text: Apple Inc.’s cash topped $200 billion for the first time as the portion of money held abroad rose to almost 90 percent, putting more pressure on Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook to find a way to use the funds without incurring U.S. taxes. 
   
   Booming iPhone sales overseas are adding to Apple’s cash pile, pushing the company to embrace offshore affiliates to preserve and invest the money. Cook, who was called before U.S. Congress in 2013 to defend Apple against allegations of dodging taxes, is facing questions on what Apple will do with its cash pile and fielding calls from investors, such as billionaire activist Carl Icahn, to return shareholder capital. 
   
   “They don’t really have that much on-shore cash,” said Tim Arcuri, an analyst at Cowen & Co. “They’re still sort of hamstrung on what they can do, barring the ability to repatriate a bunch of off-shore cash.” 
   
   Cook has been vocal about his desire for U.S. lawmakers to amend the country’s tax laws so that companies can repatriate more cash. Apple’s overseas cash has climbed 70 percent since Cook spoke to Congress, and now makes up 89 percent of Apple’s $202.8 billion in cash and investments at the end of June, the company said Tuesday, up from 72 percent of $146.6 billion in cash two years ago. 
   
   Driving that is Apple’s booming global revenue. Sales in greater China, for example, more than doubled to $13.2 billion in the latest quarter from a year earlier. 
   
   At the same time, Apple’s U.S. federal lobbying spending has been climbing, and reached a record $4.1 million last year as it advocated on a wide range of issues. The company’s lobbying climbed 46 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier. The iPhone maker added three lobbyists on the issues of taxes in the past year, and is addressing concerns such as corporate and international “tax reform,” according to records filed with the U.S. Senate this week. 
   
   Tax Policy 
   
   Under current law, U.S. companies owe the full 35 percent corporate tax rate -- the highest of any industrialized nation - - on income they earn around the world. They receive tax credits for payments to foreign governments, and have to pay the U.S. the difference only when they bring the money home. 
   
   That system encourages companies to shift profits to low-tax foreign countries and leave the money there. As a result, more than $2 trillion is being stockpiled overseas by U.S. companies. 
   
   U.S. President Barack Obama and House Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, are trying to find a way to impose a one-time tax on the stockpiled money to encourage cash repatriation, change the underlying system and plow the proceeds into highways. 
   
   Returning Cash 
   
   Apple is also seeking to return more of its growing cash hoard to investors. In April, the company unveiled plans to boost capital return program by $70 billion, increasing a share-buyback authorization by $50 billion and increasing dividends by 11 percent. At the end of June quarter, the company had returned $126 billion of its $200 billion program, including $90 billion in share repurchases, Chief Financial officer Luca Maestri told analysts on Tuesday. 
   
   To pay investors, Apple has issued almost $50 billion in debt around the world, including bonds denominated in yen and Swiss francs. Apple also used $10 billion in cash to pay U.S. taxes last year, according to a regulatory filing. 
   
   On top of this, Apple has already assumed for accounting purposes that a lot of the cash has come home, suggesting that the impact of cash repatriation on future earnings would be minimal. At the end of its latest fiscal year, Apple estimated that bringing home the $69.7 billion in earnings on which it hasn’t taken a charge would cost about $23.3 billion in U.S. taxes. 
   
   Cook has said that Apple is already the largest taxpayer in the U.S. and reiterated a need for “comprehensive” tax reform. A representative for Apple declined to comment. 
   
   “It’s not smart for all of these companies, including us, to have all this money offshore, which can’t be invested in the United States,” the CEO said at a tech conference held by the Wall Street Journal last year. “It would be reasonable to, say, force a tax on the offshore piece but let it all flow free -- let the capital have a free flow.” 
   
   (A previous version of this story removed a reference to Apple’s lobbying spending being at a record in the second quarter.) 
   
   For more, read this QuickTake: Profit Shifting ||||| 
   
   Harvoni, a drug for treating Hepatitis C made by Gilead Sciences. (courtesy of Gilead Sciences, Inc.) 
   
   Over the last few years, Gilead Sciences has grown into one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, fueled by the sales of expensive specialty treatments for hepatitis C. The company’s revenue has tripled since 2012, to $32.6 billion last year. 
   
   According to a report to be released Wednesday, Gilead has also developed another specialty: Avoiding billions in taxes. 
   
   The California-based pharmaceutical giant moved some of its assets to Ireland, apparently allowing income from some U.S. drug sales to be shifted abroad and taxed at a lower rate, according to Americans for Tax Fairness, a liberal advocacy group. It has also avoided nearly $10 billion in taxes by not bringing some of its foreign profits back to the United States, the group says. 
   
   Gilead declined to comment on the report. 
   
   The study strikes at a simmering battle between the Obama administration and the business community over whether U.S. corporations are inappropriately avoiding billions in taxes by taking advantage of a flawed tax code. 
   
