I'm not sure how foreign assets work, but it may be the case that Apple is free to use those assets as it sees fit in those other countries. In that case, it ma

I'm not sure how foreign assets work, but it may be the case that Apple is free to use those assets as it sees fit in those other countries. In that case, it may never make sense to bring the money back without a tax holiday. I know you think you are sticking it to them by never granting them another tax holiday, but in reality all you may be doing is accelerating the pace at which they realize that they aren't an American company so much as a global company. Its already the case that the products are assembled in China, and someday its quite possible most of their phones will be sold in China as well, and they certainly pay taxes for that stuff in China (as well as every other country they sell products in). Why do you think taxes on profits in other countries "belong" to America? I think China has as much a claim that Apple should pay THEM taxes on the work they do America. In a world where more and more of their profits happen overseas, then penalizing them when they try to bring the money to the US may just make them realize someday that hey, they should just do everything overseas and then America won't benefit from Apple at all (except for the few sales that happen on US soil).