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Offer them a partial amnesty: repatriate the funds at a 20% tax rate or so.

The goverment wins because 20% of $181bn is way more than 40% of nothing, and Apple wins because they get to use the money within the US.

Partial amnesties for repratriation have been been done before, most recently in Greece as far as I know.

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Please look up what 'amnesty' means. Apple isn't doing anything wrong or illegal by keeping its cash outside of the US. Also note the the US tax code is the only one (in advanced countries) to try to tax earnings made outside of its jurisdiction (e.g. for earnings made in Japan, and already taxed locally there).

Cook is not saying Apple shouldn't pay taxes, he simply says the IRS has no business taking 40% of earnings not made in the US. If you were an expat you would strongly agree with him.

'Amnesty' was indeed a poor example. Call it a special repatriation tax rebate, or whatever.

Otherwise, you're reading far too much into my comment. With the current tax rules as given, I merely suggested a possible compromise.

At no point did I argue for/against the rules, and at no point did I agree/disagree with what Cook is saying.

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