Apple Trump'd

For today, just three quick pictures.

First, from Apple's latest 10-K.

As shown above, as of the most recent quarterly report, Apple's cash hoard is a whopping $237 billion. But notice the highlighted phrase in the bottom paragraph. Of that amount, some $216 billion is held offshore, outside the borders of the U.S.

The trouble is, to bring that cash back home, Apple would have to pay the U.S. corporate tax rate of 35% on those funds. I'll do the math for you. That's $75.6 billion. To this point, Apple has politely turned down that "offer," preferring to use low-interest-rate debt to return cash to shareholders in the form of dividends and buybacks.

As of yesterday, enter Donald J. Trump.

Take a look at this, from the tax plan announced on his campaign website.

That's right, Trump is proposing a one-time tax rate of 10% for the repatriation of U.S. corporate profits held offshore. Should this come to pass, Apple could bring that $216 billion back to the U.S. and only pay $21.6 billion in taxes, a $54 billion tax savings.

How much cash is that? For some perspective, check out this final picture, from a recent article on forbes.com.

That vertical red line sits at approximately the $54 billion mark. Let me summarize that quickly for you. As of the date that article was written, only four other tech companies had as much in total cash as the amount of the tax break Apple would get for repatriating their foreign cash under the Trump tax plan.

Cheers!