Are Printing Costs Deductible?
That’s only where the insult starts. In effect, Microsoft never actually had to spend a dime to provide the options, even though it deducted them. The only expense the company incurred was the cost of printing out the stock certificates. “Because they’re giving stock options, no one outside their company benefits,” Ashdown said. “It’s insulting.” Microsoft even received a little cash via the payroll deductions employees used to exercise their options. Meanwhile, the employees get taxed when they exercise their options and pay that tax out of their own cash wages. Add in the “warrants” Microsoft sells on its own stock to mutual fund managers, combined with the money it saved through stock option loopholes and income from its own employees, and Microsoft made $5 billion in the stock market its last fiscal year. Oh, yeah. That’s tax-free.
