Why do you think domestic investment is so economically useless that it must be a charitable act?
Cupertino is announcing spend. Spending here is better for people here, ceteris paribus, than spending there. If they announced $430bn in new Southeast Asian contracts, there would be a twin top comment lamenting Apple's lack of domestic spending.
GP never implied that it was "useless" at all. Your question (to use some more Latin) is a total non-sequitur.
>there would be a twin top comment lamenting Apple's lack of domestic spending.
Yes, different people have different opinions.
The announcement uses the word investment 17 times. Reading that as a charity pitch requires a few logical leaps.
Companies announce foreign direct investment all the time. Nobody thinks they're trying to look like a charity.
>The accelerated commitment will fund a new North Carolina campus and *job-creating investments* in innovative fields like silicon engineering and 5G technology
other pull quotes from the article
>Apple is doubling down on our commitment to US innovation and manufacturing with a generational investment reaching *communities across all 50 states*
>Apple is the largest taxpayer in the US and has paid almost $45 billion in domestic corporate income taxes over the past five years alone.
> designed to prepare students for careers in hardware engineering and silicon chip design — to engineering programs at *Historically Black Colleges and Universities* across the country.
>bringing *clean energy and high-paying jobs to local communities across the country*.
If someone wants to see that as charity, it speaks more to them than anything else. (And claiming your patronage was an act of charity would be rightfully seen as a diminishment of said business.)
Again, a non-sequitur. Even if they read "investment" as "tea party" 17 times, they still never said or implied that it was useless.
The Apple article is obviously trying to paint the investments as acts of goodwill. Not many people would expect anything else, it's just good PR. "Charity" might be an exaggeration, but can't you see why it could rub people the wrong way?
that's not what op (the person you're responding to) is saying at all. they're simply saying that apple disguises its infrastructure spending as charity and that that's off-putting. in fact it's not charity and furthers their own goals.
it'd be like me claiming to be a philanthropist because i had to a build a road connecting my factory to my mine that incidentally connects towns along the way. note this is example is right on the nose because this is exactly what corporations do.
Except it doesn't. It uses the word "investment" 17 times in the announcement. If someone reads this as a charity pitch they're doing mental gymnastics.
Apple is not even doing the whole "Made in the USA" schtick, where companies imply they're taking patriotic pain for the good of the country. This is fully pitched as a competitive play. An investment to yield returns.
This announcement makes it sound like it's something amazingly special they do. But in fact, any company throughout history has invested a certain percentage of their revenue, just like Apple is now doing.
They aren't claiming to be investing more or less than anyone else. They are simply advertising their plans.
I think Apple's "amazing" infomercials are over the top, but this press release seems anodyne.
People talk about companies the same way a hunter-gatherer applies animism to trees for example. Companies are not people, they can’t be cynic nor greedy they just are what they were created to be. Profit machines.
Apple is extremely good at being. High returns on invested capital, huge moat, etc...
If they did their massive campus in Eastern Europe they would get a lot of cheap smart talent, cheap building and probably a favourable tax treatment (if they needed even more of that).
Replace with Canary Islands, Cyprus or Malta if you want somewhere with nice weather.
This is part PR, part gaining political favours.
Also, it is a very low level misconception that paying local taxes is how you contributing to the local community. No. Investing is already contributing to the local community. The business will build campus there, and hire people there, and also increase other local businesses surround the campus. And those people work for them pay income taxes there and also pay consumer taxes there. Every local government understand these, that's why they want to attract investments and give their tax breaks, because investments alone bring benefits to the local community.
It would be extremely stupid for any local government to say: Hey we don't you invest hundred millions in our community, unless you pay full taxes. Lol.
Phrases....
That's the point. It isn't. The OP was asking why it's therefore being sold as one.
Companies are more than welcome to make themselves at home iff they pay their dues, and should not be welcome if they don't.
What is really trickle down for the society? The dead loop between more taxes and economic stagnation.
Companies will seek the lowest taxes in an area that suits them. If they're building in America, it's because it behooves them to build in America. There are lots of places they can go to lower taxes, but they're not competitive.
So you still have companies who are VOLUNTARILY building industry in places with high taxes, because it behooves them. Can you see how a race to the bottom in this regard is damaging? They're already committed to paying high taxes, its just a matter of how high. So—do you really want to be the place that cheats yourself out of the most income, for a company that really doesn't care if they settle in your county, the next one over, or the one across the country?
The minute you become noncompetitive, the company will move, and your countrymen are the people who paid for it. The real winner? the company, who got to hang onto more of their vast profits. :-) Apple committed almost $100B a year. And places are fighting over... how much tax revenue? there's plenty of room for fair taxation.
You don't get rich by giving things away (unless if you've figured out how to make this possible—in which case, please ready a room for me :-))
This tax-break-if-you-locate-here thing is a longstanding scam against politicians by companies.
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/corporate-tax...
These tax incentives should be structured as follows:
1. Do your payroll and pay your payroll taxes (FICA, Federal and State unemployment, whatever).
2. Submit your payroll tax receipts to the state incentive operation.
3. Get a rebate of some percentage of that payroll tax.
In other words, no tax-break payments until people get actually paid.
This incentivizes the company to do what the state wants: employ people in good jobs. If the company gets a "better offer" from some other place and moves, then the state doesn't get completely screwed over.
> I'll wait for an external audit of whether they're paying all the relevant ..
They will be paying minimum legal taxes possible not maximum possible. If this is something one need to feel outraged they can start early and not wait for reports/audits.
If this announcement was in India or China, folks would be grabbing pitchforks that Apple is sending jobs overseas. So they’re bring net new tech jobs here, and your response feels like “damned if you do, damned if you don’t”
I mean, I wish it were not, I wish it were normal for U.S. business to invest in the U.S., but here we are.
Any community with half a functioning government should give tax breaks to get these kinds of jobs from such a reputable company.
Increased homelessness from rapid gentrification
Tax breaks stimulate innovation and investments.