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

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

#391

Post by MrMorden » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 4:17 AM UTC

anilshanbhag wrote: post #265

benjaminl wrote: post #253

This discussion is missing context. The whole reason that Apple has to pay taxes on foreign income is because unlike almost every other developed nation the US has a worldwide tax system. Almost every other nation has a territorial tax system. The rest of the world with their territorial system taxes income earned within that country, the US rather taxes income worldwide, regardless of where it is earned. For example…

=> But if a US company earns income in Germany it pays both German taxes and US taxes. This is not portrayed accurately. If you pay German taxes, you claim exception for that amount. So if you pay more taxes than the rate in US, you owe no tax for that income in US. If the rate is less in the country than in US, you pay the difference.

And either way you have to do all the work for both countries' tax systems. Compliance costs are not negligible.

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

#392

Post by Scipio_Afri » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 4:20 AM UTC

spoiledtechie wrote: post #376

cromwellian wrote: post #205

How realistic is it that a $5 billion fund can move a non-trivial amount of iPhone manufacturing to the US? Most of the BOM supply chain is in Asia, and assembly at FoxConn I heard amounts to 3% of the cost. It seems like Apple would have to build mostly automated assembly in the US or suffer severe margin reduction, and they'd suffer turnaround issues with the crucial components being still sourced in China. However…

If its stock buy backs, then why is Apple creating jobs and a new campus with the capital?

Apple has $238 billion in cash in it's bank accounts. It was able to do this even if the tax code didn't change.

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

#393

Post by danjayh » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 4:23 AM UTC

cromwellian wrote: post #205

How realistic is it that a $5 billion fund can move a non-trivial amount of iPhone manufacturing to the US? Most of the BOM supply chain is in Asia, and assembly at FoxConn I heard amounts to 3% of the cost. It seems like Apple would have to build mostly automated assembly in the US or suffer severe margin reduction, and they'd suffer turnaround issues with the crucial components being still sourced in China. However…

Speak for yourself. I'm not at the high end of the income curve - not in the 1%, not even in the 10%, and I'm getting almost a $4k tax cut next year. I ran the numbers for my friends who are probably in the bottom half of the income curve (they make just over 40k between the two of them), and they're getting about a $1200 reduction. They were pretty shocked, since they'd been told over and over that it's not really a cut for lower income people. I think the truth is that the cut is smaller in high tax states, and much larger across the board in lower tax states.

Also, it's not double taxation. The SALT money is taxed in the states and spent in the states. Why should those states that choose to have large internal governments get a discount on their federal contribution percentages? They receive the same services and benefits...

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

#394

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 4:26 AM UTC

sjg007 wrote: post #339

jitix wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worldwide tax law sucks even more for an individual. And it makes absolutely no sense when you’re not even a citizen!

US corporations are citizens except that they just can't vote... but they can contribute unlimited campaign contributions.

[deleted]

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

#395

Post by danjayh » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 4:26 AM UTC

Scipio_Afri wrote: post #392

spoiledtechie wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If its stock buy backs, then why is Apple creating jobs and a new campus with the capital?

Apple has $238 billion in cash in it's bank accounts. It was able to do this even if the tax code didn't change.

They timing seems awfully strange for that explanation to work. Remember, corporations do what makes the best sense financially. Even though they could do this before, they didn't, because it didn't make sense.

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

#396

Post by chii » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 4:27 AM UTC

rizzom5000 wrote: post #356

rmrfrmrf wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can we just get rid of the ridiculous notion that corporations provide more than the workers DOING THE ACTUAL WORK? Why is this a ridiculous notion?

I don't think it is. If the > workers DOING THE ACTUAL WORK are able to provide more value than the corporation, then why are they working for the corporation instead of providing more value than the corporation by themselves; and paying themselves more than the corporation pays them? I think OP's argument could be an example of reductio ad absurdum.

The balance of power remains at the management level of a corporation, despite the fact that management hardly "does the work" that workers hired would be doing.

The same arguments applied to the peasantry of the feudal age. There are many more peasants than lords, but through an imbalance of power (military in the feudal age, and monetary in the modern age), the higher ups gets to claim the profits of the workers.

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

#397

Post by danjayh » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 4:28 AM UTC

downandout wrote: post #292

jlmorton wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So what say what you will about the current administration, they managed to get something done that even some of the most tax-hungry politicians in the nation previously failed to do. This is not terribly unique. We had a very similar (slightly more generous) repatriation tax holiday during the Bush Administration, in 2004.

It's been 14 years, which included 8 years of tax-hungry Democratic rule. So it is at least somewhat unique.

Also unique because a simple repatriation holiday is a far cry from restructuring our corporate tax code to make us competitive with the rest of the world from a tax perspective.

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

#398

Post by chii » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 4:30 AM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #379

pishpash wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Half (46% in 2013) of all Americans owned some financial wealth, that's already counting indirect investments -- I believe this number came from a study by Ed Wolff. In the same year (2013), the bottom 80% together owned about 5% of the financial wealth in the US, under the same definition counting indirect investments (80%-99% owned about 50%, 99%-100% owned about 45%). So no, "everyone" does not benefit in the same…

That’s kind of like saying that because I have a house on a tiny plot of land and my rich neighbor owns half the land in town, that property taxes don’t affect me. It doesn’t really follow.

It certainly woudn't affect you as much as your rich neighbour. And if the additional tax on land brought in more community services, you would be all for it, whilst your neighbour would be against (since he'd be paying a majority of that cost to fund said community service).

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

#399

Post by rdtsc » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 4:31 AM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #389

rdtsc wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walmart is not the only company which gave bonuses. AT&T did the same. Apple gave employees $2500. Overall that is a quite a bit of people who got something they probably would not have gotten otherwise. Yeah, it would be nice to have free healthcare, basic income other things. But to someone making minimum age $1000 is a nice holiday gift. Why not be happy for them?

I'm pretty sure no one who was making minimum wage got a $1000 bonus (including at Walmart, who would be making min wage after being there for 20 years? Sounds like a store manager or district sup to me). So I'm not happy for them because they don't exist.

AT&T claimed that it paid the bonus to 200k employees https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/20/tax-reform-reaction-att-is-g...

They have a total of about 250k employees worldwide: https://www.att.com/Common/about_us/pdf/att_btn.pdf.

Pretty sure there 80% of their workforce are not district supervisors and store managers.

Comcast said it paid the bonus to 100k employees "that are eligible and not in executive roles".

> So I'm not happy for them because they don't exist.

Good news, I think I found them!

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

#400

Post by danjayh » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 4:32 AM UTC

onezerozeroone wrote: post #221

axau wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the US is not going “down a path that neglects its obligations”. In fact quite the opposite since it just got a massive tax revenue increase. So comparing it to a situation where the US decided to just stop levying tax doesn’t make sense.

> In fact quite the opposite since it just got a massive tax revenue increase. Nah, they capitulated and accepted a far lower rate than they should have received otherwise if Apple (and companies like them) weren't permitted to play these shifty legal games. If the U.S. gov was really looking out for its own interests and the interests of its citizens, it would have closed these loopholes years ago and told Apple to…

I find it odd that you start from a position that assumes that the federal government has a right to Apple's money. It was basically an attitude like that on the part of the British that led to the American revolution in the first place. If you want a health economy with strong labor demand and robust wage growth, we need to start from the opposite position - the federal government must avoid taxation for all but the most essential services and cut out everything else. If individual states wish to have more services, let them tax and spend for their local populations. At least that way if businesses and people don't like it, they can leave without leaving the country.