Seattle, WA-Based Microsoft's Dec 2017 Quarter Pretax Income Increased By 14% or By $1.147 Bil Over the Dec 2016 Quarter ....................................................................................... Microsoft's Dec 2017 Quarter Reported Net Income Deteriorated By a Massive $12.569 Bil From the Dec 2016 Quarter ....................................................................................... Why the Huge Difference Between Pretax and After-Tax Differences? Predominately, It's Because Microsoft Had a Net $13.8 Bil Dec 2017 Quarter Income Tax Expense Charge To Reflect the Impact of the Trump Tax Bill ....................................................................................... If This $13.800 Bil Dec 2017 Quarter Earnings Charge Is Excluded, Then Microsoft's Dec 2017 Quarter's Net Income of $7.498 Bil Would Be 20% Above Dec 2016 Quarter Net Income of $6.267 Bil: But I Would Focus on the Much More Reliable 14% Pretax Income Growth Than This Highly Unreliable 20% Growth ....................................................................................... When A Company Has Roughly $151 Bil of Unremitted Foreign Earnings in late Dec 2017 Like Microsoft Has, the Whole Ball Game is How Cheap Is the Related US Income Tax Rate on this $151 Bil of Mandatory Foreign Earnings To Be Repatriated? Microsoft Reflected a Net Income Tax Expense of $13.800 Bil: If the $13.800 Bil Was Gross, Then the Income Tax Rate is Incredibly Cheap at Under 10% and Frankly a Steal ....................................................................................... I Can't See the Offsetting Income Tax Benefit(s) Being Very Large and Thus My Hunch Is That the Related Tax Cost of Repatriation Will Still Be Pretty Cheap ....................................................................................... To Illustrate Just How Cheap It Is For Microsoft To Repatriate All of Its Unremitted Foreign Earnings At an Income Tax Rate of Roughly 10% or Slightly Above It, in Its June 2017 Annual Report Income Tax Footnote, Microsoft Stated That at June, 30, 2017, It Had $142 Bil of Unremitted Foreign Earnings and That the Income Tax That It Would Have To Pay Then To Repatriate All of These Unremitted Foreign Earnings Was $45 Bil Which Results in an Income Tax Rate of 31.7% ....................................................................................... Suffice It To Say That Microsoft Is Cleaning Up Due To the Trump Tax Bill