   In 2013, Gilead launched the drug Sovaldi – a hepatitis C cure that carried an $84,000 list price for a 12-week course of treatment. That drug was followed by another treatment, Harvoni, which carried a list price of $94,500. Last month, Gilead received approval for a third treatment, Epclusa, which carries a list price of $74,760. 
   
   Last year, a Senate Finance Committee investigated the company’s pricing of hepatitis C drugs and concluded the company had sought to maximize profits at the expense of making the remedies accessible to patients. 
   
   The drugs’ prices also had a noticeable effect on overall prescription drug spending. In 2015, health care spending on prescription drugs grew more than 12 percent, according to an analysis published in the peer-reviewed medical journal Health Affairs, a rise attributed in part to the new generation of hepatitis C treatments. 
   
   The new report by Americans for Tax Fairness shows that as Gilead’s revenues and profits have grown, driven largely by its hepatitis C franchise, a perplexing incongruity has developed: In 2015, nearly two-thirds of its revenues were generated by U.S. sales, but the U.S. accounted for only 37 percent of its profits before taxes. That’s despite the fact that the U.S. generally pays more for drugs than other countries. 
   
   The report suggests that “transfer pricing” helps account for this disparity. In 2013, Gilead’s chief financial officer said the company’s tax rate would “decline over time” because its intellectual property for Sovaldi had been transferred to a subsidiary in Ireland, which has a lower corporate tax rate, 12.5 percent, than the United States. 
   
   This strategy is common, legal and increasingly used by pharmaceutical companies, said Jeremy Scott, editor-in-chief of commentary at Tax Analysts, an organization specializing in tax policy. 
   
   "People weren’t doing it as aggressively in the ‘90s as in the past five to 10 years," Scott said. “This is a recent trend." 
   
   The new report notes that Gilead's effective tax rate tumbled to 16.4 percent last year compared with 27.3 percent in 2013. (The statutory U.S. federal tax rate in the is 35 percent.) 
   
   Meanwhile, Gilead has kept a growing amount of its foreign profits overseas, reaching $28.5 billion in 2015. The company would have to pay about $9.7 billion in taxes if it brought those profits back to the United States, according to the report. 
   
   “Gilead excels at tax dodging and price gouging," Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Tex.) said in an e-mail. "Instead of innovation, it has spent more on stock buybacks for executives and shareholders than on research and development. Gilead’s formula for success: prices up, profits up, tax avoidance up." 
   
   Gilead is just one of dozens of large pharmaceutical and technology companies that is using a variety of tactics to potentially lower its taxes. Apple has nearly $200 billion in profits overseas, Microsoft has about $100 billion, while Gilead's competitor, Pfizer, has about $193 billion. If they were to bring those back to the United States, the companies would owe billions in taxes. 
   
   "It is quite amazing what the pharma companies can pull off, and it’s a global issue," said Steven M. Rosenthal, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. ||||| 
   
   Sovaldi, an expensive Hepatitis C treatment, is made by Gilead Sciences. (AP Photo/Courtesy of Gilead Sciences) 
   
   This story has been updated. 
   
   Gilead Sciences executives were acutely aware in 2013 that their plan to charge an exorbitantly high price for a powerful new hepatitis C drug would spark public outrage, but they pursued the profit-driven strategy anyway, according to a Senate Finance Committee investigation report released Tuesday. 
   
   "Let's not fold to advocacy pressure in 2014," Kevin Young, Gilead's executive vice president for commercial operations, wrote in an internal email. ‘‘Let’s hold our position whatever competitors do or whatever the headlines." 
   
   Gilead gained federal approval for its drug Sovaldi in late 2013 and ultimately settled on the price of $84,000 for a 12-week course of treatment. To the company, that price seemed to deliver the right balance: value to shareholders while also not so high that insurers would "hinder patient access to uncomfortable levels," according to internal documents. But they also got more than they bargained for: an outpouring of outrage from the public, a backlash from government and private payers, and political scrutiny. 
   
   The 18-month Senate committee investigation reviewed more than 20,000 pages of company documents. 
   
   “The documents show it was always Gilead’s plan to max out revenue, and that accessibility and affordability were pretty much an afterthought," said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who co-led the investigation with Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), in a news conference. 
   
   In a statement released Tuesday, Gilead disagreed with the conclusions of the report, saying that the price was "in line with previous standards of care.” The company noted that it has programs in place to help uninsured patients and those who need financial assistance access the treatments. More than 600,000 patients around the world have been treated with Gilead’s hepatitis C drugs since 2013, according to the company. 
   
   Here are four key takeaways from the investigation: 
   
   1. It could have been priced at $115,000 for a course of treatment. 
   
   Gilead considered a range of prices for Sovaldi and weighed the value to its shareholders against the "reputational risks," meaning the potential outrage from patients, physicians and payers. The potential prices ranged from $50,000 to $115,000. 
   
