Dividends are post-tax and have to be brought back to the US before they are paid out. Apple has a whole bunch of money sitting overseas that it has not paid taxes on. So, if Apple brings it back to pay to shareholders as a dividend, 40% goes to the US government and 60% to shareholders.
Let's say Trump tells Apple (and other companies) they can bring the money back with a 10% tax. Now, the shareholders get 90% of the money as a dividend, which is 1.5X the 60%.
In order to pay dividends and not pay taxes, Apple has actually gone the route of borrowing money. So, they borrow money in the US and pay a low interest rate while their cash sits overseas.
Wow really. That's clever but also weird. Don't they sustain themselves US being largest market?
To clarify: they haven't paid US taxes on it. They've paid whatever taxes are levied by the foreign countries they're operating in, but the US also double-taxes that same money if it's brought back into the US.
They're obligated to obey the wishes of the shareholders, who are the owners of the company. If the shareholders want it, the shareholders get it. (That's assuming the shareholders haven't been suckered into buying shares without voting rights, etc.)
If they did do something with the money, i wonder if automation is at the stage where they could invest in local supply chains and bring iphone manufacturing to the US. Chinese labour is not as cheap as it used to be, all the parts are still in china for now though.