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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."
I would agree if that was the case but these companies are using all sorts of ways to shift profits from countries they actually sell things in to low tax countries.
Example Apple
When you buy an iPhone, iPad or computer in a U.S. store, Apple pays licensing, manufacturing, branding and other fees and royalties to subsidiaries based in places like Ireland and Luxembourg. Those fees and royalties are so high that Apple can book a loss in the U.S., and those subsidiaries book big profits. So taxes on those “overseas” profits are “deferred” – meaning they are owed but Apple doesn’t have to pay them until they want to.