> then the shareholders will invest it. Or use it for consumption. And that consumption or those investments are not necessarily in the US. Where do you think

> then the shareholders will invest it. Or use it for consumption. And that consumption or those investments are not necessarily in the US. Where do you think that money is now? It's not like it is stored as dollar bills in some warehouse abroad. The 'repatriation' they are talking about is purely an accounting/tax fiction. If you look at Apple's yearly report [1], on page 49, it details how its cash and equivalents are invested. Most of it is in US treasury securities ($42 billion) and commercial securities ($131 billion). Repatriating it will not magically make it somehow more productively invested in the US. In some cases, quite the opposite: as a foreign Apple shareholder, any dividends I receive are spent outside the US. [1] http://investor.apple.com/secfiling.cfm?filingid=1628280-16-20309 http://investor.apple.com/secfiling.cfm?filingid=1628280-16-...