Jamie's right. Imagine how much benefit the US could get if Apple was able to repatriate its hundreds billions in overseas profits without losing over half to taxes.
This is a red herring that politicians love to try and justify huge tax rate cuts for businesses that are unnecessary but provide a good sound bite. Tax rate cuts that they already enjoy because the US government allows them to stash the cash overseas already to avoid the taxes.
A US citizen is forced to pay income tax on all income worldwide. Live in France, pay French taxes and US income tax on income over $72,000. And you only get the $72k break if you are in the country less than 30 days in a calendar year.
US corporations, on the other hand, can stash all overseas earning overseas to reduce their tax liability. Most US corporations already pay a lower effective tax rate than most US citizens.
The US corporate tax rate is one of the highest in the world, making the US one of the most costly places to invest. Taxing investment instead of consumption is directly lowering our standard of living.
The fact that our taxe rates on individuals working overseas is stupid too doesn't mean we should fix the corporate tax rates. In fact corporate tax rates should be zero, as you don't want to tax reinvested capital, and if profits aren't reinvested they are paid as dividends, and you can tax dividends at ordinary income rates to restore progressively to our tax system.
Nor would they onshore a meaningful amount of manufacturing from the Far East.
So, no actually, not really sure how much the benefit the US could get.
If you really think that money sitting in bank accounts, stocks and bonds does nothing, you simply don't understand anything about the economy. Doing it the U.S. instead of Ireland or the EU is a big deal.
These are profits earned overseas
it's made to be painful for most every single one of us who aren't mega-companies with an army of lawyers and accountants. This is one reason I go almost blind rolling my eyes when a CEO of such a company gets all preachy about right and wrong, and what's in the public's interest, etc.
At one point in this exchange the reporter says:
"So are you expressing frustration with President Trump?"
Jamie replies:
"No, I am expressing frustration with you!"
$2 trillion is parked overseas. It is parked overseas because the opportunity cost of bringing it back here is higher than leaving it overseas, mostly due to corporate tax rates that are higher than they are overseas. We can leave tax rates as they are and gain $0, we can lower corporate tax rates and hopefully bring a (large) fraction of that back here to benefit the economy as a whole, or some other solution that increases the wealth of the nation that has not been thought of yet.
If you're considering an alternate solution, bear in mind that history has shown that imposing taxes in situations like this results in increased friction in moving the wealth back and generally less wealth for the nation imposing the taxes.
So maybe it bears some resemblance to trickle-down economics, but is there even a marginally better solution available?
Is there a different phrase I should use so as to not offend?
Edited for clarification