These Are the Biggest Overseas Cash Hoards Congress Wants to Tax

Several of the biggest U.S. companies—including Apple and Procter & Gamble—would no longer be able to escape taxes on the trillions in overseas profits they’ve accumulated, under a tax bill released by House Republicans.

Earnings held in cash would be taxed at 12 percent. That 12 percent rate is “borderline of being business unfriendly,” said Steven Englander, head of research and strategy at Rafiki Capital Management. “It’s not a game changer, but the changing tone is a disappointment. It’s gone from the way forward for the tax system to a piggy bank to pay for the tax cuts.”

U.S. companies have stockpiled as much as $3.1 trillion offshore, according to an estimate by Goldman Sachs in a recent research note. Under current law, the U.S. taxes multinationals on their global earnings but allows them to defer taxes on foreign earnings until they bring them back to the U.S., or “repatriate” them. But doing so is not mandatory.

The largest stockpiles belong to Apple Inc. at more than $200 billion, followed by Microsoft Corp., Cisco Systems Inc., Alphabet Inc., Oracle Corp. and Johnson & Johnson, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. If this provision becomes law, it would raise $223 billion over the next decade, according to an estimate by the Joint Committee on Taxation that’s cited in the bill.

Here are the top overseas cash holders in the S&P 500.