Thank you president Trump.
Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes
471–480 of 537 posts
Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes
#472This 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…
Wait a minute. Does this tax bill end the situation where e.g. Google earns $100 million/year in my European home country, but pay only $150,000 in taxes to my home country, using an Irish holding company to ensure their net tax rate (including to the US) on this amount is only a few percent? That would seem like a very good thing to me. The current situation is quite unjust.
I think more that Google will hoard less money in Europe to avoid US taxes and will be able to move more back to the US for investments there. It's the US' new isolationist policies in action.
Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes
#473Earlier quoted context omitted.
True it seems we are getting the crumbs here falling between the cracks. But what is another realistic scenario? Tax them even more? Wouldn't they move to another tax haven. Why didn't that work so far, these tax tricks are not new.
The whole point is that earned income should not have to be repatriated to be taxed. If I as a citizen have a bank account in Switzerland that accepts my foreign income then I pay tax on that money in the year it was earned. The exact same rules should apply. Just because the bank account is outside of the US should not make a difference.
No other country taxes it's citizens this way. Do you think if a US citizen lives and works in Germany, they should still have to file and pay US income taxes even though they were living in Germany and earning a salary working in another country? That makes no sense to me.
If Apple pays double taxes on iPhones sold in Europe to European citizens, after Apple pays taxes to the EU, that's effectively a tax by America on citizens of the EU. The phones are made in China, shipped to Europe and sold to citizens of the EU for Euros, never having stopped on US soil, and being taxed in the EU. Why does it make sense for the US to apply a tax which effectively would amount to an increased tax on purchases by citizens of another country?
Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes
#474Earlier quoted context omitted.
It passed, but there are parts of the bill that only last ten years (those applying to personal/small business taxes), and then those tax rules revert to the previous version after ten years unless they are passed again under non-Byrd rules in the Senate. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-14/how-the-b...
Which will of course be extended as no government would survive a personal tax increase
Which assumes rational government. Our government is controlled by one party and yet we are heading to a government shutdown over immigration. Rational seems far away.
Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes
#475Earlier quoted context omitted.
> to repatriate much of its overseas cash and invest it here in the US. Where in the article does it state that they will invest the repatriated cash in the US? The only concrete number is the $38 billion tax payment upon repatriation, which is a direct result of the tax plan. If you read carefully they state nowhere how much of the repatriated cash will be invested instead of simply returned to shareholders. They ju…
Well, if it's simply returned to the shareholders, then the shareholders will invest it. Economy wide it makes no difference, the money will be invested
> then the shareholders will invest it.
Or use it for consumption. And that consumption or those investments are not necessarily in the US.
Where do you think that money is now? It's not like it is stored as dollar bills in some warehouse abroad. The 'repatriation' they are talking about is purely an accounting/tax fiction. If you look at Apple's yearly report [1], on page 49, it details how its cash and equivalents are invested. Most of it is in US treasury securities ($42 billion) and commercial securities ($131 billion). Repatriating it will not magically make it somehow more productively invested in the US. In some cases, quite the opposite: as a foreign Apple shareholder, any dividends I receive are spent outside the US.
[1] http://investor.apple.com/secfiling.cfm?filingid=1628280-16-...
Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes
#476Earlier quoted context omitted.
It passed, but there are parts of the bill that only last ten years (those applying to personal/small business taxes), and then those tax rules revert to the previous version after ten years unless they are passed again under non-Byrd rules in the Senate. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-14/how-the-b...
Which will of course be extended as no government would survive a personal tax increase
A 'personal tax increase' does not have to be across the board. You could e.g. increase the marginal rate for incomes above $1 million, while keeping other rates the same. That would not be politically difficult. Divide et impera.
Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes
#477How 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…
No Americans want to make iPhones, those are crappy jobs. We want more engineering jobs.
You don't speak for all Americans. Many would be happy to do it.
Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes
#478All 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…
HN seems to be very anti Trump and looking to satisfy confirmation bias or to promote the narrative that the Trump admin can't get anything right.
Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes
#479Earlier quoted context omitted.
How much of that is made here? If you look at their ICs even if its an American company most of their chips are made in Taiwan. For example apple might design CPU here, but its made in Hsinchu.
Very likely an impossible number to unravel (without Apple providing the detail). Their cost of revenue for 2017 was $144b out of $229b in sales. How much room is in there for $50b in the US and all manufacturing overseas? It would seem theoretically possible to fit all of that in. Here's their supplier list: https://images.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/pdf/Apple-S... 3M for example has six US location references…
Also, remember they operate 271 retail stores in the US.
Re: Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes
#480Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I get your point. Only caveat is corporations also create jobs and pay their workers, but you and I as individuals do not. That's like saying the wheat creates work for the mill to make flour. You can't have one without the other. Can we just get rid of the ridiculous notion that corporations provide more than the workers doing the actual work ?
Would you please not use uppercase for emphasis in HN comments? It's basically yelling, and the site guidelines ask you not to.
Sorry, you're right. I would edit it to italicized if I could, temporary lapse in judgement.