28 May
2024
28 May
'24
10:11 p.m.
I'll make it simple.
if a computer is being purchased by a non-human, i.e. corporation, to be used to benefit
the corporation, it is NOT a personal computer. Corporations tend to buy things on
purchase orders, including open ended, for hundreds or thousands at a time.
One way to determine if it is being used for business or not is if it is depreciated. In
MOST cases, if it is being depreciated (or perhaps even expensed), then it is a BUSINESS
computer. Simple Tax law. Aside from tax cheats, it is ILLEGAL to depreciate a computer
UNLESS IT IS BEING USED FOR BUSINESS, and therefore NOT personally.
I presume when Apple gave computers to schools, they were considered a donation, not
depreciated or expensed.
If a computer is being purchased by a human, for the use of a few humans and not for their
primary livelihood, it is a personal computer.
I won't quibble the exact transition point for someone who does the books for his home
business as well as play games on the device.
BECAUSE as long as 10% of purchases are for use as a PERSONAL COMPUTER, then I will call
it a personal computer, even if 90% of the purchases, (and 99.9% of the computers, because
each business purchase is for 500 computers).
If you want to quibble the 10%, fine, I don't have the energy or desire to fight it
out, but it is NOT reasonable to say that if JUST A SINGLE ONE of the computer type was
being ised not-for-business, for two months, 6 years ago, then it is a personal computer.
<pre>--Carey</pre>
On 05/28/2024 3:49 PM CDT Sellam Abraham via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
On Tue, May 28, 2024 at 11:34 AM CAREY SCHUG <sqrfolkdnc(a)comcast.net> wrote:
On 05/28/2024 1:05 PM CDT Sellam Abraham <sellam.ismail(a)gmail.com> wrote:
What if a corporation in 1970 purchased an IBM 360 for each of their
employees for their individual personal use? Now what?
Sellam
Thanks for carrying the proposition to the list. I didn't realize I only
replied to you privately.
1. I don't believe ANYBODY could purchase a
360. You had to lease them.
Why should that matter? Shouldn't it be how they were used rather than how
they were acquired? What if grandpa buys an Apple ][ for his grandson,
presumably for his personal use? But what if grandson is CEO of a
corporation and is going to use it for corporate purposes? What if an
organization purchases a large multi-user computer, keeps it in storage as
a backup (so it's never used), then years later when it's no longer fit for
organizational use sells it as surplus to a guy named Phil who brings it
home and installs it in his garage and uses it by himself for fun? What if
he then starts a business and then starts using it for the business, and he
hires other people and they start using it as well? Since it was purchased
by a corporation initially, does it make it not a personal computer, even
though it was previously only ever used personally by a person that
purchased it?
2. do you know of such a company? (with a
significant number of employees,
not a lone entrepreneur). I figure asking means that maybe you do. and
since I believe no 360 but maybe the model 20 (not a real 360) or the
model 22 would plug into household power it seems unlikely unless a tax
dodge.
So you concede it could have been done. Butt seriously, what if a large
corporation purchases a bunch of IBM PCs (disregard that they are called
"PC", i.e. "Personal Computer") for individual employees for their
personal
use in their office at work? Are they not "personal computers" because the
corporation purchased them?
3. if it was one purchase order, it sounds like ONE for the personal
computer tally, vs thousands for the not-personal tally. Remember we still
need to have enough computers to be 10% (or negotiated percentage) of the
total produced. One exception does not change everything.
What if a thousand people got together to crowdfund the purchase of a
computer for poor little Timmy? What if that computer was a Cray 1?
I think you need to put away the purchaser criterion.
I should have repeated my other suggestion. Only computers NOT
depreciated/expensed count as personal. If
depreciated, it is a business
computer for business purposes.
Are you an accountant by any chance?
to summarize any or all of the following:
-- if depreciated or expensed (reducing income) it is business, otherwise
personal. **
--10% of purchases (a lot counts as ONE purchase, including "100-200 per
month for 3 years") must be out of household funds (per income tax filings)
for and used for household education, not for earning claimed income.
--by some criteria, be able to plug into private home power for a
reasonable subset of the population.
I love it, short and simple. I'll start printing this heuristic onto a
durable plastic card and we can start distributing them to all the VCF
attendees so they can properly determine whether a computer is personal or
not. We'll then have to establish a standards organization to ensure that
people are properly trained on how to read expense reports, go through
corporate books, compute depreciation (and power usage, which will require
electronics training), etc.
** There could be tax reasons/dodges (not saying
they are legal): (1) a
small business could expense them immediately (vs depreciate over years) by
titling them in employees' or families' names, (2) a private individual
could depreciate even though not actually doing any significant amount of
income earning work on them (3) would have been expensed/depreciated but
not enough income to be of any advantage, (4) probably many others, ask a
shady tax lawyer.
--Carey
How about can we be done with this now? :D
Sellam