Curiously, most of the money that computer and internet-related companies give to political causes goes to Democratic candidates. For example, of the $12.9 million the high-tech industry contributed to candidates in this election cycle, over two-thirds ($8.4 million) went to Democrats.
A particularly strange case is that of Marissa Mayer, a top executive at Google. She held a fundraiser at her mansion to help Democratic politicians. Guests paid over $30,000 each to attend. Obama was the star performer, and had nothing but praise for Google. Amazingly, he showed none of his usual business bashing. The intense love shown on both sides was deeply touching. Who would have thought that these captains of industry would support so staunchly a man committed to raising taxes on the rich?
Mayer was not unique in her support for our neo-socialist president — 75% of all donations by Google employees went to the Democrats.
Yet even as the Google crew partied with Obama, news surfaced showing that Google had used tricky strategies to pass most of its foreign profits through Ireland and the Netherlands to Bermuda. These strategies — with cute names like “Double Irish” and “Dutch Sandwich” — saved Google over $3 billion in taxes, lowering its effective overseas tax rate to a measly 2.4%.
So it is that even as key elements of Google’s management attempted to help elect the party devoted to raising taxes, especially on the hated rich, the corporation itself dodged taxes artfully. Pretty slick for a company that has the boastful motto, “Do no evil.” It should be, “Pay no taxes.” And while they’re at it, maybe the Google high-fliers should google-search the word “hypocrisy”…
