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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

#141

Post by datawarrior »

nodesocket wrote: post #42

All the comments seem to be sketpical or negative. I think it's funny if you go back right before tax reform passed and look at all the comments on articles here on HN almost all were blasting tax reform. Saying it won't work, it does not help the economy, does not create jobs, and repatriation only leads to stock buybacks and executive bonuses. So far we've seen company after company giving substantial bonuses to al…

The mental gymnastics coming from leftists today is utterly mind blowing. What confounds me most is these people happily ignore real world evidence just to push their agenda, nevermind who it hurts. Its worse than watching people cheer a football team. At least when they cheer a team no one gets hurt but these people literally want the downfall of America just so their team can win. Its truly sad.

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

#142

Post by aggie »

nodesocket wrote: post #42

All the comments seem to be sketpical or negative. I think it's funny if you go back right before tax reform passed and look at all the comments on articles here on HN almost all were blasting tax reform. Saying it won't work, it does not help the economy, does not create jobs, and repatriation only leads to stock buybacks and executive bonuses. So far we've seen company after company giving substantial bonuses to al…

> Funny the nerative always seems to stay negative even though facts say otherwise.

You're relying on a handful of anecdotes, of which at least several don't look so good upon close inspection, to infer a larger economic benefit. Sounds like it's just narrative vs. narrative.

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

#143

Post by seanmcdirmid »

nodesocket wrote: post #92
FigmentEngine wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://thinkprogress.org/walmart-fires-thousands-after-bonu...

This is #fakenews. Walmart did not fire employees, Sam's club a separately owned subsidiary did, mainly because the Sam's club business is not doing well and had to make hard decisions. It is widely accepted that Walmart had no idea Sam's club was going to do the round of layoffs when they announced their wage increase and bonuses. Also, thinkprogress really should not be cited as a source of quality unbiased news.

Sam’s club is owned and operated by Walmart, at least according to wiki. That Walmart’s retail operation carries the same name as the corporation isn’t unusual. So this is fake news like the rest of what Trump calls fake news is (meaning, it’s actually true).

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

#144

Post by jaredhansen »

ixtli wrote: post #131
lbrdn wrote: post #126

Of course lowering taxes would encourage companies to repatriate large overseas cash hoards, but if that's the only goal, why have a tax at all? As a country the US has obligations to its current citizens and its future citizens and those obligations cost money. If we overly celebrate these windfalls every time the tax rate is lowered, we might not realize that what we owe the citizen is being forgot and allowed to e…

This is exactly the thing that renders me speechless every time this comes up in casual conversation. People generally agree that apple and other tech companies hoarding money in Ireland to avoid tax is Bad™. Then, in the next breath, they say that removing the tax burden to get them to move that money back into a US bank is somehow Good™. But what does it matter if the government can't take a cut? Why do people who…

Nobody cares "which bank it's in" - but if a company has $1B in out-of-US cash not currently subject to US tax, and bringing it into the US will cost them 30% of it, they may (sensibly, in many cases) just elect to leave it sitting wherever it is.

As to "what does it matter if the government can't take a cut?" --- the government does take a cut, and the reason it matters is that the lower rate will, on the margin, encourage cash repatriation.

Remember too that firms know they will be taxed in the future at (unknown, but estimable) rates, and today's rate will be compared against firms' estimates of current rates.

So in terms of the government's cut I forget the numbers in the current plan but say the corporate tax rate goes from 30% to 20%, and Apple decides that 20% is As Good As It's Likely To Get, and decides therefore to bring $1B of cash into the US that at a 30% rate it would have left elsewhere -- the US gov now gets 200M, rather than the 0 it would have gotten if the tax rate had stayed where it was.

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

#145

Post by ovao »

maxxxxx wrote: post #44
jdoliner wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Job creation and hiring mean different things. I can hire someone for a job that already existed and was previously filled by someone else. If I bring a new job into existence, that hasn't been filled by anyone before then saying I created that job doesn't seem particularly untoward.

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.

If you follow this rabbit hole deep enough, you invariably wind up right back at the beginning. The people who buy stuff and create demand for said stuff typically work for someone else, and that someone enables that person to buy said stuff by paying them a salary, in which you could argue that it’s again the employers/producers who create jobs rather than the consumers. This is not necessarily my argument, but just demonstrating that it can be argued in a way that makes it appear cyclical.

Apple isn’t creating jobs out of thin air, but they do both directly and indirectly provide distinct opportunities, despite those opportunities generally having existed in some other form (possibly in some other country) before. It might seem more accurate to say that Apple shifts jobs, but that’s an equally imprecise way of framing it.

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

#146

Post by propman »

joering2 wrote: post #98

Lesson to self: build empire even if it means not paying taxes and hoarding money offshore. Wait until favorable political winds change that allow easy and cheap transfer from offshore. Come up as a winner to masses, because now I can hire more people. Rinse and repeat.

Global minimum tax. No more rinse and repeat thanks to the tax bill. 11% tax on all foreign profits so this eradicates tax havens in Ireland and the islands because if you are paying 2% then you pony up the other 9% to Uncle Sam.

Last repatriation, the companies did exactly what you said but now that is no longer possible.

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

#147

Post by threeseed »

downandout wrote: post #120
IBM wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The point is that the tax is mandatory, not the repatriation. If they didn’t believe that the US was the best place to put that money, they could have paid the tax and left it there or moved it elsewhere. The fact that they are deploying that capital here indicates some level of belief that the American economy will thrive under this tax plan.

This is pure fiction you've invented here.

Apple bringing capital back to the US is solely to do with their being tax incentives to do so.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

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

#148

Post by dmode »

Clanan wrote: post #49
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).

$1,000 is not laughable to most people.

$1000 bonus is $500 after taxes. Which means, it is $40/month or $20/paycheck. It is laughable. Most employees will get $200 bonuses, which roughly will equate to $4/paycheck.

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

#149

Post by rambleraptor »

I feel like this potentially buried the lede. Apple is planning on opening up a new campus in the USA.

I feel like Amazon's HQ2 search is going to open the floodgates for tech companies asking for public incentives. Tech companies in the Bay Area have been creating tens of thousands of jobs for years without asking for much publicly. Expect that to change now.

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

#150

Post by Shivetya »

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…

Long term should benefit as well as the short term. The US had one of the highest tax rates on corporations in the world and all it did was cause the money to stay out of the country. Just like very rich individuals, when you are not bound to one country you can just keep elsewhere. The US even experiences it on a smaller scale with people moving from state to state.

Obama Administration did propose 28% in 2012 and get taxes for those under 200k down as well. The current plan that is in effect has a lot of similarities but it did not set a 200k high limit. The US really needs to figure out a way to handle small business taxes that get caught up in the way personal taxes are done.

Less tax burden is always a win. What the US really needs for explosive growth is a cap on spending. Many other countries to include a few European countries have rules in place to keep it below growth for a reason, because it pays off fast.

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