Monthly Archives: November 2019

Another Microsoft Access Bungle – ‘Query is corrupt’

Another example about how little Microsoft cares about its Microsoft Access product appeared to me today when a client of mine ran into a problem with their Microsoft Access database. Suddenly they started getting ‘Query is corrupt’ messages in the application.

Since I hadn’t made any changes to this application in a long time, I did the usual compact and repair assuming that would fix it. After trying all my usual tricks, I finally went to google where I found the culprit.

According to this support article from Microsoft, this problem was introduced by an office security update that was automatically installed on my clients computer. Comically, the article provides a byzantine workaround to fix the problem:

If you encounter this issue before the fix is available, the recommended workaround is to update the query so that it updates the results of another query, rather than updating a table directly.

For example, if you have a query similar to:

UPDATE Table1 SET Table1.Field1 = “x” WHERE ([Table1].[Field2]=1);

You can create a new query (Query1) defined as:

SELECT * from Table1;

And update your original query to:

UPDATE Query1 SET Query1.Field1 = “x” WHERE ([Query1].[Field2]=1);

I applied that fix to the various spots in my application where I update tables, and that got me through the day. Since someday somebody will stumble across this code and think I am an idiot, I made sure to reference the article in my comments as to why this is coded so ugly.

What amazes me about this is the casual approach Microsoft is taking to fixing the problem. Their plan is to fix it December 10th, almost a month after introducing the problem. My question is, how many small businesses are running mission critical Access apps, and don’t have any Access developers on hand. I know of a few companies in that situation, and I guess once they download this update, they will have to find a workaround.

Curiously Access users on the Office 365 platform will get their fix on November 24th. That is still 2 weeks out, and it may foretell that customers running older versions of Office software will be considered second tier customers.

I have said before that I have concerns about Microsoft’s ongoing commitment to Microsoft Access. This latest development only reaffirms my position that even though there are still many active Microsoft Access applications out there, Microsoft must think they are not important.

Billionaire Philanthropy

The recent 2020 campaign discussions on billionaire taxation are bringing about an interesting discourse, but I wish someone would bring up problems with current philanthropy rules. It seems to me an easy step for someone to take would be to tighten the loopholes of big charitable giving.

This article does a great job discussing The Perils of Billionairre Philanthropy. It seems to me that charitable giving has surreptitiously become primarily a tax avoidance tool for the wealthy. A great stat from this article:

In the early 2000s, households earning $200,000 or more made 30 percent of all charitable deductions. By 2017, this high-earner group accounted for 52 percent of donations. And the total share of charitable deductions from households making over $1 million dollars grew from 12 percent in 1995 to 30 percent in 2015, according to IRS data.

Why the change? A couple reasons in my opinion.

  1. Donation of appreciated stock. A hidden gem of tax avoidance for anybody who has stock that has greatly appreciated. When you donate stock to charity, you get to take the charitable donation credit on the full value of the stock, without taking the capital gain. A couple great examples here. Bill Gates donated $4.6 billion dollars of stock to his foundation in 2017 without paying any capital gains. Lets assume his cost basis on that stock is near zero, and he is in the tax bracket that would pay 20% capital gains tax. By doing this, he was able to avoid paying roughly $920 million in capital gains in 2017. In 2018, Warren Buffet donated 3.6 billion in stock to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. Using the same math, I count that as $520 million avoided in capital gains taxes. That’s $1.5 billion in lost taxes in these two examples alone. Yes the money goes to philanthropic ventures, but is that equitable? Now.. it is a pain to donate stock to charity.. which leads me to #2.
  2. The rise in Donor Advised Funds. Donor advised funds are a great tool to give to charity for the wealthy (and upper middle class) to get a tax break. The game here is instead of giving directly to charity every year, every few years to give a lump sum to a Donor advised fund, which is essentially a pool of charitable money that can then be distributed to a different charity at any time. By giving a lump sum, people who do not hit the threshhold for itemizing their taxes can now get a charitable tax break. An Example: Lets say a married couple earns $16000 in taxes, and gave $3000 in charitable gifts in a year. Given the standard deduction is over $20k it makes sense to just take the standard deduction and not take itemized deductions, thus losing your charitable deduction. However, if instead of giving $3k to charity every year, you give $15000 to a Donor advised fund every 5 years. This gives you a $12,000 write-off every 5 years for charitable contributions because you can itemize that lump sum every 5 years. The kicker of course is, if you have appreciated stock, you can contribute your appreciated stock (see #1 above) to the fund to further leverage your contribution and take advantage of tax rules. Then, thoughout the year you dole out your money to your favorite charities from your balance in your Donor Advised Fund. These funds are very easy to set up and use – but how many people can take advantage of them?

It occurred to me that companies that have a 401k must follow strict IRS guidelines to ensure their plan is equitable by ensuring employees participate from all income levels. These charitable donation loopholes have been around for years, so they likely have bipartisan support because they encourage charitable giving. But how hard would it be to look at the above issues to make them equitable? Either change the rules to either cap tax free contributions, or change the rules so people from all income levels can take advantage of these tools.