Apple, Google and Microsoft Are Hoarding $464 Billion In Cash (cnn.com)

Apple, Google and Microsoft are sitting on a mountain of cash -- and most of it is stashed far away from the taxman. Those three tech behemoths held a total of $464 billion in cash at the end of last year, according to a Moody's report published this week. From a report: Apple alone had a stunning quarter-trillion dollars of cash thanks to years of gigantic profits and few major acquisitions. That's enough money to buy Netflix three times. It's also more cash than what's sitting on the balance sheet of every major industry except tech and health care. All told, non-financial U.S. companies studied by Moody's hoarded $1.84 trillion of cash at the end of last year. That's up 11% from 2015 and nearly two and a half times the 2008 level. Roughly $1.3 trillion -- 70% of the total -- is being held overseas, where the money isn't subject to U.S. taxes. Apple, Google owner Alphabet, Microsoft, Cisco, and Oracle hold 88% of their cash overseas. Moody's said the tower of money stashed abroad reflects the "negative tax consequences of permanently repatriating money to the U.S."

Comments

Wheres the source of the cash?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, These companies are based in the US, but they are global companies.

They should not have to pay US taxes on the profits they received via a cellphone sold in Europe.

Re:Wheres the source of the cash?

[Daemonik]

I think that if they repatriate this money they'll do exactly the same thing financial institutes have done with their cash. Sit on it. They won't "encourage local economic growth". If anything they'll reduce local economic growth by buying up and removing competition. Growth of anyone but themselves is not in their interests.

Re:Wheres the source of the cash?

[diesalesmandie]

Personally, I believe that the issue is the USA's tax rates are too high on these companies so they are being encouraged to do business overseas instead of in their home country to shelter themselves from the tax rates in the USA.

Do you honestly believe if the USA's tax rates would be lower that they would pay US taxes? They do what they do because they can, plain and simple.

Re: Wheres the source of the cash?

[TiggertheMad]

The worst thing about Ayn Rand is that dumb people latch onto her crazy ideas and think that they are actually rationally sound. Her prose was terrible, but I really like her as a writer, because anytime someone starts talking about Atlas Shrugged I know I can just ignore the person. It's sort of like a big sign that says, 'I am not worth talking to' hanging over their head.

Re: Wheres the source of the cash?

[cyber-vandal]

Who do you think had a hand in those laws and who do you think has more clout? A few voters or multinational corporations.

Just think

[Anonymous Coward]

what it would be like if these companies paid their fair share of taxes on this money. Schools, roads, healthcare. They want the benefits of being in this country without having to support it.

USA #1 !!

[Spy Handler]

We have the biggest, most complicated tax code in the history of the universe. We are also the only country that taxes its citizens for income earned while living and working in another country... even after they pay that country's taxes.

Hoarding is bad, let's confiscate it

[mi]

"Saving" is good, "hoarding" is bad. The choice of words implies the author's desire to confiscate all or part of the monies...

To all those coveting other people's dabloons: they are not yours!.

Re:Economics

[swillden]

Yet it seems to make logical sense that if there is less money floating around for an individual like me floating around, then it is harder to obtain and makes things more difficult to afford.

More money floating around can also cause inflation, making things more difficult to afford.

If we lower taxes on corporations then society is losing any way.

This is an illusion. Corporate taxes are an illusion. An evil one.

Corporations never really pay taxes. The cost is always ultimately borne by people. Those people may be employees, if the corporation pays lower wages to offset its tax bill. They may be shareholders, if the corporation generates lower dividends or less increase in share price due to less growth. They may be customers, if the corporation chooses to pass the costs on in higher prices.

At the end of they possibly-long chain of buck passing, though, the taxes are always ultimately paid by individuals. The legislature could get exactly the same effect if instead of taxing the corporations it taxed the individuals directly. Except that by taxing the corporation the legislature loses the ability to control what kind of people pay the bills. I think the ideal for most proponents of corporate taxes would be to levy them on the shareholders exclusively. But that's not only not guaranteed to happen, it's almost never what happens, due to the fact that the markets seek a given rate of return for an industry. All players in that industry (assuming they're all subject to the same taxes) will shift the tax costs elsewhere in order to maintain the rate of return, so they can attract capital when they need it.

This makes taxing corporations dumb. What makes it evil is the very reason that legislators like it in spite of the fact that it takes away their ability to control who gets taxed. They like it because they can tell voters that someone other than the voters is paying the bill. This isn't true. It seems true, to people who don't understand what corporations really are or how they work. Voters who don't look at it very closely believe they're getting government services and big, faceless corporations are paying for it. But the fact is that although it's extremely hard to tell who is paying the bill, the one thing we know is that the corporations are not.