| WASHINGTON, D.C. – A core mission of the Republican Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was to bring jobs and investment back to America, and today the fruits of that promise are ripening before our eyes as Apple, the world’s most valuable public company, announced a $350 billion contribution to the U.S. economy by bringing back the vast majority of the $252 billion in cash they hold abroad, resulting in 20,000 new American jobs and a new company campus.
As tens of thousands of job-seeking Americans will now have an opportunity to take a bite out of the American Dream, will this cause every Congressional Democrat who voted against this bill to “think different” about their dishonest claims that tax reform would result in “Armageddon,” a “plunder[ing] of the middle class,” “one of the greatest robberies in American history,” harming children like “Tiny Tim,” tens of thousands more Americans dying each year, and a “heist that would steal from millions of middle-class families?”
New York Times
By Brian X. Chen and Daisuke Wakabayashi
January 17, 2018
http://nyti.ms/2BaY4LySAN FRANCISCO — Less than four weeks after President Trump signed the most consequential tax legislation in three decades, the world’s most valuable public company — Apple — laid out how it planned to capitalize on the new rules.
The iPhone maker said on Wednesday that it planned a $350 billion contribution to the American economy over the next five years, with some of its new investments coming from bringing back the vast majority of the $252 billion in cash that it has long held abroad.
A provision in the Republican tax plan that was passed last month allows a one-time repatriation of corporate cash held abroad. Apple has 94 percent of its total cash outside the United States.
For years, Apple had said it wouldn’t bring its foreign earnings back to the United States until there were changes in the corporate tax code, because such a move would be too costly.
But the new tax plan puts Apple at less of a disadvantage. The law sets a one-time repatriation tax of 15.5 percent for foreign cash, down from 35 percent under the older tax system. Under the new tax code, Apple would also have been taxed whether it brought the money back or not.
The company has big plans for the money. It said it would create more than 20,000 new jobs in the United States, up about 24 percent from about 84,000 employees in the country currently. It also said it would open a new campus in a location where it currently has no operations.
Apple also said it would invest more than $30 billion in capital expenditures, or spending on parts and the equipment required to produce them.
“We have a deep sense of responsibility to give back to our country and the people who help make our success possible,” Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, said in a statement.
Apple said in its statement that it anticipated a repatriation tax payment of about $38 billion. The 15.5 percent repatriation tax rate implies Apple is bringing back about $245 billion. Technically, American companies don’t have to bring the cash to the United States, though they are required to pay taxes on it. |