Settlements that are classified as penalties are generally not tax deductible. Settlements that are classified as remedial/restorative generally are.
This was no doubt a topic of discussion and planning before the settlement was entered into. The article repeatedly refers to it as a "penalty", but it's unclear if that's colloquial or specifically informed language.
I doubt Monsanto pays an effective tax rate anywhere close to 20%. Further the people who receive the settlement pay taxes on it thus the taxpayer is likely better of.
Yep. I'm already sour against the IRS from just doing some tax calculations, saw the article title, and didn't even read the article before commenting! Edited my comment.
A preferred method for doing this at Google is to open a bug, and then leave the TODO in the code with a reference to the bug number. This has the advantage that if someone comes by to refactor the code later, they'll have the chance to go look at the bug (possibly taking it and working on it, possibly resolving it as obsolete if the original issue no longer applies, etc).
Having the two-directional link between the bug and the code is quite useful, especially for what is probably the most frequent use I've seen for TODOs: "We could do this better, but the better way is blocked on circumstances beyond our control. Once those change, revisit this."
I actually like that - perhaps that allows you to implement blocking as well, for example: "TODO: X cannot be improved until Z & Y is complete.".
The projects I work on tend to have a very quick life cycle, so there isn't even a ticketing system in place other than the occasional post it note. There just isn't the time and the team is tight.
+1 -- I use Stout all the time. I don't have to rely on anyone's uptime except AWS's. Stout's just a "shortcut" for using AWS infrastructure that I have full control of.
With Surge, I'd have to trust some startup's build tool not to fail at a vital time.
Now linting full codebase on precommit and it’s faster than just linting staged files with prettier!