<!– Tags: Summary: The Lost Cause prologue, part 6; Hey look at this Today’s links Microsoft put their tax-evasion in writing and now they owe $29 billion: The process is the punishment. The Lost Cause prologue, part 6: Big finish! Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2008, 2013, 2018, 2022 Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading Microsoft put their tax-evasion in writing and now they owe $29 billion (permalink) If there’s one thing I took away from Propublica’s explosive IRS Files, it’s that “tax avoidance” (which is legal) isn’t a separate phenomenon from “tax evasion” (which is not), but rather a thinly veiled euphemism for it: https://www.propublica.org/series/the-secret-irs-files That realization sits behind my series of noir novels about the two-fisted forensic accountant Martin Hench, which started with last April’s Red Team Blues and continues with The Bezzle, this coming February: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865847/red-team-blues A typical noir hero is an unlicensed cop, who goes places the cops can’t go and asks questions the cops can’t ask. The noir part comes in at the end, when the hero is forced to admit that he’s being going places the cops didn’t want to go and asking questions the cops didn’t want to ask. Marty Hench is a noir hero, but he’s not an unlicensed cop, he’s an unlicensed IRS inspector, and like other noir heroes, his capers are forever resulting in his realization that the questions and places the IRS won’t investigate are down to their choice…Pluralistic: Microsoft put their tax-evasion in writing and now they owe $29 billion; The Lost Cause prologue, part 6 (13 Oct 2023)