   Executives believed a $50,000 price would build good will and ensure easy access to the drug because it would be covered by most plans. But it would cause "significant foregone revenue," and activists would still critique the price, even at this relatively low level. 
   
   At $115,000, executives were concerned about "external considerations" and predicted: "High levels of advocacy group criticism and negative PR/competitive messaging could be expected at $115K and it would be increasingly difficult to manage at these levels." 
   
   2. Gilead priced Sovaldi partly based on the expectation it would set a benchmark for the next drugs in the pipeline. 
   
   A company presentation noted that Gilead has "considerable pricing potential" for Sovaldi, but that future pricing for next-generation drug launches would be limited by competition -- what it referred to as a second wave of treatments. 
   
   "Wave 1 will set a price benchmark against which Wave 2 will ultimately be evaluated," the presentation stated. 
   
   "By elevating the price for the new standard of care set by Sovaldi, Gilead intended to raise the price floor for all future hepatitis C treatments, including its follow-on drugs and those of its competitors," the report states. 
   
   Its next hepatitis C drug, Harvoni, was priced at $94,500. 
   
   3. Patients were warehoused to limit access to Sovaldi. 
   
   Facing pent-up demand for a hepatitis C treatment, insurers quickly began to implement restrictions -- essentially, warehousing patients by putting sick people aside until they were even more sick. Medicaid programs in 27 states limited which patients could get access to Sovaldi. Private insurers did, too. 
   
   In a letter, the Oregon Health Authority reported that while more than 10,000 Medicaid patients were deemed good candidates for Sovaldi and its competitors in fall 2014, the estimated cost of treating half of them would more than double the entire $600 million spent on all drugs in the previous year. Instead, because treating more advanced patients would be more cost effective, the state implemented a plan to treat at the rate of 500 patients a year for the first six years. 
   
   Kentucky's Medicaid program noted that the state's heroin epidemic exacerbated its hepatitis C problem -- people who had injected drugs were being tested for the disease, raising the tricky question of when to start treatment. 
   
   "Given the current cost of the newer treatment options and to remain fiscally responsible we will be forced to make difficult decisions regarding who does and does not get access to treatment medications upon diagnosis," Samantha McKinley, pharmacy director of the Kentucky Department for Medicaid Services, wrote in a letter to Grassley and Wyden. 
   
   4. Cost-per-cure, not cost of development. 
   
   The report suggests that the factors Gilead used to set its price were not based on the research and development needed to bring the drug to market, or on the $11.2 billion it paid for Pharmasset, the company that developed Sovaldi. Instead, Gilead executives looked at what previous treatments had cost and the effect of future waves of competition on the revenue it could bring in. 
   
   "Company officials surmised that its drug had a ‘value premium' because of increased efficacy and tolerability, shorter treatment duration, and its potential to ultimately be part of an all-oral regimen," the report states. 
   
   In its statement Tuesday, the company said, “We stand behind the pricing of our therapies because of the benefit they bring to patients and the significant value they represent to payers, providers, and our entire healthcare system by reducing the long-term costs associated with managing chronic [hepatitis C virus].” 
   
   With another Senate committee now probing price increases at four other pharmaceutical companies, the final conclusion of the report may be one we see repeated. 
   
   "This might be an example that received the most attention in some time, but it won't be the last," Grassley said in a statement. 
   
   Correction: The story formerly misidentified patients in Oregon as enrollees in Medicare, not Medicaid.
target: – A pharmaceutical company that has in recent years made billions of dollars on hepatitis C treatments—the three the FDA has approved range from $75,000 to $94,500—has been named a "price gouger" and "tax dodger" in a new report. Gilead Sciences, the sixth richest drugmaker in the world, "is making a fortune selling essential drugs to the very government and taxpayers that helped pay to develop them, and then dodging taxes on the resulting profits," says Frank Clemente, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness, which issued the report this month. Gilead has avoided some $10 billion in taxes by moving assets to Ireland, where there is a lower tax rate, and then not bringing some $28.5 billion in profits back into the US. Per the Washington Post, the California-based company's revenues in 2015 hit $32.6 billion, up three times from 2012. As for the accusation of gouging: Last year, a Senate investigation found that the company "pursued [a] profit-driven strategy" with its hepatitis drugs, rather than making the drugs more accessible at a lower price (it had considered $50,000). As the Post notes, Gilead, which declined to comment on the report, isn't alone in looking overseas for tax relief. Plenty of other pharmaceutical and technology companies do it. Apple, for instance, has squirreled away nearly $200 billion abroad, Bloomberg reported last year. According to Citizens for Tax Justice, that's enabled the company to avoid paying $59.2 billion in US taxes. Pfizer has some $193 billion abroad, per the Post. The new report singling out Gilead, the Post points out, highlights the "simmering battle" between President Obama and big business over the practice of sending assets to foreign countries.