4 ms·

When a company like Apple has $200B in "cash" overseas, where do they put it? I mean, is there literally a giant vault of physical cash or gold somewhere or do

When a company like Apple has $200B in "cash" overseas, where do they put it? I mean, is there literally a giant vault of physical cash or gold somewhere or do they buy 6 month T-Bills or just put it all in a private bank? BTW: $200 billion in $100 bills weighs 2,200 tons.

rmah 10y ago
Most of Apple's "cash" is in various securities. If they follow the typical pattern, the vast majority will be US Treasuries and other sovereign debt. Apple has "only" $11 bil in cash & short term debt. Of the cash portion, the vast majority (99.9%+) will be in bank accounts. Most money in the world is electronic, not paper :-)
xenadu02 10y ago
It is all a legal fiction. The money is deposited with banks in NYC, so it's all here in the USA. Legally it is deposited in the accounts of "Apple Ireland", "Apple China", etc even though those subsidiary companies are wholly owned by Apple Inc, a US company. To be clear I'm in favor of a lower corporate tax rate and making up the difference in taxes on those worth >$10 million. Money sitting idle in bank accounts doesn't even do any good for the "capital" part of capitalism, let alone put money in consumer's pockets. It represents a sink, reducing the amount of money available to the rest of the economy. (A separate issue is the fact that accumulating money into corporations or the top 1% of individuals is bad for the economy as economies function on consumer spending, either external or internal. You get much greater leverage by taking money away from them and giving it to consumers, who will immediately spend most of it and ultimately putting it back into corporate/1% pockets anyway. The ultra-low taxes and stagnant wages in the US are a form of killing the golden goose).
- munificent 10y ago
  > I'm in favor of a lower corporate tax rate and making up the difference in taxes on those worth >$10 million. Doesn't that mean that each rich person would just start a tiny personal "corporation" that owns a lot of very nice things and gives its one employee free access to the company car, yacht, mansion, etc?
  - ropiku 10y ago
    It will lead to a lot of that but there are limits. Personal use of car/etc is considered a taxable benefit, only 'business use' can be expensed but it could be abused.
  - yaur 10y ago
    You can do that, but all of those things are taxable compensation which you will still need to pay taxes on.
  - tjbiddle 10y ago
    This is done all the time. Even on the smaller scale with middle/upper-middle class families; they have LLCs or some other legal avenue that owns their car, their suburban home(s), etc. It's not just the rich people who do this - it's not hard for someone who's just intelligent to make the right choices in both protecting assets as well as diversifying their wealth.
  - solotronics 10y ago
    People already do this. Both with LLC and trusts.

rmah 10y ago

Most of Apple's "cash" is in various securities. If they follow the typical pattern, the vast majority will be US Treasuries and other sovereign debt. Apple has "only" $11 bil in cash & short term debt. Of the cash portion, the vast majority (99.9%+) will be in bank accounts. Most money in the world is electronic, not paper :-)

xenadu02 10y ago

It is all a legal fiction. The money is deposited with banks in NYC, so it's all here in the USA. Legally it is deposited in the accounts of "Apple Ireland", "Apple China", etc even though those subsidiary companies are wholly owned by Apple Inc, a US company. To be clear I'm in favor of a lower corporate tax rate and making up the difference in taxes on those worth >$10 million. Money sitting idle in bank accounts doesn't even do any good for the "capital" part of capitalism, let alone put money in consumer's pockets. It represents a sink, reducing the amount of money available to the rest of the economy. (A separate issue is the fact that accumulating money into corporations or the top 1% of individuals is bad for the economy as economies function on consumer spending, either external or internal. You get much greater leverage by taking money away from them and giving it to consumers, who will immediately spend most of it and ultimately putting it back into corporate/1% pockets anyway. The ultra-low taxes and stagnant wages in the US are a form of killing the golden goose).

munificent 10y ago
> I'm in favor of a lower corporate tax rate and making up the difference in taxes on those worth >$10 million. Doesn't that mean that each rich person would just start a tiny personal "corporation" that owns a lot of very nice things and gives its one employee free access to the company car, yacht, mansion, etc?
- ropiku 10y ago
  It will lead to a lot of that but there are limits. Personal use of car/etc is considered a taxable benefit, only 'business use' can be expensed but it could be abused.
- yaur 10y ago
  You can do that, but all of those things are taxable compensation which you will still need to pay taxes on.
- tjbiddle 10y ago
  This is done all the time. Even on the smaller scale with middle/upper-middle class families; they have LLCs or some other legal avenue that owns their car, their suburban home(s), etc. It's not just the rich people who do this - it's not hard for someone who's just intelligent to make the right choices in both protecting assets as well as diversifying their wealth.
- solotronics 10y ago
  People already do this. Both with LLC and trusts.