The world's richest company has decided to make one of the world's biggest tax payments. Yesterday, Apple announced it will be making a repatriation to the US government of $38 billion. "A payment of that size would likely be the largest of its kind ever made," CEO Tim Cook wrote in a public letter.
As well as moving the cash it is holding in countries outside of the US back to its homeland, Cook also pledged to invest more of its earnings in the country's economy. This includes boosting its US manufacturing budget to $5bn (from $1bn) and allegedly contributing $350bn to the economy in the next five years.
Apple also says it will create 20,000 American jobs during the next five years. While the headline $38bn figure might sound like a lot (and it is) Apple stands to make a substantial saving on the amount it once would have paid thanks to recent tax cuts introduced by president Donald Trump. Unsurprisingly, Trump jumped on the firm's decision as his own personal victory. "Great to see Apple follow through as a result of TAX CUTS," he tweeted.
Make no mistake, this is a great deal for Apple. Had it repatriated the cash last year, it would have paid a tax rate of 35 per cent – or about $88.3bn. Under new legislation, it only has to pay 15.5 per cent to bring its overseas cash pile back to the US.
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The figures Apple is dealing with are so abstract that they're practically impossible for any non-billionaire to comprehend. In an attempt to make them more accessible we've calculated how many of Apple's own creations you'd be able to get for its $38bn repatriation.
Too many Cooks
Tim Cook isn't doing badly for himself. Apple's company filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission show he made $12,825,066 in 2017. If Apple cloned him, the firm could employ an army of 2,962 Cooks with its $38bn cash pot.
Multiple spaceships
Apple's new campus – inventively named Apple Park – officially opened in April last year. In its usual secretive manner, Apple has never officially confirmed how much the development cost it but it also didn't deny the $5bn figure that's been suggested.
Based on this, Apple could get 7.6 new campuses for its repatriation. That's enough space for around 91,000 employees.
Millions of iPhones
The cheapest model of the iPhone X (64GB) will set you back $999. You could get more than 38 million of these. Or, if you want to be precise, 38,038,038.
Batteries for all
Since Cook's firm admitted throttling older iPhones in December, the company has been offering reduced cost replacement batteries to dissatisfied customers. More than one billion handsets (1,310,344,827) could be given a free battery upgrade using the $38bn.
Dongles galore
Apple said its decision to remove the 3.5mm headphone jack on the iPhone 7 was courageous. At $9, its Lightning to 3.5mm headphone jack adapter is actually one of the cheaper dongles it sells. 4,222,222,222 of them could be yours for Apple's US cash repatriation.
Thousands of engineers
According to job review website Glassdoor, the average Apple engineer gets paid $142,031. For a single year, Apple could employ 267,547 new staff.
An App Store
The App Store launched in 2008 and last year alone developers creating iOS apps earned $26.5bn. That's 1.4 repatriations.
