Bill Gates has, according to the Guardian, warned 'that should the Conservatives go ahead and abandon the UK's overseas aid spending pledge it would reduce the country's influence in the world and mean more lives lost in Africa.'
I agree with him. That is right.
But I think the warning would be a lot more credible if Microsoft tried to pay all its taxes in full in all the countries in which it operates. It does, however, still play tax games in Ireland (and no doubt elsewhere) at considerable cost to the UK, and no doubt many developing countries.
And Microsoft does not do country-by-country reporting so we can truly understand its tax performance.
My messages is simple. Bill Gates needs to walk the talk. Then more people might listen.
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Best typo yet Richard – “Bull Gates”.
But corrected, nonetheless
Thanks
Maybe you inadvertently acquired a Scottish accent?
Perhaps you could try a little more research before writing an article.
Firstly, Bill Gates hasn’t run Microsoft for ten years. And secondly, through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation he is now doing a lot of great work in exactly the areas that he is warning the UK government of cutting. He has spent billions of his personal fortune in this work.
Respectfully, if Microsoft had not avoided so much tax he would not have had as much to give away
Second, the Foundation keeps control of his shares. As with Buffett, I question the magnanimity of that
Third, with his much stock he could heavily influence Microsoft
Stop playing the apologist
He hasn’t run Microsoft for 11 years.
He had given 28 billion dollars to helping the wolrd’s poorest people as of 2013 while stating that he intends to giving around $80 billion in total.
Google is your friend ‘professor’.
He has massive influence on Microsoft
His stock remains under his control. I would question how much of a gift that makes it
And yes, I really am a professor. Deal with it, is I think, the vernacular response
Quite right Richard.
Your detractors are behind the times here.
Whilst it USED to be the case that the title ‘Professor’ went only to a few, those who held a ‘chair’ in a department at a university, the fact is that now a university such as City can bestow this title on any lecturer they choose. Any suggestion of ‘devaluation’ misses the point which is that the increase in the number of people called ‘professor’ showcases the achievements of the education system.
Why, back in the 1970s there were less than 4,000 professors in the UK and the title of professor of practice was unknown. Now, the number of professors has increased to over 17,000 full professors and universities can appoint any lecturer as a professor of practice. And not just academics either as I am sure I read somewhere that Angelina Jolie as a professor of practice at the LSE
So well done Richard and, as you say, people will just have to deal with this!
The title has the same currency now as then
There are four times as many students
And more universities
And the term chair means very little
The point is the process of appointment is rigorous and City decided to make the appointment
They did not need to and did not have to
Debate over
This is a thorny topic. It seems churlish to diss ‘apparent’ largesse on such a scale as the Gates Foundation. But there are legitimate concerns, tax being one of them. Richard, you will know so much more than me but it seems that thanks to a uniquely generous and regressive tax regime, American charitable foundations almost stand alone in attracting massive investement from the super-rich (http://www.financialsamurai.com/a-look-inside-investment-asset-allocation-of-massive-university-endowments).
Some more issues are raised here: https://newint.org/features/2012/04/01/bill-gates-charitable-giving-ethics.
And I’ll not venture into the emotional and contraversial long-term health issues surrounding vaccines. That’s a minefield even I dare not negotiate, at least not in public.
In summary I’d simply say that American Charitable Foundations are sometimes not as philanthropic as they appear on the surface. And, do the ends justify the means? Even when they deliver aid on such a scale, one should surely question what kind of a global society is it that has to rely on private capitalist benevolence?
The last word surly goes to Oscar Wilde who presciently observed of 19th century philanthropists: ‘They seriously and very sentimentally set themselves to the task of remedying the evils that they see in poverty, but their remedies do not cure the disease: they merely prolong it.’ Then and now, as Wilde said, ‘the proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible.’
Well said John D
Does Microsoft have significant revenues from developing countries? Note 21 to the 2016 annual report suggests US customers account for half of its $80+ billion revenues.
Gates has been selling down his shareholding in Microsoft for about two decades and donating the cash to the Foundation (the assets are now held by an associated trust that reinvests the capital until the foundation needs funding: the trust has to provide whatever funds the foundation asks for, up to the entire fund). Gates still owns about 149 million shares in Microsoft, but the company has nearly 8 billion shares in issue, so he is down to around 2 per cent. The foundation and the associated trust hold no shares in Microsoft. That said, as Chairman of the company, I am sure he has a significant influence.
At least Gates is putting his money where his mouth is, on healthcare and poverty reduction, including essential and life-saving but unsexy and previously underfunded activities such as basic sanitation, malaria control, vaccination, and tropical diseases: leishmaniasis, for example. I suspect his charitable donations far exceed the collective efforts of everyone reading this blog.
The UK’s foreign aid budget is £12 billion. All well spent and worthwhile, I am sure. On its own, the Gates Foundation spends about a quarter of that each year.
Significant influence
I agree
You make my point
And you actually have no clue where the customers are as you do not know if that is source or destination base reporting
Last para ‘surely’ not ‘surly’. Although Oscar probably would’ve equally approved of ‘surly’ – haha.
For those who rush to the defence of Gates and trumpet his retirement and foundation good works, with a dismissive do your homework attitude. Well, right back at you, as you’re clearly students of the ‘check Wicki’ and print research school. Now run along and do some real reading and educate yourselves, if nothing else at least go far enough to realise what you have posted is nonsense.
Helping the world’s poorest should not be down to the personal whim of people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet! Billions of pounds a year are lost from the poorest countries to tax havens supported by our government (and others). For every ostensibly well-intentioned billionaire like those mentioned, there are many whose intentions are evil, greedy, corrupt and selfish. Make sure they all pay their taxes and decisions as to where money goes can be decided democratically.
A ‘professor of practice’ is in no way comparable to a chair at an established university and nor does it carry as much weight. I believe that Angelina Jolie holds a similar sort of position?
You undermine your intellectual position by being defensive and dishonest about your title.
Wow! If you can only play the man you must either be feeling very insecure about the arguments or have none to offer
But for the record, Angelina Jolie is a visiting professor: a seriously prestigious role but not the same as the one I have
And since when was the University of London of which City is a part (as is the LSE) not an established university?
I really think you need to stop being very silly Jim.
Doesn’t the Gates Foundation support GM food and intensive agriculture thus completely undermining agriculture in 3rd world countries handing it over to the mega corporations and Monsanta.
I have old friends in Malawi who have slowly built up a seed maize business based on local outgrowers, supported patiently by Gates, and I’ve worked with another NGO working on major programmes supported by Gates. I’d politely suggest that not everything said by the more anti-capitalist end of the NGO spectrum and Socialist Worker is true.
In many ways the Gates folk are a lot more dynamic, focused and just plain more effective than the big NGOs I’ve worked with, but I know it’s not a fashionable thing to say. Funny old world when Bill Gates has more to say challenging the Tories on cutting aid, than our supposed opposition. And when Newsnight ends up with two Tories debating aid, one stoutly defending and one attacking.
I’m not disputing that Gates does some good
But Microsoft could do a lot better
And I do have a problem with big philanthropy as do many in development: it can be deeply distracting on occasion and does command government resources to the whim of a person, and not necessarily to real need
How can we reliably discover which large corporations (if any) actually do pay their international taxes fairly? I would love to support these corporations, but it’s hard to work through the flim-flam.
Very hard to tell because data is so hard to secure