Apple is looking for tax breaks from the U.S. government for domestic chip production, suggesting Apple may be considering moving more iPhone manufacturing to the United States.
Bloomberg reports that second and third-quarter lobbying disclosure reports indicate that Apple lobbied officials from the Treasury Department, Congress, and the White House on tax issues that included “tax credits for domestic semiconductor production.”
While Apple designs many of the chips it uses, including the A-series chips that are used in iPhones, iPads, and Apple TV devices, and the Apple Silicon chips that will be used in future Macs. While the development of chips is done in-house, production is actually performed by the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).
Apple’s increased lobbying efforts indicate that it perhaps wants to move production to the U.S., which would allow it to avoid tariffs and the current trade tensions between the U.S. and China.
Apple veteran and director of federal government affairs Tim Powderly is leading Apple’s lobbying efforts following the departure of prior policy head Cynthia Hogan, who left the company in May to join presidential candidate Joe Biden’s vice-presidential selection committee.
Apple chip manufacturing partner TSMC announced in May that it plans to open an advanced chip factory in Arizona, which is expected to produce 5-nanometer chips. Apple’s most recent A-series chip, the A14, is built using the 5-nanometer process.
