American government cuts taxes and Apple can now repatriate the fortune it has outside the country, but…

The discussion involving a tax “holiday” / change in the law so that Apple and other American companies are able to repatriate the fortune they have (or at least part of it) out of U.S in the new. This week, however, something concrete happened.

As reported by Reuters, the US government approved a review of certain tax charges, and now companies like Apple can finally transfer the money they own in foreign lands by paying “only” 15.5% instead of 35%.

Taking into account that Apple today has $ 252.3 billion outside the United States, if it repatriated all that money it would pay $ 39.1 billion instead of $ 88.3 billion in taxes. Great news, especially if we think about Ma's current commitment to investing in American companies, right? So-so. After all, as always, there is a end.

A change proposed by Congress introduced a minimum tax of around 13% on the income of companies with patents held abroad. In summary, Apple today does not need to pay any tax to the US when profiting from its patents outside the country; now, however, it will be forced to pay 13% on top of that revenue. In other words, even if Apple has a patent here in Brazil and profits from it here, having to pay 13% tax to Uncle Sam.

In order to discourage companies from assigning patents to their overseas subsidiaries, the government reduced the income tax on US patents to 13.1%. The idea is for companies to relocate those patents that are outside the US to the country, but the problem is that there is no benefit, an incentive to do so.

With this change, people are already betting that things have even gotten worse for Apple, meaning an increase in global tax payments.

We are delivering historic tax benefits to the American people! #TaxCutsandJobsAct

In addition to these changes, the government has also reduced individual taxes for wealthier Americans, doubled the standard deduction to $ 12,000 for individuals and severely cut corporate tax from 35% to 21%.

For all this to start to take effect, only the signature of American President Donald Trump is missing, something that most likely will happen soon.

via TechCrunch, 9to5Mac