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Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes

reuters.com

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Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes

#101

Post by pktgen »

acali wrote: post #70
southphillyman wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair the bonuses I've heard about have been laughable so far and accompanied by large lay offs in two cases (Walmart and Comcast).

What about Walmart also increasing their hourly pay? [0] [0] - https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/11/walmart-to-boost-starting-wa...

Which coincides with state and local minimum wage increases; see http://money.cnn.com/2017/12/29/news/economy/2018-minimum-wa.... More increases are coming; several states are phasing in increases over multiple years. They're just getting ahead of the minimum wage increases and trying to get good PR out of it ("no, we didn't do this because we were forced to, we did it because we love our workers. cut our taxes more!").

Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes

#102

Post by adventured »

rdtsc wrote: post #65
eridius wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once corporations have exhausted their large hoard of overseas cash, the amount they repatriate will go down significantly. So isn't this really just a short-term boost?

The idea I think was to lower the corporate tax in general which will also give companies an incentive to stay and pay taxes here. Don't know how that will work long term. Maybe it will, until there would be another tax haven country advertising a better tax deal.

Fortunately it's more elaborate than that.

Ideally the US begins stealing corporations and manufacturing from the rest of the world, whereas previously the flow had been going the other direction, with dozens of large companies abandoning the US for lower tax locations.

For example, the lower corporate tax rate, combined with very inexpensive US energy (cheap natural gas), makes manufacturing in the US even more appealing.

You don't have to beat all the other tax havens, you just have to get low enough to be competitive on the overall value proposition. The UK is at or going down to 17.5%, that 3.5% variance with the new US rate becomes mostly meaningless as an issue (17.5% vs 35% however is a drastic gap).

Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes

#103

Post by jasonlotito »

adventured wrote: post #74
ejstronge wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't quite make sense - the decision/cost to bring the money 'into the US' depends on a variety of factors. I am not a domain expert, but the availability of cheap credit must have been a principal consideration, as well as the knowledge that a potential Republican president would offer an effective repatriation holiday. In short, there are many conceivable situations in which it might make sense to pay such…

> the decision/cost to bring the money 'into the US' depends on a variety of factors No it doesn't. Apple has been lobbying aggressively for years, including during most of the Obama Administration, to change the backwards US global tax policy (the US being one of the few countries to utilize such an approach) and or to arrange a one-time repatriation holiday. They finally got what they wanted and they're repatriatin…

Sure, and the issue wasn't whether it would happen, it was what the money would be used for. Republicans and Democrats wanted different things. The tax policy was going to change. It was just a matter of what we did with it. In this case, it was used to pay for lower taxes for corporations.

Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes

#104

Post by wavefunction »

nodesocket wrote: post #58
southphillyman wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair the bonuses I've heard about have been laughable so far and accompanied by large lay offs in two cases (Walmart and Comcast).

Bank of America, AT&T, Comcast, Walmart, Jetblue, Southwest are just a few who announced $1,000 bonuses. Not laughable to middle class Americans. Aren't middle class who liberals fight for? Source: http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/11/news/economy/tax-law-raises-...

You seem to have glossed over the poster's main point, which is that many the companies announcing those bonuses, in fact many of the ones you've listed are also laying off thousands of worker at the same time.

The criticism of these companies then is that they have just received massive financial windfalls via the GOP's tax cut programs and have portrayed normal corporate activities as signs of corporate largesse due to the tax-cut they've received. Should we tie the layoffs announced by these firms to their tax-cuts as well?

Walmart, for example, has struggled for years to attract employees due to the low wages they offer, wages so low that a good percentage of their labor pool is subsidized by taxpayers. When you combine that situation with the massive lay-offs and closures of Sam's Clubs the raising of wages seems to be less a generous overture driven by the tax-cut than perhaps a recognition that they must offer higher wages or continue to stagnate and fail.

I've also read that the bonus offered by AT&T is on the low-end of the bonuses offered every holiday to their employees. That's anecdotal though.

Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes

#105

Post by sigstoat »

CamelCaseName wrote: post #38
sigstoat wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No but I also don't set up a pretend subsidiary... do you pay your state government the sales tax you owe it for all of your online purchases?

