“There are TRILLIONS of dollars lying in accounts off shore that could be invested in the US”
Apple could hire every good programmer in the USA with its domestic profits alone.
Apple is only short of investment ideas.
US corporations are not short of capital. They have more than they need.
We need corporations to pay taxes. What corporations don’t pay, natural persons must.
". . . more than they need."???
Bernie Sanders, is that you?
Perhaps, you are Karl Marx? "From each according to their ability, to each according to the need?" Who are YOU to determine corporation's need for capital?
Are you sure you are on the right site?
Apple pays taxes. It's US Effective Income Tax Rate for 2015 was 27.6%. In 2012, Apple was the largest payer of taxes among all business in the United States, paying $1 out of every $40 the IRS collected from businesses. In the past five years Apple has been in the top three business tax payers in the US.
I am educated as an Economist. It is a fact that businesses DO NOT PAY TAXES, no matter what the rate on their income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, excise taxes, or any other tax you may levy on them, Brian. Every tax paid by any business or corporation is paid by natural persons. "Why? How?" you ask. Simple. Taxes on businesses are ALWAYS included in the prices their customers pay for the goods and services they sell. . . which means that REAL, natural persons pay those taxes because they are passed on to the customers in the price of everything they buy. Taxing businesses and corporations is merely a means governments use to hide taxes on the real producers of wealth, the workers who are the only ones who can produce wealth. The only taxation that should apply to businesses should be on the money that is distributed to the investors as dividends, draw, or other form of pay.
Do not argue that businesses would only keep the amount saved in not paying taxes. That doesn't happen because competition forces prices down. Lowering taxes on businesses results in either increased investment and lower prices. . . and increased economic productivity. Every time.
Corporations do not pay taxes. You pay their taxes.
Paradoxically, this is the sign of lousy management: not that they couldn't earn the money in the first place.
But rather that, having earned it, they had no idea how to re-invest it in the business to make even MORE money: they were saying to the shareholders in effect, "We're dummies: we have $57 billion and we can't figure out how to turn it into more money for you, so we'll just give it to you right now in cash."
In the meantime, they were poor-mouthing that they had to hire 3rd world programmers to remain competitive.
If they had put the $57 BILLION into state bonds (to avoid Federal income tax) they would have cleared maybe $2 BILLION A YEAR, FREE AND CLEAR. Enough to have paid top dollar to all Americans who wanted to work there.
Without jeopardizing either the original pot of gold, or the cash flow from continuing operations.
The H1-B movement is the sign of inhuman unspeakable greed, of a kind and extent that would make the robber barons of old blush with shame.