Apple Scruffs

Our story this morning is not about the George Harrison song, which paid tribute to the folks who used to hang around Savile Row and Abbey Road in the late days of Beatlemania. We're talking about a totally different Apple Nothing scruffy about this news:

Apple Inc. said it would pay a one-time tax of $38 billion on its overseas cash holdings and ramp up spending in the U.S., as it seeks to emphasize its contributions to the American economy after years of taking criticism for outsourcing manufacturing to China.

The world’s most valuable publicly traded company laid out its plans Wednesday in a statement that was full of big-dollar figures, though it said that much of the money reflected Apple’s current pace of spending.

Apple said it would invest $30 billion in capital spending in the U.S. over five years that would create more than 20,000 jobs. The total includes a new campus, which initially will house technical support for customers, and $10 billion toward data centers across the country. It also will expand from $1 billion to $5 billion a fund it established last year for investing in advanced manufacturing in the U.S.

Would that have happened if the tax reform package that Trump championed had been killed? We don't know for sure, but it's a reasonable surmise. More from the Wall Street Journal:

Apple’s $38 billion tax commitment is the largest such sum announced in response to the major overhaul of the U.S. tax code that President Donald Trump signed into law late last year. That law included an incentive for U.S. companies to bring home offshore holdings, with companies required to pay a one-time tax of 15.5% on overseas profits held in cash and other liquid assets.

15.5% is far less than the 34% or 35% that the government would ostensibly had collected under Obama, but it's far more than nothing, which is what the government actually received when Apple and other companies kept their money overseas. There's more:

U.S. companies have long pushed for such a change to enable them to repatriate overseas cash without what they considered an excessive tax hit. Apple on Wednesday cited the tax changes as the reason for its $38 billion payment. It didn’t say how much of its $252.3 billion in overseas cash holdings it plans to bring home, though it will be the vast majority, Chief Executive Tim Cook told ABC News in an interview.

All told, Apple said it would directly contribute $350 billion to the U.S. economy over the next five years, with the bulk—about $55 billion this year, for example—coming from ongoing spending on parts and services from U.S. suppliers. That number also includes the federal tax payment and capital spending.

Back in the late 1960s, the Apple Scruffs hung out at the gates, always hopeful of getting the attention and favor of the Fab Four:

Can we get some?

We've now lifted the gates and money is coming in, from Apple and a variety of other companies. You'll see more stories of this sort in the coming weeks and months.