<story><title>Apple&apos;s cash hoard swells to $246B</title><url>https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/31/apples-cash-hoard-swells-to-record-24609-billion.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>toomuchtodo</author><text>We don&amp;#x27;t have to lower taxes. We just change the tax law to tax that money whether they bring it back to the US or not.</text></item><item><author>drawkbox</author><text>You are right, really if we want companies to bring money back we just need lower taxes. The games companies play to eek out an additional 5% and overcome taxes is massive.  Better to have lower taxes here in the US while our dollar is still valued so high to offset and maybe they will have a reason to repatriate and continue investment here. We need more money moving in our country immediately, the velocity of money[1] and gdp to compensation [2] are horrid right now, worst in history.&lt;p&gt;Our dollar being too high in value is an advantage to wealthy and buying more abroad but harms workers here competitively no matter what they do. It also makes companies with money in other areas able to do more outside of the US, good but also bad.&lt;p&gt;Another thing that would help immensely is companies no longer being allowed to provide benefits, a legacy bug, just salary, enough to get their own services as those are private and companies should not be involved in that.  Healthcare would need to be either single payer or private but solely individual and not tied to your employer which is a single point of failure, it may also fix medical pricing one day if more consumer focused.&lt;p&gt;Both lower taxes and companies not having to worry about providing benefits&amp;#x2F;healthcare would be immense competitive moves.  Companies in Canada, UK, Mexico etc etc don&amp;#x27;t have to worry about providing healthcare benefits and it makes it easier to start a business, change jobs and in general allows more focus on business and products.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;fred.stlouisfed.org&amp;#x2F;series&amp;#x2F;M2V&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;fred.stlouisfed.org&amp;#x2F;series&amp;#x2F;M2V&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;fred.stlouisfed.org&amp;#x2F;graph&amp;#x2F;?g=2Xa&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;fred.stlouisfed.org&amp;#x2F;graph&amp;#x2F;?g=2Xa&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>breatheoften</author><text>What possible reason could Apple have to repatriate their cash hoard (even with a tax holiday?)&lt;p&gt;They don&amp;#x27;t manufacture anything in the us -- do they need those kinds of billions to hire more software developers in Cupertino -- that seems pretty unlikely to me.  Do they need it to build more US apple stores (nope they&amp;#x27;ve got that covered).&lt;p&gt;They are already paying a dividend with free cash flow from their US business ...&lt;p&gt;I can&amp;#x27;t imagine why they would ever want to &amp;quot;increase investment&amp;quot; in the us vs the many far more productive things they could conceivably do by spending that money outside the us ...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>drawkbox</author><text>You could do that but it would create more games with headquarters being outside the US and even small businesses&amp;#x2F;medium businesses would start doing that. There would be a million loopholes around it.&lt;p&gt;I say corporations won the war, they have the legal teams to keep winning. As a response let small&amp;#x2F;medium sized businesses compete better by just lowing business taxes to really low levels, or progressive taxing as you grow. Right now the high tax rate only really affects our engine small&amp;#x2F;medium businesses who provide 50% of GDP, 65+% of jobs and 33% of exports.&lt;p&gt;The only companies paying taxes are small&amp;#x2F;medium businesses, the tax system here almost is a competitive advantage to large companies over small&amp;#x2F;medium. If larger companies aren&amp;#x27;t going to invest here, get competitive help to the small&amp;#x2F;medium companies and entrepreneurs that are to challenge them.</text></comment>
<story><title>Apple&apos;s cash hoard swells to $246B</title><url>https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/31/apples-cash-hoard-swells-to-record-24609-billion.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>toomuchtodo</author><text>We don&amp;#x27;t have to lower taxes. We just change the tax law to tax that money whether they bring it back to the US or not.</text></item><item><author>drawkbox</author><text>You are right, really if we want companies to bring money back we just need lower taxes. The games companies play to eek out an additional 5% and overcome taxes is massive.  Better to have lower taxes here in the US while our dollar is still valued so high to offset and maybe they will have a reason to repatriate and continue investment here. We need more money moving in our country immediately, the velocity of money[1] and gdp to compensation [2] are horrid right now, worst in history.&lt;p&gt;Our dollar being too high in value is an advantage to wealthy and buying more abroad but harms workers here competitively no matter what they do. It also makes companies with money in other areas able to do more outside of the US, good but also bad.&lt;p&gt;Another thing that would help immensely is companies no longer being allowed to provide benefits, a legacy bug, just salary, enough to get their own services as those are private and companies should not be involved in that.  Healthcare would need to be either single payer or private but solely individual and not tied to your employer which is a single point of failure, it may also fix medical pricing one day if more consumer focused.&lt;p&gt;Both lower taxes and companies not having to worry about providing benefits&amp;#x2F;healthcare would be immense competitive moves.  Companies in Canada, UK, Mexico etc etc don&amp;#x27;t have to worry about providing healthcare benefits and it makes it easier to start a business, change jobs and in general allows more focus on business and products.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;fred.stlouisfed.org&amp;#x2F;series&amp;#x2F;M2V&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;fred.stlouisfed.org&amp;#x2F;series&amp;#x2F;M2V&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;fred.stlouisfed.org&amp;#x2F;graph&amp;#x2F;?g=2Xa&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;fred.stlouisfed.org&amp;#x2F;graph&amp;#x2F;?g=2Xa&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>breatheoften</author><text>What possible reason could Apple have to repatriate their cash hoard (even with a tax holiday?)&lt;p&gt;They don&amp;#x27;t manufacture anything in the us -- do they need those kinds of billions to hire more software developers in Cupertino -- that seems pretty unlikely to me.  Do they need it to build more US apple stores (nope they&amp;#x27;ve got that covered).&lt;p&gt;They are already paying a dividend with free cash flow from their US business ...&lt;p&gt;I can&amp;#x27;t imagine why they would ever want to &amp;quot;increase investment&amp;quot; in the us vs the many far more productive things they could conceivably do by spending that money outside the us ...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>valuearb</author><text>So you are saying that you want Samsung to be able to build phones tax free in China, but Apple should pay 40%+ income taxes (CA+US) for doing so?&lt;p&gt;Please let me move all my retirement savings into foreign stocks before you pass this law, please.</text></comment>