“Apple Inc. Chief Executive Tim Cook said the company may repatriate at least some of the billions of dollars of cash it holds offshore as early as next year,” Paul Hannon reports for The Wall Street Journal. “Apple holds about $215 billion in cash and other liquid investments offshore. It has long provisioned for an eventual repatriation of some of the funds. But Apple has also long suggested it wasn’t considering moving any of that money back soon — until there was corporate tax code changes in the U.S. that would make such a move less costly. Mr. Cook told The Washington Post in August that the company won’t bring the money back ‘until there’s a fair rate’ but said he was optimistic of corporate tax changes next year.”
“On Thursday, Mr. Cook, in an interview with Irish state broadcaster RTE, appeared to go a step further, saying Apple could start to move some of the profits it has earned from its international operations to the U.S. next year,” Hannon reports. “‘We provisioned several billion dollars for the U.S. for payment as soon as we repatriate it, and right now I would forecast that repatriation to occur next year,’ Mr. Cook said in the interview.”
“Companies based in the U.S. are subject to 35% corporate tax rate on global profits when they bring that money home, though they can also get tax credits for payments to foreign governments. Many executives, including Apple, have said that rate is unfair,” Hannon reports. “The company reported in 2014 an effective tax rate of 26.1% on its world-wide profits, including the foreign tax provisions that are unpaid, a level Mr. Cook described as ‘reasonable.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Let’s not do another “one-time-only” (smirk) repatriation holiday. Let’s fix the broken U.S. corporate tax code instead. Let us eschew the easy way out, that fixes nothing in the long run, and choose to do the hard work instead.
SEE ALSO:
With next U.S. President, Apple’s cash may soon be on its way home – August 25, 2016
Apple CEO Tim Cook presses for U.S. corporate tax reform, says no repatriation without fair rate – August 15, 2016
Donald Trump plan calls for cuts in corporate taxes, personal income tax rates – August 9, 2016
Apple CEO Tim Cook has billions of reasons to raise money for the GOP – June 29, 2016
Debt-free Apple to take on debt to avoid huge U.S. repatriation tax hit – April 26, 2013
U.S. is equally greedy not changing this ridiculous tax rate and short-sighted. They know the offshore money will also help to generate more employment and taxes in addition to being taxed itself at a reasonable rate. There is no win without a fair repatriation tax rate and it simply tempts companies into moving more of their operation elsewhere.
What is “Fair?”
Fair to Apple may mean tax free. Who wouldn’t want “fair?”
Where do you constantly get the idea that Apple doesn’t pay taxes, or wants to pay no tax? there are companies that deliberately avoid paying taxes, but apple isn’t one of them and never has been. They pay their taxes, and Time Cook CLEARLY said that 26.1% is reasonable… you need to learn to read better.
Funny how Tim Cook supports ONLY Globalist US Politician that will NOT lower corporate taxes… He seems to be quite fine with this as he had his deal with Ireland with a low corporate tax. Now it is fun to watch who the EU, the globalists Cook supports is trying now to grab an extra $14.5 BILLION in taxes from Apple….
President Trump can use the money to build the wall.
Yes, maybe the money “repatriated” from Mexico… 🙂
Cook also mentioned that 0.005% tax rate is false, and does not know where that number came from. Actual world-wide effective tax rate that Apple paid is 26.1%.
That’s a bit disingenuous. World-wide effective tax rate may well be 26.1%, but that wasn’t what anyone in this discussion was talking about. If I remember correctly, that ridiculously low tax rate was tied to the specific taxes paid in Ireland, for revenue reported by Apple’s Ireland office.
Unless I am mistaken, the tiny number actually reflects the EU’s cut of member country taxes, not Ireland’s rate, which I thought was 2.5%. Still small, but two orders or magnitude higher than the tiny number.
I could be wrong, but I’m sure the number definitely does NOT imply global average tax rate (as referred to by Cook).
Quid pro quo for Hillary fundraiser?
Corporations simply do not pay taxes…. consumers pay the corporate taxes…..
It’s a start. It’s a peace offering to the senate to say we want to work to get this settled.
It’s not an issue that’s ever just going to go away, they need as many senators on their good side as possible. You’ll see a concerted effort by all the big players hoarding their money overseas to try and make as fair a tax reform as possible. No one wants to cause harm to the goose laying the golden eggs, but no one wants to be taken for suckers like Ireland is. God knows Ireland desperately needs the money they are giving away.
We’ll see ordinary Irish people up in arms too for their government being idiots.
Imagine if you held your private funds overseas saying “fuck you, I’m waiting for lower tax rates” to the IRS. How long do you think you could stay out of jail? How long before the IRS froze your accounts? How long before they impounded your house and car?
The answer is not very long.
So, why is it that a corporate “person” can do this and a living breathing “person” cannot?
Why do we allow our courts to buy-in to the fiction that corporations are people? And why do people who have to pay taxes boo-hoo on behalf of Corporations that flout the law even as they buy politicians who write the tax code? For more info, look up the slang definition of “tool”.
I’m as against the ability of the rich to hide money overseas and not pay the tax rate regular wage earners do as anyone. But exactly which laws are Apple flouting? The problem isn’t the flouting of the law, it’s the laws themselves that are bad.