>Companies have these massive cash reserves because they are massively profitable each year and need somewhere to store the excess.

To be clear here, American companies aren't moving cash from the US out to overseas to hide them from the IRS - this is cash that was generated overseas. For every iPhone sold in the US, Apple is paying an appropriate tax.

A similar way to look at this is, lets say you moved to Russia, started a new life, with a new job, and every time you wanted to send money to your mom, the US took a 35% cut.

(I'm aware that American expats still have to pay taxes as well).