Did apple simultaneously fire all of it's hardware team along with it's QA dept? (we know the 2nd one happened).
I love apple, but it feels like they have a CEO who's running it in "latter years" mode. Zero risk, minimize cost everywhere, maximize profit even if it results in absurd cash piles...
This is what you get when bean counters run tech companies.
Apple could repatriate its overseas profits at any time. It would have to pay taxes on those profits, yes, but that would be no different than their domestic profits. Apple would be able to deduct foreign taxes, including foreign VAT payments[1], which would put their foreign profits in parity with their domestic profits in terms of tax burden.
[1] Unlike foreign income you can't take a credit on VAT payments. But VAT payments are deductible like any other business expense. Because corporations are taxed at a fixed percentage (no progressive income brackets), it's a distinction without a difference.
Yeah, letting the COO be CEO isn't necessarily a good idea in a tech company.