70% Of US Corporate Cash Is Stacked Abroad

How much cash does a company have and how much of that total cash can be accessed without being taxed (in many but not all cases)? Going by the broad statistics, the second number is a lot lower than the first.

Yesterday, Google’s parent company Alphabet reported a 21% jump in second-quarter revenue to $26 billion on which the company earned $3.5 billion in net income even after accounting for a record $2.7 billion European Union anti-trust fine. This fine did little to dent the company’s cash generation, even though the company’s reported cost of revenue rose 28% during the period, well above overall revenue growth, reported cash and cash equivalents were up to $15.7 billion at the end of...