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Apple Gives Employees $2,500 Bonuses After New Tax Law (bloomberg.com)
Apple told employees that it's issuing a bonus of $2,500 of restricted stock units, following the introduction of the new U.S. tax law. "The iPhone maker will begin issuing grants to most employees worldwide in the coming months," reports Bloomberg. Apple also announced today that it would bring back most of its cash from overseas and spend $30 billion in the U.S. over the next five years. From the report: Apple confirmed the bonuses in response to a Bloomberg inquiry Wednesday. The Cupertino, California-based company joins a growing list of American businesses that have celebrated the introduction of corporate-friendly tax law with one-time bonuses for staff. AT&T, Comcast, JetBlue, and Wal-Mart also said they were giving bonuses.
While I'm not a corporate finance expert, some explanation can be found here in the latest Federal Reserve Beige Book report:
https://www.federalreserve.gov...
It explains that the United States is FINALLY starting to see an uptick in employment, with some labor shortages, which is key to ordinary Americans seeing an increase in their paycheck. Due to the economic outlook of further expected growth, companies that retain employees stand to grow; companies that don't retain their employees during a labor shortage will likely go out of business. So you're correct to be skeptical about generosity, but it IS an attempt to foster goodwill with their existing employees out of corporate self-interest.
Also, the bonuses are paid in restricted stock units (RSUs). They're not literally stock. They're a promise to give stock if the employee stays for x time -- basically, if they leave tomorrow, they get little or nothing.
The full $1K was for people that had worked there 20 year. People who had worked there for fewer years received a lesser bonus but still got something. I think 2 years was the minimum. And by the way, Walmart would have laid off those people either way.
All it takes is google and searching for "xyz Layoffs"
AT&T: http://www.chicagotribune.com/...
Comcast: http://www.newsweek.com/comcas...
Wal-mart: https://www.reuters.com/articl...
I have not seen JetBlue, but the others, yes.
That is three, out of over 100.... the original claim was "every" company giving bonuses was doing layoffs.
So, #FakeNews (aka Bullshit)
That list was before Apple too. Looks like the wave continues, and Apple alone is hiring 200k people over the next five years. Again when you say "every" company is doing layoffs in the very story where the company giving bonuses is hiring... well, #FakeNews.
Thanks Trump! (I added that last part just for you to enjoy).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
More deficits? What the hell do you think Obama did doubling the national debt in 8 years?
Yes, what did Obama do?
Spent money on a war started before he was inaugurated as president
Spent money on a stimulus package authorized before he was inaugurated as president.
Spent more money on additional stimulus packages he did authorize, to continue fixing problems that were in place when he entered office.
Spent on 8 years worth of budget deficits, which started at $1.4 trillion/year when he entered office and were cut in half by the time he left office.
That accounts for a majority of his debt increase.
Obviously, a zero percent income tax rate will result in zero income tax revenue. Just as obviously, a 100% tax rate (the government takes your ENTIRE paycheck) will result in roughly zero tax revenue - most people won't work a job if they don't get to take home a paycheck. Also companies wouldn't have any reason to.pay more than minimum wage - employees don't demand more because they don't get any of it anyway.
So we can see that tax rates too low result in little or no revenue, and we can see that tax rates too high result in little or no revenue. That's obvious even without understanding the basics of economics, without even knowing the difference between microeconomics and macroeconomics, for example.
If the current tax rate is 80%, that hurts revenue and reducing the tax rate to 70% will increase revenue. If it's at 2%, increasing the rate to 10% will increase revenue. So what we can see, without even reading Chapter 1 of Economics 101 is that anyone who says "increasing tax rates increases revenue" is an idiot, and anyone who says "decreasing tax rates increases revenue" is similarly clueless. There is an optimal rate, not near 100% and not near 0%, that maximizes revenue. Raising rates above the optimal rate hurts revenue, reducing them below the optimal rate reduces revenue.
Also, complex tax laws create "compliance costs". Small businesses file taxes about sixteen times per year - quarterly federal returns, quarterly sales tax returns, quarterly unemployment tax returns, annual business personal property tax returns, etc. There is a real cost to all that, even of the business only owes $1, that's a lot of tax paperwork. (I've filed returns for 12 cents before - the cost / time to fill them out was much greater than 12 cents, so the current situation is a significant net loss for the economy.)
Corporate tax rates follow the same reasoning. If you taxed them at 100%, nobody would invest their savings into starting or growing any companies, since they can't make money. The economy would come to a halt and there would be no revenue (and nearly 100% unemployment). On the other hand, with a 0% corporate tax, you have no revenue from corporate taxes, but higher savings and investment, much better returns from your 401k, lower unemployment, higher wages, etc. So again there is an optimum rate. Too high hurts revenue, and too low hurts revenue. Too high also hurts a lot of other things. Fortunately, corporate taxes have been around for many years, many different rates in many different countries, so economists and policy makers can see how each worked. Based on the data, most countries optimize their revenue by setting corporate tax rates at about half of what the US has had. A few countries have tried very high corporate tax rates. A corporate tax rate of nearly 100%, where the government takes all the profits, is called communism. The USSR tried that. China tried that for a while and reversed course before they ended up like the USSR.
Of course you could cite credible sources and prove your case.
Credile source #1
Among that group of employees, only those who have worked for Walmart for 20 years or more will get the full $1,000, Walmart told Business Insider.
Credible source #2
The bonuses will be determined by an employee's length of service. Those workers with more than 20 years of experience will qualify to receive the full $1,000. However, workers with less than two years of experience will receive $200, a Walmart spokesman told CNBC.
Credible source #3
A one-time bonus benefiting all eligible full and part-time hourly associates in the U.S. The amount of the bonus will be based on length of service, with associates with at least 20 years qualifying for $1,000. A discrete one-time charge will be taken in the fourth quarter of the current year to account for the bonus; qualification will be determined before the end of the month and payments will be paid as quickly as practical thereafter.
As to the difference between the income of those laid off and the bonuses, this article cites the bonuses will cost $400 million. This article says 9,400 people are being let go during the layoffs. Simple math shows $400 million/9,400 = 42,553. If we assume those being laid off made that much in salary and benefits, then after one year, the amount of money saved by laying off those people will dwarf the one-time bonus amount.
That's not true. Our corporate tax rates were about the same as Germany's and Japan's if you factor in loopholes actually used. Those are the two top-performing democracies in the world, besides US. If their rates are somehow "sub-optimal", it didn't hurt them enough to knock them from the top two positions.
Now, I'm not necessarily against lowering our corporate tax rates some, but we have to be mindful of the budget deficit. Fix that FIRST. And, GOP didn't have to lower personal tax rates for the rich. Their priorities are out of whack.
Table-ized A.I.
Some of these corporations recognize that people are going to boot the GOP candidates out if the tax cuts don't "trickle down" as promised. And knowing full well that "trickle down" isn't the effect it's been sold to be, they are manually doing a little trickle down in order to keep the pitchforks at bay.
Since nobody wants to actually do a simplistic google search that takes all of 2 seconds, here's a source about it.
It is part bullshit, part not. The bonus of 1000 dollars for employees is only given in full to those who are part of that sad little 20yr group. Those who have worked 2 years or less (probably the majority of Walmart employees) will only get 200 or so.
I just learned something interesting about that Washington Examiner (!) article that you're using as a citation. Out of the "100 companies giving Trump bonuses", all but two were already giving bonuses before the tax cuts and most of them give bonuses every year.
So, who's bullshitting whom?
You are welcome on my lawn.