, and Gates taxes would look like this:
Re:That taxes requires a computer at all is a sham (Score:3, Funny)
Except you are the computer and errors in your memory will cause heart pounding letters from the IRS.
Re:That taxes requires a computer at all is a sham (Score:5, Interesting)
I used to agree with you, but I've since found the that picture isn't so simple.
Taking taxes at transaction time means pushing a situational-tax only system. In other words, pay tax on a sale of goods or services or the such, which pushes a larger percentage of the tax burden farther down the economic ladder (remember that everyone has to eat and buy things). The richer you are, the lower the percentage of situational tax with respect to your income/net worth. That's not good. Thus, income and estate taxes are pushed as a way to readjust the percentages to make the wealthy pay a larger percentage of their net worth than the poor per annum. Additionally, speaking as someone who was there, taking even 15% of my income when I only make $10k or $20k is pretty onerous, if not simply not possible. But taking even 30% of my income now that I make six figures would pinch, but is far more doable. Speaking as the hypothetical Bill Gates, taking as much as 45% of my $50B, leaves me with enough cash on hand to own a small nation and still manages to do an amazing amount of collective good for the nation.
Also, deductions are an absolutely necessity of the system. Let me explain by example:
If I own a business and that business brings in $100k in gross profit, without deductions, I pay tax on $100k. However, looking at the bigger picture, If my business is anything like the norm, only about 30% of that gross stays in my pocket. That means, I had to pay employees (who are taxed on that pay), advertising (which is taxed on the service provider), and office supplies (which were already taxed at the OfficeMax counter). I have to be able to deduct business expenses otherwise the remainder of the gross that I hold in my hand after business expenses will go, in total, the IRS and I end up having run a business that did $100k in profit and I, as the owner, have exact $0 to show for it (if I don't end up oweing.
Deductions of the other sort exist to encourage charity. There are those who would give to charity out of kindness, but to the same extent? As frequently? What about the rest. We can't forget that charity write-offs really work. Americans give a tremendous amount to charity every year. How much who those charities get if there were zero benefit to the giving? Not nearly as much. Sure, those who give anonymously would still give, but as for the rest, the numbers would drop drastically.
Al Gore---not my favorite guy in the world---had a great idea. Tax breaks for people who make beneficial environmental choices (buy hybrids, use solar, etc...) to encourage people to lessen our dependence on foreign fuels. His ideas never came to full fruition (a real shame, regardless of whether I like him or not), but they would only work if the tax base can claim deductions as incentive.
Brevity is not my strong suit, so sorry for the long ramble, but you get the idea.
32bit unsigned (Score:2)
I think what the comment meant was... (Score:2, Insightful)
This isn't about Bill, it's about the IRS (Score:2)
Merrill Lynch, 1987, payroll system had same thing (Score:3, Informative)
That's how a geek knows (Score:3, Funny)
Isn't this just a rehash of the old joke? (Score:3, Funny)
I work with the IRS for comptuerized taxes .... (Score:3, Interesting)
The icing on the cake? The company that has been contracted to build the MEF system? IBM.
Re:What a liar... (Score:2)
Justin.
Re:What a liar... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Nooooooo (Score:2)
Re:Bill Gates' TAX computer.... (Score:2)
Re:I'm sure he means ... (Score:2)
not to say it's on the top 10 lest or anything.
-nB
Re:I'm sure he means ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Just for kicks and grins,... Has anyone noted that those ordinary computers he is talking about run on a common OS?
Because of the fact that some people on this forum moderate anything intelligent as troll, I will leave it to the readers to guess which OS those computers run on. This has to be the funniest thing all day.