At least here in Canada, sellers are legally obligated to remit sales taxes, even if they do not explicitly collect them. The buyer does not need to do anything. I made this mistake when I first starting selling online, which stung. Setting up a tax ID in Canada was very easy. Now that I am selling in the US, I am just beginning to explore the issue, and it is notably less easy. So if you "get away" with not paying s…

this does not reflect the situation in the US, where krebby appears to be located. (i checked first.)

here's a little page from washington state on it, which matches my understanding of the situation in most other states: https://dor.wa.gov/get-form-or-publication/publications-subj...

> Have you ever made a retail purchase and the invoice didn’t include retail sales tax? This may occasionally occur, especially if you purchase items over the internet or from out-of-state vendors. ... However, the buyer has a responsibility to pay use tax to the Department of Revenue even if the seller doesn’t collect it.

> Also, an invoice should never have a single figure that “includes retail sales tax.” If you receive such an invoice, contact the vendor and ask for a new invoice with the retail sales tax separately stated. Washington law requires that customer sales slips, contracts, invoices or other sales documents separately state the amount of retail sales tax due.

Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes

#106

Post by untog »

downandout wrote: post #36

I find it fascinating that a tax plan proposed by a President reviled throughout the Valley is the one thing that finally convinced Apple to repatriate much of its overseas cash and invest it here in the US. They of course give no credit to him in this press release, but the proof is in the pudding. Of the many heavy handed ideas and efforts made by the previous administration to convince Apple to do this, exactly 0…

> the one thing that finally convinced Apple to repatriate much of its overseas cash and invest it here in the US

That doesn't really seem too surprising. The previous administration tried to force them to do it, they refused. The current administration gave them what they wanted, they did it.

> If other US corporations follow suit with repatriation, the American economy will experience unprecedented corporate reinvestment.

Yes, but "corporate reinvestment" can mean a great many things. Endless rounds of share buybacks (as many CEOs have indicated they want to do) won't really benefit the broader economy (or actual citizens) all that much.

Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes

#107

Post by jasonlotito »

jerkstate wrote: post #46
maxxxxx wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I anybody creates jobs it's the people who buy stuff and create demand. Then someone will meet that demand and potentially hire someone. I don't think Apple "creates" jobs. It hires people for certain needs that have been created by the market. If they don't fill the need somebody else will do in a market economy.

I disagree, I would suspect that most Apple employees are probably engaged in creating new products that have not been bought yet..

Ignoring Apple retail employees, that might be true if you assume that the new products are running a version of either iOS or macOS and that those people working on that are considered part of creating that product.

Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes

#108

Post by IBM »

downandout wrote: post #96
IBM wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Incorrect. There is a repatriation tax holiday designed to encourage repatriation. They are not required to do so. Unfortunately, you're incorrect. https://www.pwc.com/us/en/tax-services/publications/insights...

Unfortunately, that article is clear as mud and seems to use the word “mandatory” in its headline as editorialized clickbait. In its explanation: “[The plan] uses the mechanics under subpart F to impose a one-time ‘toll charge’ on the undistributed, non-previously taxed post-1986 foreign E&P of certain US-owned foreign corporations as part of the transition to a new territorial regime. The toll charge is reduced by a…

I'm not sure why you think a big 4 accounting firm would need to do clickbait, but that's beside the point. Whether Apple left the cash in Ireland or brought it back to the US, they would have paid $38B in taxes. That's the mandatory part. That's what the quoted text literally says.

And since you seem to be unaware, the vast majority of Apple's cash has already been in the US for years, invested in US treasuries and other fixed income assets and held by American trust banks. It's Irish cash only in a legal sense. This is broadly true for all other American multinationals as well.

Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes

#109

Post by khana »

downandout wrote: post #36

I find it fascinating that a tax plan proposed by a President reviled throughout the Valley is the one thing that finally convinced Apple to repatriate much of its overseas cash and invest it here in the US. They of course give no credit to him in this press release, but the proof is in the pudding. Of the many heavy handed ideas and efforts made by the previous administration to convince Apple to do this, exactly 0…

Truly yes. Personally, I am happy to hear this encouraging news. USA.

Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes

#110

Post by igravious »

sigstoat wrote: post #27
krebby wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No but I also don't set up a pretend subsidiary in Ireland that owns my intellectual property and pays me dividends for my freelance work. To pretend that they didn't go above and beyond to avoid paying taxes is lunacy.

> No but I also don't set up a pretend subsidiary... do you pay your state government the sales tax you owe it for all of your online purchases?

Oh very good. The "let's say you did something bad therefore the bad that you accuse someone else of doing isn't bad"

If there is a poorer argument against wrongdoing than this I don't know it.

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